As a child of the ’90s, I can think of no dish more universally comforting than mac and cheese. And this crispy baked vegan mac and cheese hits all the comfort food notes: creamy, cheesy, savory, salty, and even crispy thanks to the buttery breadcrumb topping.
No store-bought vegan cheese required, and it’s ready in 45 minutes.
Feed your inner child (or your actual children) with this indulgent and nostalgic dinner, or serve it up as a crowd-pleasing side for holiday dinners.
A Better Vegan Mac and Cheese
Even though this recipe has been a popular one (rated 4.9 of 5 stars with 200+ ratings as of this writing), I recently realized it was in need of an update.
When I tried it a few weeks ago, I found it wasn’t as savory or as cheesy as I was expecting, and the butternut squash added more sweetness than I wanted.
So I went back to the drawing board and came up with something far better (I tasted both versions side-by-side and the revamped version was the clear winner: more savory, more flavorful, and the best sign of all—I couldn’t stop eating it).
Without the squash, the recipe is also quicker (~45 minutes) and requires far less oven time.
If you liked the last version, I think you’ll LOVE this one. And if it’s your first time, prepare to enter comfort food heaven 😇
Ingredient Notes
- Raw Cashews. Soaked raw cashews, when blended up, rival the creamiest of dairy-based cheese sauces. Plus, their neutral flavor doesn’t interfere with any of the other sauce ingredient flavors.
- Nutritional Yeast. Given the wide variability of vegan cheeses in terms of meltability and flavor (and the unfortunate plastic taste in some 😭), I didn’t want this recipe to hinge on the quality of store-bought cheese. Luckily, nutritional yeast is a potent source of umami (thanks to its naturally occuring glutamic acid) and brings a nice cheesy flavor.
- Potatoes and Carrots. Yukon gold potatoes add the starch necessary to thicken the cheese sauce while keeping the flavor neutral, while carrots bring the light orange color our brains associate with mac and cheese. To avoid any sweet flavor, this recipe uses just one small carrot, which is plenty for color.
- Soy Sauce and Pickle Brine. These might sound like unusual additions, but without any actual cheese, our sauce needs more savoriness and a bit of tang to mimic the natural flavors of cheese.
- Vegan Butter. This is used to coat the macaroni and to make the buttery breadcrumb topping, and brings, well, the necessary buttery richness you’d expect in mac and cheese.
- Panko Breadcrumbs: The light, flaky texture brings an irresistible snappy crunch to the topping and works much better than standard breadcrumbs.
Substitutes
Live outside the U.S. / don’t have Yukon gold potatoes? Use any medium-starch, all-purpose potato.
Be sure to use the brine from dill pickles or kosher pickles. Don’t use the brine from sweet pickles, such as bread and butter pickles, as it will ruin the sauce. If you don’t have pickle brine, you can use white wine vinegar, but start with less.
Most vegan butters are salted, but if yours is unsalted, you may want to add a tad more salt to the cheese sauce and topping. Don’t want to use vegan butter? You can replace it with extra virgin olive oil.
Step by Step Instructions
- Add the raw cashews, sliced carrots, and chopped potatoes to a saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil.
- Boil for 15 minutes until the carrots and potatoes are soft and easily mashed with a fork, then drain and cool.
- Cook the macaroni in a large pot of generously salted boiling water until just shy of al dente.
- Drain but don’t rinse, then toss with vegan butter and set aside.
- Make the sauce: In a high-powered blender, combine the boiled cashews and carrots (but not potatoes), water, nutritional yeast, spices, salt/pepper, soy sauce, pickle brine, and olive oil.
- Blend the sauce on high until smooth, then add the potatoes and briefly blend until pureed. Pour the sauce into the buttered macaroni.
- Toss the sauce and macaroni until well coated (it will be quite saucy).
- Transfer the mac and cheese to a lightly greased 3-quart (3 L) baking dish.
- Sprinkle the buttered breadcrumb topping over the mac and cheese.
- Bake at 375ºF/190ºC for 20 minutes, then cool for 10 to 20 minutes to set.
Tips for making this recipe
Blend the potatoes separately
Raw cashews and potatoes make for a rich and luxurious cheese sauce, no dairy or store-bought vegan cheese needed. The only problem is they can cause the sauce to thicken too much and dry out a bit after the mac and cheese rests.
To prevent that, I blend the potatoes into the cheese sauce at the end on medium-low, after all the other cheese sauce ingredients have been blended. This prevents the potato from being overworked, keeping the sauce loose yet creamy as it sets.
Tip: Once the potatoes, carrots, and cashews are done boiling and have cooled off, simply pick out the potato pieces and set them aside.
Taste the cheese sauce
Before you pour the cheese sauce into the macaroni, give it a taste and assess. If desired, add more nutritional yeast for cheesy savorines, more soy sauce for savory saltines, more pickle brine for acidity/tang, or more salt to taste.
