Classic Vegan Mac and Cheese

This creamy vegan mac and cheese is made with pasta smothered in a creamy, flavor-packed but dairy-free sauce. A guaranteed hit with kids and adults alike!

I have a lot of macaroni and cheese recipes on this site, but it just recently occurred to me that just about all of them are spicy! I’ve got jalapeño popper mac, chipotle mac, kimchi mac, and buffalo mac, just to name a few. What is it with me and spicy vegan mac and cheese?

Anyway, I thought maybe it was time for a more traditional mac. I mean, mac and cheese is the ultimate kid food, right? And I don’t know many kids that are down jalapeños or kimchi. And really, even adults aren’t in the mood for super spicy food all the time, right? Well, unless you’re me, but that’s beside the point.

I had planned on holding off on posting this until January, because lately I’ve been sharing so much pasta, and there’s even more to come before Christmas. But then I had a reader on my Facebook page specifically request a super creamy and delicious vegan mac and cheese recipe for Christmas, and that got me thinking. I ate mac and cheese at lots of Christmas celebrations growing up. I guess it’s a pretty good dish for the holidays. So I decided to share now, despite the already copious amounts of pasta springing forth from this site.

Besides, what’s December for but pasta? It’s much more carb-friendly than January.

I have to be honest: part of my whole hot-sauce-in-the-mac thing stems not so much from my love of spicy, as it does from the fact that hot sauce legitimately makes things taste cheesy. No really, it does! For a while I thought it was just my weird brain that thought that, but then I got a few reader comments on my spicy mac recipes saying how the heat really brought out the flavor. So this was a little bit of a challenge, but I think I’ve nailed down a few key tricks to creating an amazing vegan mac and cheese.

Make a super creamy base for your vegan mac and cheese.

For this you need a combination of cashews and veggies. Cashews alone tend to create a sauce that’s too thick, while with just veggies it’s too light, and also can taste like veggies, which is not the goal. A potato for body and some cashews for richness is my go-to formula. A carrot or some roasted red peppers adds flavor and color.

Add zip.

You need some acid to make your mac taste cheesy. I went with red wine vinegar here, but you can experiment with lemon juice and different vinegars if you like.

The magic ingredient: miso.

It’s so worth it. Miso is fermented, and so is cheese. So it’s no coincidence that miso adds that savory flavor that’s so hard to pin down but is always right there in dairy cheese. I always get questions on how to omit the miso, but if it’s in your diet then please go get a tub and use it. If you can’t have soy, try some coconut amios, though you’ll probably need to adjust the amount. Taste test as you add.

And salt.

Cheese is also really salty! The miso will add some of the salt you need, but if the flavor isn’t quite there, just add table salt until it is.

That’s it! Those are the crucial points to making the best vegan mac and cheese, according to me. And of course, here’s my recipe, but feel free to customize it to your liking while sticking within the guidelines mentioned above. Oh, and if you aren’t opposed to some heat in your macaroni, by all means add some hot sauce. A vinegar-based brand like Crystal or Cholula should work out great.