Vegan cashew cheese that is sliceable and perfect for a vegan cheese board! Full flavored, authentic looking and quick and easy to make too!
Hard, sliceable cashew cheese. It’s here! And I couldn’t be more excited!
We have guests coming next week and I have a full on cheese board planned, with this as the main event!
I have to admit it took me a fair few goes to get this one right. If you follow us on instagram then you might have seen in our instastories where I was proudly showing off each new attempt.
From the start though I was delighted with this.
To think it can be so easy to make a super impressive block of vegan cheese!
And it is simply fabulous! You can slice it into perfect slices and put them on crackers or bread or wherever you would eat a slice of cheese.
And you can mash it up too. It’s sliceable and hard enough to cut perfect slices, but you can also still smash it on a cracker if you want to.
If you love making your own homemade vegan cheese then also check out our vegan brie, vegan camembert and vegan blue cheese.
How To Make Cashew Cheese
I started off with just a basic recipe and then quickly saw that I needed to add more cashews to make it really rich and lots more spices to make that cheese flavor really stand out.
Some recipes recommend you cook it all up with the agar agar powder (which is what makes it set) on the stove and then pour it out into your dish to set, but this doesn’t work at all when you use more cashews to make a thicker/more robust cheese, because then it’s too thick to stir up properly with the agar agar.
And since the agar agar needs to boil for at least a minute for that agar powder to set up properly I found it a much better plan to do it separately.
So basically, you make up a batch of cashew cheese sauce in the blender, but you spice it up more strongly than you would usually, to the point that if you taste it, you’ll be thinking: this is too strong!
But then you boil up a cup of water with agar agar powder on the stove, let that boil for a minute and then pour that mix into your cashew cheese sauce (conveniently still in the blender) blend it up again and then pour it all out into your dish to set.
The water and agar powder dilute the spiciness of the cheese and while setting it also dilutes it a bit so you have to start off strong to end up with perfectly spiced cashew cheese.
A Vegan Cheese Board
It’s perfect for a vegan cheese board with some red grapes, jams, maybe some mixed salted nuts and a selection of crackers (and maybe some wine too).
And let me just say, a slice of this on a cracker with some mixed fruit jam on top – but any jam would be awesome – was like the best thing ever. Jaye and I were in heaven. And we can’t wait to show it off to our guests next week.
Ingredient Notes
The Cashews:
This recipe is quick and easy and one of the things that makes it so quick is that you don’t need to soak the cashews first. You can just go right in and blend them up.
The reason it’s possible to do this is because you’re making a sauce to start off with, it’s not a super thick cheese right off the bat so it’s more easily blendable (I do have a vitamix though so that helps!).
Provided your blender is strong enough I don’t really see any reason to soak them first in this recipe but I am not an expert on your blender. If you know your blender will have trouble with this, then you can soak them briefly in boiling water. Just place the nuts into a bowl, pour boiling water over the top and then leave them to soak for 15 minutes, then drain and use as normal.
The Agar Agar:
The crucial ingredient in this recipe is the agar agar powder. It is what makes the cheese set.
You get two types of agar agar, you get the powder version and the flakes. Use agar agar powder. The agar agar powder is much stronger than the flakes and is what we used in this recipe.
If you have no other option but to use flakes, then you will have to use 3 times as much of it.
Cashew Cheese Q&A
Can you grate it? This cheese can also be grated, the firmer it is the easier it will grate, and the longer it’s in the fridge the firmer it gets, so if it’s not ideally firm for grating on the first day it will likely be grate-able by the second day.
Does it melt? I put a slice on a cracker and put it in the microwave for 15-seconds to see if it melted and it did! So it does melt.
Can you put it on pizza? We tried it on pizza. And it was very tasty and it melted! But let me be clear, when I say ‘melted’ I do NOT mean that it spreads like dairy cheese. No it definitely doesn’t. It softens though and gets melty.
We tried it grated on pizza and sliced, and either way was fantastic. We put it on the pizza before going in the oven, so it melted along with everything else, and it was really good.
Storing and Freezing
Keep it stored in the fridge (covered) where it will last up to a week.
