Dehydrated raw cheese wheel with a slice taken out, sprig of basil on top

Here is a recipe for a basic raw, vegan, macadamia and cashew cheese, that does need a little lovin’ to make, but is so well worth it. It tastes soft and rich, and is fantastic crumbled through salads, spread on wraps or just simply spooned on top of fresh sliced tomato. Experiment and see for yourself!

Serve with:

Speedy Super Seed Crackers

Raw Sun Dried Tomato Crackers

Raw Onion Bread

Gluten Free Buckwheat and Millet Bread

📖Recipe

A round of homemade nut cheese on a plate

Vegan Cashew Cheese

Naturopath Lauren Glucina

A creamy, raw vegan cashew and macadamia cheese. A kitchen staple around my place! Note: this recipe requires soaking nuts in advance overnight, a short prep time, a 12 hour culture, and two weeks to set/harden in the fridge.

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 10

Cook Time 0

Total soaking, culturing and setting time 23

Total Time 23 10

Course Appetizer

Cuisine Raw, Vegan

Servings

Calories 256 kcal

Equipment

Dehydrator
Sieve
Nut milk bag or cheesecloth
Small ring mould (optional)

Ingredients

1½ cups organic cashew nuts
1½ cups organic macadamia nuts
1 cup filtered water
½ teaspoon dairy free probiotic powder
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Instructions

Soak the nuts: Soak all of your nuts together in a big bowl of filtered water, ideally over night. This will neutralise the taste of the nuts, as well as making them nice and soft for culturing.
Blend the nuts: After at least 8 hours of soaking, drain the water, rinse, and pop in the blender with ½ a teaspoon of probiotic powder. You may need to add up to a whole cup of filtered water here, to blend the nuts to a nice and creamy consistency.
Culture the nuts: Now we need to culture the nuts and turn them into cheese. To do this, pour the mixture into a nut milk bag, or cheesecloth, and place in a sieve over a bowl with a weight on top. The weight should be just heavy enough to press out any liquid and let it drain through the sieve into the bowl. Pop a tea towel over the bowl and leave in a warm place for at least 12 hours but no more than 48. I like to leave mine on top of my dehydrator.
Taste test: Have a wee taste at the 12 hour mark. It should start to taste a little tangy.
Add the flavourings: Once the culturing is complete, scrape the cheese into a bowl and stir in the nutritional yeast, onion powder and salt. The nutritional yeast will give it that beautiful soft cheesy flavour.
Set the nut cheese: Transfer the mixture to a small ring mould and pop in the fridge to set. You can leave it like this to harden for a few weeks. Or, if you prefer, you could set the cheese first, then remove the ring mould and dehydrate (at 105F) for 12 hours to create a rind. It’s perfectly fine to put it back in the fridge afterwards.