Totally drooling over this satisfying, comforting cheese sauce with a wholesome vegan twist! Velvety and ultra-creamy, this rich and tangy Nut Free Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce is perfect for tortilla chip dipping, baked potato topping, French fry drenching, veggie drizzling, loaded nachos making, and so much more.  It’s totally addictive! Healthy deliciousness never tasted so good.

Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

Hi there, Ameera here!

I don’t know about you, but sometimes (often – let’s be real) I get a hankering for some ooey-gooey, “cheesy” goodness. Back in the day, I was what you call a cheese-a-holic. I could devour a block of cheese in a matter of minutes. It’s definitely been a craving, but thankfully, there are tons of WFPB alternatives. And this Nut Free Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce totally quenches that cheesy thirst.

Tenacious Testing

Mom and I have been playing around with vegan cheese sauces for quite some time now. We’ve tested so many that I can’t even keep track of the number of kitchen tests that we have done over the past year.

We’ve tried literally every version that you can possibly conceive of, oats, potatoes, cashews, macadamia nuts, almonds, carrots, beans, you name it, we’ve tried it, and tried it again, and again, and again.  LOL

They were all good; I mean, come on, it’s a “cheeze” sauce, so it’s gotta be good, right? However, to us, some kitchen tests were definitely better than others.

The key is to remember is that none of them will taste exactly like cheese, but they will be crazy good in their own way. If you keep that in mind, you will be delighted with most of the vegan “cheeze” sauces out there on the internet.

Final Tests

We landed on two recipes that we thought were amazing! One has a potato/carrot foundation (this recipe) and the other has a cashew foundation (coming to the blog soon). We landed on our favorite kitchen potato/carrot test in late May, shot it and scheduled it to appear on our blog two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, you say, well what happened?

We work 3-4 months out. However, boom, it seemed like everyone came out with a “cheeze” sauce at the same time. I think all the WFPB Food Bloggers must have been channeling each other because we kept seeing more and more posts about “cheeze” sauces, so we kept moving our schedule around and around, pushing it farther and farther out to give everyone’s “cheeze sauce” some breathing room…

But then we were like “This ‘cheeze sauce craze’ is in full throttle, so let’s just put it out there along with everyone else’s cheeze sauce and be done with it!”.  LOL So, we did. Our cashew “cheeze” sauce is scheduled for October, so stay tuned for that one. We also have some ideas for other “cheeze” sauces, but those are still in the works.

Nacho “Cheeze” Sauce

We absolutely love this Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce. It is so good, it’s addictive! We put it on tortilla chips, baked potatoes, and created killer loaded nachos using our Vegan Sour Cream and our Spicy Black Beans. However, we didn’t use black beans with our Spicy Black Beans recipe. We used a can of lentils and a can of pinto beans with the Spicy Black Beans recipe seasonings, but you can use whatever beans/combination your prefer.

List of all those tasty toppings:

• Nut Free Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce
• Beans (Use pinto & lentils – see paragraph above for details)
• Chopped fresh tomatoes
• Sliced black olives
• Chopped avocado
• Fresh or pickled jalapeño
• Vegan Sour Cream
• Green onions
• Lime wedges
• Chopped cilantro

Key Elements

We felt two key ingredients that make this Nut Free Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce come alive are ume plum vinegar and tahini. The ume plum vinegar has so much flavor, salty tang, and rich umami layers that adds a cheese like quality. You can find ume plum vinegar in most grocery stores, most likely in the Asian section or you can order off of Amazon.

We like to use a splash here and there in it a lot of recipes as it creates amazing depth of flavors. Plus, it is inexpensive and totally worth every umami drop.

Another unlikely ingredient that we think totally adds a huge BOOST of yumminess is tahini. Using just a tablespoon of tahini added a beautiful richness to the sauce. We absolutely loved it. You can totally leave it out if you wish, but we think it makes a difference.

Mild Green Chilies

We also loved adding a 4 oz. can of mild green chilies. It gave that awesome nacho cheese flavor. We also tried adding pickled jalapenos, but for some reason, it just wasn’t as good.  Just remember not to add it to the high-speed blender, rather stir it in at the end.

I’ll let Mom tell you more.

This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.

Hi! Robin here!

Lord have mercy!  I can’t tell you how happy I am to get this recipe out, just so we can stop testing WFPB “cheeze” sauces. LOL  Mind you, I love eating them, but frankly I just wanted to move on about 15 kitchen tests ago. HAH Stick a fork, I mean nacho, in it – we are done (for now) 😉

It’s truly is mighty delicious!  The loaded nachos were right up my alley.  I could have eaten the entire plate all by myself!

We would love for you to try this recipe! If you try this comforting sauce, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us!  We would love to hear from you.

Products Used:

• High-Speed Blender

Nut Free Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce

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• Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
• Prep Time: 10 Minutes
• Cook Time: 13 Minutes (Potatoes & Carrots)
• Total Time: 23 Minutes
• Yield: 2.25 cups 1x
• Category: Sauce
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: American

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Description

Totally drooling over this satisfying, comforting cheese sauce with a wholesome vegan twist! Velvety and ultra-creamy, this rich and tangy Nut Free Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce is perfect for tortilla chip dipping, baked potato topping, French fry drenching, veggie drizzling, loaded nachos making, and so much more.  It’s totally addictive! Healthy deliciousness never tasted so good.

Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

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Ingredients

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• 12 oz. Russet potatoes, peeled, small ½ inch dice (about 2 cups) *
• 1 small carrot, cut into thin coins (about ¼ cup)
• 2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar
• 1 ½ teaspoons ume plum vinegar *
• ¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon water 
• 1 Tablespoon tahini *
• 2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast

Herb/Spice Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• ¼ teaspoon dried ground mustard powder
• 1/8 teaspoon chipotle powder
• ¼ + 1/8 teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *

Other Ingredients:

• 4 oz. can mild green chilies (including liquid from can)

Optional Serving Ideas/Ingredients:

• Tortilla Chips
• Loaded Nachos
• Baked potatoes

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Instructions

1. Place the diced potatoes and carrots into a small stock pot, cover with water, place on the stove, bring to a boil. Simmer at a low boil for approximately 13 minutes or until the potatoes and carrots are tender.  Drain the liquid, then place the carrots and potatoes into a high-speed blender.
2. Add all the other remaining ingredients except for the can of green chilies. Blend on high until the sauce is creamy, smooth, and “cheezy”. You may need to use the tamper tool to keep the sauce moving. Note: depending on how thick or thin you want your cheese sauce, add in a little more water. Keep in mind there is a little liquid in the green chilies which you will stir in later.  Taste test for flavor, add more spices to reach the flavor you desire.
3. When the sauce is creamy and smooth, transfer to a bowl and stir in the green chilies (including liquid). Enjoy!

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Notes

*Potatoes:  The potatoes were measured in ounces prior to being peeled, then we ended up with approximately 2 cups of peeled and diced potatoes.

* Ume Plum Vinegar: We highly recommend using Ume Plum Vinegar, however you can substitute with another vinegar. Keep in mind the flavor will slightly change according to the vinegar used.  (Plus, we have a bunch of other recipes that use ume plum vinegar.)

*Tahini:  The tahini is optional, but it adds a nice layer of richness and creaminess to the sauce.

*Sea Salt:  Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

*Serving:  Makes 2 ¼ cups sauce

*Storage: Refrigerate and use within 5-7 days.

This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.