Baked Vegan Cheese Fries
Months ago, I ate some vegan cheese fries at a restaurant in my daughter’s college town. Since then, I have been dreaming about eating that heavenly combo again. But when I returned recently (plenty hungry and salivating), they had taken them off their menu! It was a sad sad day. Back home, however, I finally did another thing I have been dreaming about since I ate that amazing basket of dairy-free cheese fries — I figured out how to recreate them! Except my “fries” are Baked Vegan Cheese Fries rather than deep-fried. That means I can eat more of the cheese, right!?
This dairy-free cheese sauce is perfect on anything … but especially perfect on baked french fries!
My vegan “cheese” sauce uses cashews and potatoes plus nutritional yeast and turmeric.
If you have leftover cheese sauce, it will keep in the refrigerator for a week. It’s perfect on scrambled eggs, omelets or over steamed broccoli. Enjoy!
Pin it/save it and make it! Please let me know if you do or have any questions. That makes my day!
Baked Vegan Cheese Fries
Ingredients
- 3 large russett potatoes (1 peeled and cubed; 2 sliced with skin on)
- 1 cup whole raw cashews, soaked in hot water for at least an hour
- 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 5 Tbsp filtered water
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/8 tsp ground turmeric
- 1-2 Tbsp potato water
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Soak raw cashews in hot water for at least an hour (longer if you're using a blender that isn't very powerful)
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F
- Wash and slice 2 russet potatoes into "fries," keeping the skin on
- Coat bottom of baking sheet with olive oil
- Place the sliced potatoes, skin down, on the baking sheet, sprinkle salt and pepper on top and bake for 20 minutes (or until cooked through and the skins are crispy)
- While the fries are baking, peel, cut and cube one russet potato (1 to 1 1/2 cups cubed potato)
- Boil the potatoes in water, drain (saving some of the potato water) and mash the potatoes
- After the cashews have soaked, add them to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth; add the mashed potatoes, nutritional yeast, fresh lemon juice, filtered water, potato water, salt, turmeric and salt and pepper to taste; blend until smooth.
- When the bake fries are done and the cheese sauce is blended, use the cheese sauce as a dip and/or to spread on top of the fries ... and enjoy!
