Surprisingly Zesty Vegan Queso Dip

This #vegan queso dip has a zesty flavour that surprised me a bit

Nachos with cheese sauce has become a ubiquitous fixture at sporting events, movie theaters and basement rec rooms. It's not altogether clear how much actual cheese goes into the sauce, but as omnivore comfort foods go, it's a surefire crowd pleaser. Let's try to make a vegan version, shall we?

There are definitely a few recipes out there for vegan cheese sauces, many counterintuitively based on potatoes and carrots. I used a couple of them as inspiration for the experiments that resulted in this recipe. I want to give credit and pass them along to you in case you want to start your own experimenting in the same place I did. Probably the closest recipe is this one from Eat Healthy Eat Happy. I enjoyed it, but I felt it needed the umami flavour of nutritional yeast and the bite of hot peppers. However, I definitely used it as a starting point for my tweaking in the kitchen. There was also this cheese sauce from eatplant-based.com, which was also very tasty, but I felt might work better as the starting point for a nice, thick soup. (That experiment is on my to-do list for the fall.) The recipe you see below keeps the potatoes and carrots, but plays with the spices and other ingredients. I have to admit that I'm a little addicted to it, and it doesn't seem to last to the end of the nacho chips. Definitely not health food, but you can do far worse when watching sports. I hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients

2 cups potato, peeled and cubed

1-2 carrots, chopped (about 3/4 cup)

4 cups water (reserve 1/2 cup after cooking and cooling)

1 + 1 tsp salt

2 Tbl nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp paprika

1 Tbl Dijon mustard

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup pickled hot pepper slices

Directions

Combine the potato, carrot, 4 cups water and 1 tsp salt in a large pot with a lid.

potatoes and carrots, waiting to go into the pot of water

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium, cover and let cook for 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Reserve 1/2 cup of cooking liquid, then drain and transfer potatoes and carrots to a food processor.

Puree the potatoes and carrots in the food processor.

Then with the processor running, add in the 1/2 cup cooking liquid a little bit at a time. The result should be completely smooth.

Add the remaining 1 tsp salt, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika and mustard to the food processor and process for about 30 seconds.