Oh how do we love our vegan Mac and Cheese. A pasta dish with a creamy, cheesy sauce that is based purely on vegetables and nuts and is therefore not even unhealthy. Mac and Cheese is and will remain one of those feel-good dishes that people especially crave for now when it gets colder and darker outside.
For a long time we wanted to put up some new Mac and Cheese photos and cook some seasonal versions of it for the blog. At least the latter now finally has been achieved. Because just in time for the pumpkin season, we have managed to shoot our recipe for vegan Pumpkin Mac and Cheese, which we have been enjoying for several years. We hope you like it as much as we do!
The tried and tested basic preparation remains the same for the pumpkin version. The vegetables (pumpkin, onion & garlic) are first cooked with cashew nuts in some water, then blended with a few spices (nutritional yeast flakes, mustard, paprika powder) and a tablespoon of vegan butter. No pouring away of cooking water. No extra soaking of the cashews. Super easy and super efficient.
You should only have some kind of blender for the preparation. With a good electric blender or a food processor, the sauce will be wonderfully smooth and creamy. But it also works with a hand blender. The sauce may then remain slightly chunky, but it still tastes incredibly delicious.
At the end, a few roasted pumpkin seeds and a little bit of sage is sprinkled over the pasta with pumpkin sauce. That rounds off the autumn taste. If you like, you can also stir in some cooked vegetables before serving. Spinach, broccoli, kale, Swiss chard or mushrooms are good choices. But just let your creativity run free!
Vegan Pumpkin Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
Pasta
- 400 g pasta, preferably short macaroni or elbow pasta
- 4 tbsp pumpkin seeds
- 12 leaves sage
- salt + pepper
- olive oil
Sauce
- 400 g hokkaido pumpkin
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 onion
- 75 g cashews
- 250 ml water
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 heaped tbsp nutritional yeast flakes**
- 1 tbsp vegan butter
- 1 tsp mustard
- 1/2 tsp paprika powder
Preparation
- Cut the pumpkin into bite-sized pieces. Roughly dice the garlic and onion. Put everything in a saucepan with water, salt and the cashew nuts and cook for about 15 minutes with the lid on.
- In the meantime, roast the pumpkin seeds in a pan without additional fat. Fry the sage leaves either whole or cut into strips with a dash of olive oil for approx. 30 - 60 seconds. Drain on some kitchen paper or a kitchen towel.
- Finely blend the vegetables including the cooking water with the other sauce ingredients in a blender.
- Cook the pasta in salted water according to the package instructions until al dente, drain and mix with the sauce. Season everything with salt and pepper. Serve sprinkled with pumpkin seeds and sage.
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