I am super excited to share this recipe with you all today! In the past two years since moving to a plant based diet I have tried many vegan/plant based cheese sauce recipes. Some of them were down right awful and others were just okay. That all changed when my friend Donna Weifert shared her vegan cheeze sauce recipe that we have dubbed Donna’s Cheeze Sauce. This sauce is so delicious that I even made a batch of it to take in the cooler on our vacation. It has the most delightful cheezy flavor. The texture is thick like a rich cheese sauce. It heats up without separating and its a gorgeous color. Donna’s recipe calls for items you most likely have in your vegan/plant based pantry and freidge so you can whip up a batch of this miracle sauce right now! This is an oil free, dairy free, cholesterol free, low calorie cheeze sauce. What more could you want?
Donna’s Cheeze Sauce
Nutmeg Notebook
This cheeze sauce comes out so thick and creamy from my high powered Blendtec blender. If you don’t have a high powered blender I think it might work better to make this in a food processor. If it’s a little thick add a little bit more water to thin it out and make it easier to blend up. If it’s too thin add some extra potato. Speaking of potatoes I use Yukon gold potatoes and I don’t peel them.
Donna’s Cheeze Sauce
Nutmeg Notebook
One meal I really missed when I moved to a plant based diet was a broccoli stuffed baked potato with cheese sauce. So of course that was the first thing I made with Donna’s Cheeze sauce and its fabulous! Shown here with a yummy Mexicano Veggie Burger that we often enjoy. They freeze really well so make a big batch. The easiest way to make corn on the cob quickly is in an electric pressure cooker. Add 1/2 cup water to the PC, insert the rack that comes with the PC, put up to four ears of corn- cleaned and trimmed on the rack. Set the timer for 1 minute on high pressure with quick release and you get perfect corn on the cob.
Stuffed Japanese Baked Potato with Donna’s Cheeze Sauce
This was my lunch yesterday and it filled me up for hours and hours. A cooked Japanese Sweet Potato filled with home cooked pinto beans, corn, Tami’s Quick Salsa, Donna’s Cheeze Sauce, fresh cilantro, green onions and fresh squeezed lime juice. This is one of my favorite meals and its one that can be pulled together quickly. You can microwave the potatoes and open up a can of beans, thaw out frozen corn and garnish it in about 15-20 minutes. I try to always have this cheeze sauce made and in the fridge.
Bean Burrito Bowl
Nutmeg Notebook
I love, love, love the way we eat now. Meals don’t have to be pre-planned and thought out. We can combine a few basic ingredients and make delicious one bowl meals that are nourishing, filling and big on flavor. When I batch cook a couple times a week I make grains, potatoes, beans, legumes, sauces and chop up fresh ingredients. Then anytime we are hungry we can pull out those items and make a meal. this is a layers of fresh baby spinach on the bottom, topped with steamed brown rice, pinto beans that I made in the slow cooker, salsa, Donna’s Cheeze Sauce, cilantro, green onions and fresh limes. Healthy and delicious.
Donna’s Vegan Cheeze Sauce
- 2 cups white potatoes, diced large
- 1 cup carrots, diced large
- 3/4 cup water
- 2 teaspoons Coconut Aminos
- 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice (or more)
- 1/2 cup Nutritional Yeast (this gives it a cheezy flavor)
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 3/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- dash of cayenne pepper
Boil the potatoes and carrots until soft and drain. (I have also steamed them, microwaved them or used leftover baked potatoes and leftover cooked carrots.) Place the cooked potatoes and carrots and the rest of the ingredients in a high powered blender and blend until smooth. Add more water if its too thick. If it’s too thin add a little more potato.
Store in the fridge. It lasts for a week or more – but you will most likely eat it all up before then!
This cheeze melts beautifully.
Thank you Donna for a fabulous recipe!
Recipe by Donna Weifert and shared with her permission.
Nutmeg Notes
Vacations are fun but it sure does feel good to be back home after being on a road trip for 12 days. I plan on writing a couple of blog posts of how I managed to eat vegan/whole food plant based and be Ultimate Weight Loss compliant while on vacation. In the meantime I want to let you know that it can be done!
I knew I was losing weight while we were gone. I put on a pair of capri pants one day towards the end of our vacation and they were so loose around the waist I had to keep pulling them up all day long. Love that. I got on the scale when we got home and saw a 3 pound loss!