The sauce starts off thin, then thickens
After blending, the cheese sauce will not be very thick (more like the consistency of a smoothie). When you toss it with the cooked macaroni, it will look like too much sauce.
Don’t be alarmed! The pasta will absorb the water from the sauce as it bakes/rests, and the starch from the potato will swell and then set as it cools. So the sauce will thicken as it bakes and continue thickening as it rests.
Looking for more classic holiday side dishes? Try my Ultimate Crispy Roasted Potatoes, Mushroom Gravy, and Vegan Cornbread!
Frequently Asked Questions
For the best results, cook the macaroni and make the cheese sauce ahead of time, combine them, and spread them out in your baking dish. You can do this about 2 days ahead of time.
Make the crispy topping, but store it separately in an airtight container or ziplock bag on the counter for a couple days.
When you’re ready to bake:
(a) If possible, let the dish sit out at room temp so you’re not baking from cold, then sprinkle with the breadcrumb topping and bake as instructed in the recipe card.
(b) If baking the dish cold: Bake the plain mac and cheese for 5 to 10 minutes or until no longer cold, then sprinkle with the crispy bread topping. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown on top.
Once cooled, store the leftovers in an airtight container or tightly cover the baking dish and refrigerate for up to 5 days.
(a) Reheating the full dish or a large portion: Drizzle a few tablespoons of unsweetened soy milk/cashew milk around the edges of the dish, ideally so it can seep into the sauced pasta without wetting the breadcrumb topping. Cover with foil and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes, until hot in the center. Uncover and bake 6 to 8 more minutes to re-crisp the top.
(b) Reheating a single serving: add your portion to an oven-proof dish, adding a teaspoon or two of plant milk at the edge. Cover with foil and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 5 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 3 to 5 minutes.
Blend the cashews and carrots with the water for several minutes in your blender or food processor, scraping down the sides as you go. Blend until you can get it as smooth as possible.
If you have little unblended cashew bits, strain the mixture over a fine-mesh sieve and discard the cashew bits.
Return this mixture to your blender and add in the remaining ingredients, blending until well-combined.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to come up with a nut-free version that is just as good, so I don’t have a good alternative to raw cashews.
While we haven’t tried this ourselves, you can try using gluten-free macaroni (or any small gluten-free pasta) and gluten-free panko breadcrumbs.
And replace the soy sauce with tamari or GF soy sauce.
If you love this vegan mac and cheese, please let us know by leaving a rating and review below 🫶🏽
Introducing
Big Vegan Flavor
Techniques and 150 recipes to master vegan cooking.
Mind-Blowing Vegan Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
Cheese Sauce
- 1 small carrot (2 oz / 56g)
- 8 oz (227g) Yukon gold potatoes (see Note 1)
- 115 g raw cashews (this is ¾ cup + 1 TBSP)
- 2 cups (480 mL) water
- 50 g nutritional yeast (this is ½ cup + 2 TBSP)
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- ⅛ tsp cayenne pepper
- ⅛ tsp turmeric for color
- 3 to 4 tsp soy sauce
- 1 ½ TBSP dill pickle brine (don’t use brine from sweet pickles, see Note 2 for sub)
- 2 ½ TBSP (35g) extra virgin olive oil (or vegan butter, melted)
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper (see Note 3)
Crispy Topping
- 2 ½ TBSP (35g) vegan butter, melted
- 65 g panko breadcrumbs (this is ~ ¾ cup + 2 TBSP)
- 1 TBSP (5g) nutritional yeast
- ⅛ tsp smoked paprika
Macaroni
- 12 oz (340g) elbow macaroni
- 1 ½ TBSP (21g) vegan butter
Instructions
- Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil for the macaroni.
- Peel the carrot, then slice into ¼” coins (6 mm). Peel the potatoes, then into 1” chunks (2.5 cm).
- Add carrots, potatoes, and cashews to a medium saucepan and cover with enough water to submerge. Bring to a boil and boil for 15 minutes, or until potatoes and carrots are soft and easily smash with a fork. Drain and let rest until no longer hot.Pick out the potato pieces and keep separate from the cashews/carrots (the potatoes get blended at the end).
- While the cashews/veg boil, make the Crispy Topping. Add 2 ½ TBSP (35g) butter to a small bowl and melt in the microwave. Mix in the panko, 1 TBSP (5g) nutritional yeast, ⅛ tsp smoked paprika, and 2 pinches of salt, stirring well until the butter is evenly distributed and there are no clumps. Set aside.
- Cook the pasta. When the water is boiling, salt it generously. Cook the macaroni 1 minute less than the time indicated on the box, or until just shy of al dente.Drain the pasta but do not rinse. Return the pasta to its pot, and toss with 1 ½ TBSP (21g) vegan butter (or olive oil). Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF/190ºC. Lightly grease a 3-quart / 3L (13"x9") baking dish with softened/melted butter or olive oil.
