The only downside to living a plant-based lifestyle is that your access to vegan foods, like plant-based cheese, may be limited, since the vegan market, while growing, is still significantly smaller than the established animal nutrition market. Even if you do find a vegan cheese you like for dishes like pasta, it may be unsustainably expensive. This is just one of the reasons why nutritional yeast is the secret to making super cheesy pasta without dairy.
Nutritional yeast boasts a natural, nutty, umami-packed flavor profile that mimics the rich taste of dairy-based cheeses. But it’s not just the flavor that mimics cheese. Nooch, as the cool kids call it, is crisp like finely grated Parmesan and yellow like Cheddar, making it the perfect look, but a cheesy dairy alternative for pasta-craving vegans. You can sprinkle it on pasta dishes or mix it with other ingredients to create a silky-smooth, undeniably creamy cheese sauce for your favorite pasta noodles.
Not only does it taste and look like cheese, but nutritional yeast also lives up to its name when it comes to nutritional value: nooch is a protein-, vitamin- and mineral-rich food, containing plenty of B vitamins and trace minerals such as zinc, selenium and manganese.
Read more: 12 Vegetables and Fruits That Looked So Different Back in the Day
Why is nutritional yeast cheesy?
Nutritional yeast has long been considered a cheese imitation among vegans. But what exactly is nooch, and why is it so cheesy? After all, isn’t yeast used to brew beer and make bread?
Yeast is a living, single-celled fungus found everywhere in nature. In fact, you may even find yeast in the air around you. Like other fungi such as mushrooms, yeasts come in all shapes and sizes, each with its own purpose. Some are best suited for making alcohol, while others are best suited for baking and cooking. The latter are nutritional yeasts. More specifically, nooch is made from Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, which is typically fermented with growth-boosting carbohydrates and then pasteurized to inactivate it. During this process, the yeast cell walls break down, releasing glutamic acid, an amino acid responsible for umami flavor. It is toasted before being ground into a flaky powder to give it a nutty flavor, enhancing its savory bravado and making it taste very cheesy.
You can eat it solid right out of the jar, but nutritional yeast is water-soluble, so it dissolves in liquids. When mixed with another liquid, the nooch disappears but the flavor remains, making it a great choice for dairy-free pasta sauces.
Tips for making nooch pasta sauce
Sprinkling nutritional yeast on your noodles is an easy way to add a rich, savory, and cheesy flavor to your plant-based pasta dishes. You can also mix nooch with other vegan ingredients to make something super creamy, like an Alfredo sauce. In many non-vegan pasta sauces, heavy cream is the secret weapon that creates that rich texture. But heavy cream is not plant-based, so you’ll need to use a higher-fat, plant-based creamer or milk instead. Oat milk or creamer is a mild-flavored, super creamy dairy alternative that’s high in fat, making it an ideal replacement for heavy cream. If you can’t get oat milk, almond milk, hemp milk, cashew milk, and soy milk or creamer are also great options.
Instead of just mixing vegan milk with your nooch, try adding cashews, which are high in fat and incredibly creamy, so when soaked, they can enhance the milk’s rich texture and add that nutty flavor found in many cheeses.
It might sound odd, but regular or Dijon mustard are also ingredients that make vegan cheese delicious. Mustard acts as an emulsifier and adds a bit of tang that reflects the complexity of dairy cheese. And don’t forget the seasonings to round things out: garlic and onion powder add a satisfying scallion flavor, paprika adds a smoky flavor, and a pinch of salt brings out the finer details of a nooch pasta sauce. Oh, and lastly, make sure your pasta noodles are vegan.
Read the original article on The Daily Meal