It’s also freezer friendly for up to 3 months. Thaw it in the fridge.
More Delicious Vegan Cheese Recipes
- Since this recipe was published, we’ve made another firm sliceable cheese, a delicious vegan cheddar cheese, so you definitely want to check that out.
- We also have a totally divine vegan cream cheese that is everything you want spread on your breads and bagels! Also check out our vegan cottage cheese and vegan feta.
- Our cashew cheese sauce is perfect drizzled over pizza or baked potatoes and our vegan parmesan cheese is wonderful sprinkled over anything and everything.
- Our vegan mozzarella is divine on some pizza and our vegan nacho cheese is divine on… you guessed it, some vegan nachos!
- And then there’s our vegan ricotta which is incredible just as is, but can also be baked into a vegan lasagna recipe or some vegan stuffed shells!
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Hard Sliceable Cashew Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 cup Raw Cashews (150g)
- ⅓ cup Water (80ml)
- 5 Tbsp Lemon Juice Freshly Squeezed
- 2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
- ¼ cup Tahini (60g)
- ½ Medium Raw Carrot (~30g) peeled and sliced
- 2 ½ tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Paprika
- ⅛ tsp Cayenne Pepper
- 1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard
- ¼ cup Nutritional Yeast
- 1 tsp Garlic Powder or flakes
- 1 cup Water (240ml)
- 1 Tbsp Agar Agar Powder must be powder and not flakes*
Instructions
- Add the cashews, ⅓ cup water, lemon juice, coconut oil, tahini, carrot, salt, paprika, cayenne, dijon mustard, nutritional yeast and garlic powder to the blender and blend until very smooth. Leave the mix in the blender and set aside.
- Add 1 cup of water and the agar agar powder to a saucepan and heat, stirring regularly until boiling. Boil it for 1 minute (time it), stirring regularly and after 1 minute remove it from the heat and pour it into the blender on top of the cheese mix.
- Blend until smooth.
- Moving quickly, as it will start setting up very fast, pour the mix out into a round dish sprayed with non-stick spray.
- Refrigerate until set. To remove from the bowl, turn upside down onto a plate.
Video
Notes
- It is crucial for the success of this recipe that you use agar agar powder and not flakes. Flakes are much less powerful and if you DO use flakes you will need to use 3 times as much (3 tablespoons).
- This might seem like a lot of salt, but it works perfectly in this recipe.
- I used a regular round bowl, it was 5 inches round and 2 inches deep. I chose it because it was quite straight up the sides so created a nicer shape for the cheese. But you can really use any bowl or ramekin, and if your bowls are smaller, then just use 2 bowls for 2 smaller blocks of cheese.
- This cheese can be grated but it tends to get firmer the longer it’s in the fridge. So it’s better for grating on the second day than on the day it’s made.
- It does also melt. We put a slice on a cracker and put it in the microwave for 15 seconds and it melted. So yes it does melt!
- We have also tried it on pizza. We tried it grated onto a pizza and sliced. Either way was great. We put it on with all our other toppings before going into the oven and it got nice and soft and melty along with the other toppings. It doesn’t spread or anything, but it’s very good.
- This recipe makes one 21 ounce (600g) round of vegan cheese.
- Serving size is 4 slices which is approximately 1 ounce.
Geetu says
YUM!! I just made this yesterday, and the recipe worked perfectly! I was out of cayenne pepper so just used some dried chili flakes and it worked fine. Skipping that would probably also work. I think the next time I’ll try to add some cracked pepper – for a different taste.
Thank you for such a great and flexible recipe! LOVE the ability to slice vegan cheese
Nadine @ Loving It Vegan says
So glad you enjoyed the recipe! Thanks for your great review!
Maya says
Hi.
would I be able to substitute cashews for blanched almonds?
thank you
Nadine @ Loving It Vegan says
Yes you can Maya!
Oliver Neely says
Bless you Alison,. Excellent recipes. easy to follow and converted to UK friendly measurements.
looking forward to trying this
Anita Thompson says
Wonderful recipe thank you
Nadine @ Loving It Vegan says
Thank you for you review Anita!
