Nutritional Yeast is one of my favorite things when it comes to making raw cheese-like comfort foods. In the world of raw foods nutritional yeast is added to dishes in order to give them a rich "cheesy" flavor. To do this I usually mix lemon, sea salt and nutritional yeast (water if making a cheese sauce). Normally I will also add a red bell pepper and cashews. Then this mixture goes into a Vitamix or a Cuisinart until smooth.
Nutritional Yeast can also be added to a "cracker" recipe in order to give it a cheesy flavor as well.
Nutritional Yeast is not to be confused with Brewer's Yeast. Both are great sources of B12 (important for Vegans) but Brewer's Yeast doesn't give the cheesy flavor that Nutritional Yeast does.
So be sure not to confuse the two.
Another trick to making raw comfort foods is adding heat like jalapenos and/or ginger and/or garlic. This can give off the illusion that the dish is actually cooked or "hot". It's a great option when making soups and pates. Or when it's cold outside. You can actually work up a sweat from combining all of the above spicy items.
Kale chips are the new things these days. Kale chips involve raw kale with a "cheese" sauce on top. Then this is put into a dehydrator for 10 hours on a Teflex sheet. Then another two on a dehydrator screen (mesh tray).
Recipe for Cheese Sauce:
2 cups soaked raw cashews
1 red bell pepper
1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ jalapeno (optional)
2 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1 lemon, juice
Mix above in a Vitamix or Cuisinart
You can dehydrate this mixture for 12 hours and get a crunchy cheese which can be added to salads or wraps or on top of crackers.
We now sell Nutritional Yeast on our web site.
Enjoy.
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