I would say that I was 95% UWL compliant. Most days we ate two meals out of our UWL food filled cooler and one meal in a restaurant. You can avoid oil and sugar when eating out but its much more difficult to get salt free food. Even though I talked to the food servers about what I wanted a couple of my entrees contained a few olive slices which I wasn’t expecting. I ate them – they didn’t cause me any problems. I had a couple meals of only salad because that is the best the restaurant could provide me. Then I would supplement from my purse or cooler stash. I also enjoyed an all vegetable fresh pressed juice one day – it felt nourishing! A few olives and vegetable juice were my splurges!
Since I had experienced a couple of fruit and veggie only days or half days I knew I could survive a meal of only salad. If anything showed up with oil I sent it back. I told the food servers that my digestive system does not process oil and therefore I can not have it. Its the truth – if I had any oil at this point after being oil free for over 2 years I would have terrible lower GI issues!
We did use dehydrated vegan backpacking meals that were low sodium but not sodium free – when I am sweating and hiking I don’t mind a little sodium in my food. I have low blood pressure and in the summer I can have issues with dizzy spells when exercising outside and sweating a lot. I also had some raw energy bars that are made from whole ingredients like raw seeds and fruit. I carried the That’s IT bars that are all fruit.You can only pack so much fresh produce in a back pack or a purse when sight seeing so I had these as back up food and was so glad to have them when the fresh food was gone.
I logged all of my food everyday on the free app called Two Grand. You can find me there under the name Nutmeg Notebook. That helped me stay aware of what I was eating. We got plenty of exercise most days. Even when our hotel room was on the 4th floor we took the stairs. We walked to as many places as we could. We had hiking days worked in for big exercise days.
I wouldn’t say it was easy to eat SOS free and stay UWL compliant while traveling but it is achievable. It took extra planning and cooking ahead of time to stock the cooler with as much pre-made food as I could. It took extra time in the hotel rooms each day to deal with keeping the ice fresh in the cooler and prepping food for each day. It took time to look up restaurants in each new town to find places where we could get something healthy to eat. We had to find grocery stores and food co-ops to replenish fresh produce. We tried to get hotel suites that included small kitchens. Ironically the biggest food prep day on vacation was done in a hotel room that didn’t even have a microwave or fridge!
Having said all that it was so worth it! I felt good each day about how I was eating and the choices I was making. My digestive track stayed healthy. I never went to bed with any regret about what I had eaten. Plus we saved a ton of money by not eating out all the time. That was a bonus!
The UWL program gives me freedom from guilt, cravings and being overweight. The UWL way of eating is a lifestyle not a diet. My lifestyle doesn’t change when I am on vacation – it goes with me everywhere I go.
Loving life one healthy day at a time.
Tami
Please add your thoughts and comments. I love hearing from you.
Dear Tami,
This is an outstanding post and I will definitely be making the cheese sauce. You make everything so appealing and I will make the veggie burgers also. Do you have a go to salad dressing that you really love? I usually use a special balsamic vinegar but since I eat no sugar they have become almost too sweet. I appreciate your UWL posts because everything else is off limits as you know. Direct me to others and I will read them faithfully.
What a great gal and cook you are. I have great admiration for how tirelessly you work at it and everything you do.
Thank-you my friend.
Dana
Hi Dana,
Thank you for lovely comments – you sure know how to make people feed good. The salad dressing I have been using the past few months is Wendy’s Light Balsamic Dressing that is on the UWL facebook page in the files under the Dressing and Sauces List of recipes. It’s super easy and quick. It makes a lot but it usually lasts us several days. I make it once or twice a week depending on how many Big Beautiful Salads we eat!
Do make this cheeze sauce – it is so amazing – even my hubby loves it!
Happy healthy cooking!
Tami
I am so eager to try this sauce! I have been moving toward a plant based diet for some time now but cheese is one of the things that keeps “recapturing” me. This just may be a solution!
Hi Mary! How are you? I am so excited to hear that you are transitioning to a plant based diet. I have heard from other people that cheese is the hardest food for them to give up. I didn’t eat a lot of cheese before going plant based so it wasn’t as difficult for me. Let me just say that if you are still use to eating “real” cheese this vegan cheese may not taste all that wonderful to you. But once you have been away from dairy cheese your taste changes and plant based versions seem to become even tastier. It’s when you go back and forth between dairy and no dairy that seems to keep that desire for the dairy items ever more present and it keeps the craving for it going.
There is a fabulous book titled “The Pleasure Trap” by Doug Lisle that explains how certain foods trap us into craving them. I highly recommend reading this book. I found it very helpful.