- Blend the cheese sauce. In a high-powered blender, combine the 2 cups (480 mL) water, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, cayenne, turmeric, 3 teaspoons soy sauce, pickle brine, olive oil, several twists of black pepper, and 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt (half if using sea salt/table salt). Add the boiled carrots and cashews (but not the potatoes). Blend on high until completely smooth and creamy and all cashew bits have been pulverized, scraping down the sides as you go.Now add the boiled potatoes and blend on medium-low for 15 to 30 seconds, just until combined and pureed (blending lightly at the end prevents the potatoes from turning gummy). NOTE: The sauce will be looser than seems right, like the consistency of a smoothie.
- Taste the sauce, adding more pickle brine for zing/tang, more nutritional yeast for cheesiness, or more soy sauce for savory saltiness (I usually use 4 teaspoons total). If adding any additional ingredients, blend on medium-low just to combine, taking care to not over-blend the potatoes.
- Pour the cheese sauce into the pot of cooked macaroni, tossing well. NOTE: It will feel like too much sauce now, but it thickens as it bakes.
- Transfer the mac and cheese to the prepared baking dish and sprinkle the Crispy Topping evenly over the top. Bake for 20 minutes or until the topping is golden brown. Cool for 10 to 20 minutes to help set up, then slice and serve.
Notes
- If you live outside of the U.S. or Yukon Gold potatoes are not available, use a medium-starch, all-purpose potato. Try to avoid a high-starch potato or a low-starch potato.
- Don’t use pickle brine from sweet pickles, such as bread and butter pickles. If dill or kosher pickles aren’t available, sub the brine with white wine vinegar, but start with 2 to 3 teaspoons, then add more as needed.
- I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt, which is a lot less salty than other salts. If using table salt, use half the amount of salt listed in the recipe. If using sea salt or Morton’s kosher salt, use slightly more than half.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Love this? Leave a rating below!
Genuinely the best vegan Mac & cheese recipe out there. I doubled this recipe and made it for friends who are all non-vegan and everyone LOVED it. Couldn’t stop talking about how good it was.
This will be the only Mac & cheese recipe I’ll use. Nothing compares. ❤️🙌
Thanks for the amazing review, Alec! I need to remake this one myself ASAP! 🙂
My picky children love this dish, I’m so glad you do what you do!
Your positive feedback is the best reward for our hard work. Thank you, Heather!
Hi Nisha! This is one of our favorites; we have been making it for a few years now! Have you had experience with how well this freezes?
Hi Lauren, we’re thrilled to hear that! 🙂 The sauce freezes great! We haven’t tried freezing the entire dish, as pasta doesn’t freeze that well. If you really want to, freeze a small piece to see how it turns out. When you freeze pasta with sauce, the noodles will absorb a lot of the sauce. When defrosted, the sauce may separate and become grainy when reheated.
Really loved this. Used soy sauce instead of miso because my miso seemed perished. Still tasted great. I would say it gives me 3 dinners worth, so I laughed when it said 6 servings. I am a big eater though. Paired it with a salad for two nights, but I ate a ton of it the first night with just a few brussel sprouts on the side.
Hi!
I have about 9 cans of coconut milk but none of them are lite. Would regular coconut milk work? If not I can go grab one since there are a few unrelated things I need from the store but just wondering.
Hi Tiffany, yes you can use regular coconut milk, it will just be richer and higher in fat content. Should still be tasty but if you have the opportunity to stop by a grocery store for the lite version, we’d say go with that!
I was in the same boat as you. I found the sweetness from the coconut & squash combined to be too much. That despite the fact there’s negligible sugar on the label.
I imagine the intention of using coconut is to add fat, to help it taste better, but unless I can find a way to eliminate the sweetness, I don’t think my kids will be on board to try it again.
My favorite vegan Mac n cheese recipe, and I have tried them all
Your positive feedback is the best reward for our hard work. Thank you, Jane!
I’ve recently read a negative article about nutritious yeast which I’ve just recently started using. Do you have any concerns with it and could you offer an alternative.
PS I tried your African peanut stew recipe. It is absolutely scrumptious. I can’t wait to try more of your recipes.
Hi Frederick, hmmm weird, because we haven’t heard anything about nutritional yeast having any negative aspects.
And we’re happy to hear you enjoyed the stew 🙂
My family had these for Christmas and they were such a big hit!! I want to thank you since I haven’t always been the best cook, but this Mac and cheese really hit home…everyone is obsessed, 10/10 recommend!
Your positive feedback is the best reward for our hard work. Thank you, Stephanie!