Be sure to check back in with me and let me know what you think of the cheeze sauce. If I can be of any help to you to make the move to plant based or answer any questions let me know.
Happy healthy cooking!
Tami
Thank you for sharing, looking forward to trying this. I absolutely love your site!
Thank you Angela. I hope you enjoy the Cheeze sauce as much as we do. Be sure to come back and let me know how it went.
Happy Cooking!
Tami
Tami, thanks for the excellent post and the cheeze sauce recipe. Have been plant-based for almost 3 years and one of my favorite foods is sweet potatoes sprinkled w/nutritional yeast. Can’t wait to try the cheese sauce!
Loved your notes on vacation food and how that worked for you. I usually pack a cooler also. I now use quart size mason jars to hold ice as I was tired of water leaking our of freezer storage bags onto my food items in the cooler. The jars are easy to fill in the hotel ice machines.
I also rely on salads at restaurants because it is the only item they can provide without oil. I have also ordered steamed vegetables to top the salad.
Thanks again, enjoyed your post so much!
Hi Joan,
Thank you so much for your kind remarks. We too got tired of our freezer bags full of ice melting and leaking all over our food! I love the idea of using the mason jars filled with ice. That is brilliant! Thank you for sharing that with me – its a game changer!
The world just isn’t set up for SOS free vegans (salt, oil, sugar free) to travel and eat out. I hope as time goes on and more people are educated about the health benefits of eating a plant based diet that it will become more mainstream. Until then we must persevere on our own.
I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment and hope you will come back often.
Happy healthy cooking.
Tami
You know me Tami – I will not make it but you are rocking this way of eating & so glad you found it!!!!
I don’t see tweet or FB share buttons anymore here….
So many recipes, so little time ! Love that you filter thru them for us. Great website.
Used the cheeze sauce last night for Mac & Cheeze, it was fantastic, we like spicy so topped it with some grated black pepper.
Mary your Mac & Cheese sounds wonderful! I am so glad you enjoy the recipes! Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment.
Happy Cooking,
Tami
I love this cheeze sauce too. Right at the end, I do add some jalapeño rings and lightly whirl the vitamix because I love spicy.
Such a great idea Diane – I sometimes add a little jalapeno pepper too!
What brand of nutritional yeast do you recommend? (I tried Bragg’s and wasn’t a huge fan.) I was wondering what other brands were out there that I may like better. Thanks!
I do buy Braggs and like it and also Trader Joe’s sells one that is good. I used to by Dr Fuhrman’s but it is just too pricey!
Tami I am so happy I found your site. I’m five days in on UWL and can relate to “feel like I found my home”. Thank you for these recipes…can’t wait to try them. I just retired and we will be traveling full time in our Motorhome after 9/6 and my iPot, oilfree fryer/dehydrator will be used every day!
Hi Carla,
Welcome to the UWL tribe! It will be quite easy to stay compliant since you can do your own cooking and will have so many great appliances with you. Safe travels and happy healthy cooking!
Warmly,
Tami
This is super delicious! Made it today with the following modifications:
Added about 1/4 cup of soaked raw cashews
Instead of coconut aminos I used white miso for a more cheesy flavor
I cooked my potatoes in my Instant Pot, which made it very easy
SOOOO YUMMY!!
I’m glad you liked it.
This sounds really good. I have one question….what are coconut aminos? I’m new to this way of eating and have a lot to learn. Thank you!
Thanks for this. We’ve been making this awhile now!!! It’s the kids fav. I just had a thought. Can you make this with frozen carrots? I was wondering in case kids were desperate for cheese sauce and no carrot to be found. 😯
Hi Patti,
I am delighted that your family likes this recipe. Frozen carrots should be just fine.
Happy Cooking,
Tami
Tami, have you tried to freeze this sauce? Or have the carrots and potatoes cooked and frozen. Looking for a quick fix when a day is busy. Lol. Thanks for everything.
Hi Patti,
I have not frozen the sauce others have with good results. You may have to put it back in the blender to get it smooth again. I think you could freeze the potatoes and carrots ahead of time but I have not tried that myself.
Happy Cooking,
Tami
Can you please tell me where you get Coconut Aminos?
Hi Joy,
I buy mine at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s or Sprouts Market. A health food store should also carry it.
Hi Tami!
I came here from your batch cooking video on youtube and it was exactly what I was looking for- easy and affordable recipes. I will definelty be trying this cheese sauce and appreciate you sharing your recipes and how to videos
Thank you for visiting the blog. I hope you enjoy the recipes!