This was by far the cheesiest vegan mac and cheese I’ve ever had! It was so delicious and comforting.
Awesome, Sumeya. Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to review!
A family favourite in our household! My meat-eating parents and sister always request this when they visit for dinner, and my meat-eating partner also loves it! I’ve made it for our Christmas Eve dinner three years in a row now, and it is always devoured regardless of how many other dishes I cook. My mum is particularly pleased with the fact that it doesn’t give her migraines like regular mac and cheese. I find this always hits the spot when I’m craving a big plate of cheesy goodness. Definitely my favourite vegan mac and cheese recipe!
Your positive feedback is the best reward for our hard work. Thank you, Maddie!
My daughter made this last year for Christmas Day for our extended family and everyone loved it. She is not able to attend this year so I’m going to make it. Any tips on what I can make ahead of time? I will roast butternut squash ahead of time but I’d like to do more if I could a day or 2 before Christmas Day. Suggestions?
Hi Joan, sorry for the late reply! You can actually make the sauce and the pasta (al dente) now if you’d like and store them separately! Make the crispy breadcrumb topping day of, combine the ingredients and pop in the oven on Christmas day.
So, so delicious. Forgot to mention made this on Thanksgiving(along with your incredible Vegan Gravy and Vegan Mashed)The panko topping and umami goodness -off the charts Thanks wonderful recipes
Thank you for your lovely comment, Jen! It makes us happy to know that you’re enjoying the recipes! I love this one as well.
We like mac & cheese creamier. Can I successfully make this recipe with extra sauce?
Hi Lucy, I think that should work. I would either (1) make 1.5 times the sauce recipe, then gradually pour the sauce into the cooked noodles in step 8 so you can prevent it from becoming too liquidy (you may not want to use all of the sauce). OR (2) double the sauce if that’s easier but increase the amount of pasta you cook to at least 16 ounces, maybe 20 ounces. And again, gradually pour in the sauce so you can eyeball how saucy you want it to be.
I have allergy to yeast and soy, so miso and nootch are out. In case anyone else is in similar shoes (or one of those shoes), here’s some subs that I personally find useful & delicious (!) for cheesy and savory dishes and sides/dips. You are not lost in flavorless town, keep on with your hunt and NEVER GIVE UP! 😉 you’ll find a combo that hits your taste buds just right. My vegan cheese game is solid finally, WITHOUT yeast or soy.
For the umami of miso and/or supposed “nootch cheesiness”:
ground shitake/other mushroom powder,
coconut aminos,
Miso made from chickpeas (soy free)-it exists
white pepper -just a pinch!,
Lactic acid (sour/tart flavor, can buy vegan),
Lemon juice or vinegar for sour/acidity,
… There’s many more to find and that I have left off, but you get the picture. I did lots of research and label reading. Please let us all know if you have a winner of your own, love to learn of others!
Thanks for sharing that, Nicola!
I make Nisha’s recipe’s all the time and never comment, so I figured this one was worth my time / to let the masses know just how good it all is — but especially this one.
We brought this dish to Thanksgiving the last few years and my family all like it — and all of them are omnivores, etc. Everyone even went back for seconds!
My partner recently has had to give up gluten and so we just made it gluten free for the first time last night (rice pasta / gluten free panko) — and just as good!
Definitely a with gluten or gluten-free crowd pleaser! Can’t miss!
Awesome, Rachel. This recipe is a favorite of mine as well!
Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to review!
Absolutely delicious! Will never make it any other way again.
My son is vegan and rates every one of your recipes as superlative. Thank you!
P.S. May I also add, you are a very personable young lady .
Thank you for the wonderful review! It’s great to hear the recipes are well loved 🙂 This one is a favorite of mine as well!
Great recipe. Definitely will try again. My dad and I both had second. My sisters said that I didn’t add enough salt but that’s because I forgot to add salt to the sauce. I could barely taste the squash which is great for me. I loved the breadcrumb toppinby
Vegan cheesy recipes tend to be a hit or miss for me but this, along with the vegan queso and the feta are so great.
Thank you for your lovely comment, B! It makes us happy to know that everyone enjoyed the recipe. This is definitely a tasty one!
Why the quantity are different in the vidéo for the spices ?
Hi Katia, we’re not entirely sure, but the recipe here in the recipe card is accurate.
Made this twice now and love it! Second time I didnt have mustard powder but used dijon to balance the flavors and worked just as well! Thank you!!
Hi Keagan, Thank you so much for such a fantastic review! Appreciate you taking the time!
This recipe was a pretty good project for the likes of me! I had to correct a couple of boo-boos I made, which I was fortunate to catch in time! In retrospect, it was fun and rewarding. I found it to be very tasty!!
I will definitely make this again! Thank you, Nisha!
We’re over the moon to hear you enjoyed the recipe, Perry. Thanks for your kind words!