Nicola says
Thank you so much for this recipe, it came out exactly as described. Perfect consistency and delicious too. I’m going to experiment and add seeds, chopped garlic, pepper or truffle next. I’m also going to try the other varieties.
Nadine @ Loving It Vegan says
Sounds good Nicola! Thanks so much for your review!
Celine says
This is my 2nd time trying wuth agar agar powder. Omitted tahini as I ran out and I replaced carrots with a teeny bit of turmeric powder for color. My vegan cheese turned out so yummy. thks for sharing this recipe
Nadine @ Loving It Vegan says
So glad it worked out for you Celine!
Michaelle says
I was not able to purchase agar, agar powder, so I did buy flakes, and definitely had to use more. I really want this recipe to be a success, but I’ve had a few problems that I’m hoping for help with. The first time I made it all it tasted like with mustard. I absolutely love mustard, but it’s not what I was looking for. So I made it a second time without the mustard and bumped up all the herbs. I still didn’t get a great flavour and I’m hoping you have suggestions on improving it for me. The other thing is that it’s definitely not sliceable. It’s spreadable. I guess that’s because I couldn’t get the powder. If I can get the flavour right, I will order the powder online. Thanks for your time. Please don’t take any of this as a criticism because I have a great respect for people who work out these recipes. I just want help to make it taste more cheesy. Oh, I bumped up the nutritional yeast as well.
Joanne says
Do you think I could use guar gum instead of agar agar?
Valerie says
I have made this before and really liked it. I made it again today and it has a slight coconut taste that I don’t recall tasting before. Does yours? I used unrefined coconut oil. Maybe I used refined coconut oil last time. It isn’t unpleasant, just different than last time.
Thank you for your recipes. I am “leaning into veganism”.
Nadine @ Loving It Vegan says
Hi Valerie, it’s definitely the coconut oil. Refined coconut oil has no after taste whatsoever.
HV says
Great recipe. It set up just as described. The flavor is good, but I would probably use less salt and skip the cayenne next time to make it a little more neutral.
Alison Andrews says
Awesome, so glad you enjoyed it and thanks for sharing!
Xitlallic Yurumein says
I have been making this recipe since 2020 and I love it. I’ve experimented in so many ways, I’ve never gotten it to be very firm but the other night I doubled the recipe, added a whole jalapeño and 2 teaspoons of liquid smoke and it was the best it’s ever been. It was like an expensive smoky cheddar. I spread it on a Quaker white cheddar rice cake and with a cup of tea it’s my favorite after dinner snack. If I can find it, I’ll try to add a little bit of annatto oil next time to make it a bit more reddish-orange. Even though I have a vitamix, sometimes I soak the cashews and sometimes I don’t, but if I’m not mistaken I believe the cheese is a bit more firm if I don’t soak them.
Nadine @ Loving It Vegan says
Thank you so much for sharing and for your excellent review! 🙂
Julie says
Absolutely amazing, super delicious and easy to make. My friends always love me for preparing this one for their birthdays as a surprise 😛
Alison Andrews says
Awesome Julie! Thanks so much for the amazing review!
La says
Hi, I tried this recipe and the taste is really great, but the cheese isn’t firm even after I added the agar agar powder and let it sit overnight. I made two separate batches and added even more agar agar to one of them but neither of them are firm, they’re still spreadable like cream cheese. Is there something I did wrong in the process that made this happen, and how can I fix it?
Nicola says
La, did you use Agar powder and boil it for over a minute?
Ксения says
please take agar-agar from another manufacturer, its strength should be at least 900 blum
Geetu Melwani says
I think you may not have boiled the agar-agar enough before adding to the cashew mixture. That step of boiling agar-agar is critical to activating it’s setting action
Penny says
Haven’t tried this but I sure hope to soon. Where do you get the mold or is it hand shaped?
Alison Andrews says
We just used a round bowl.
Jo says
This recipe looks amazing! Just wondering if I can substitute the coconut oil for anything? More agar agar? As my son is allergic to coconut & soy, hence the search for a good solid vegan cheese recipe!
Alison Andrews says
Hi Jo, you can try just leaving it out. 🙂
Scarlet says
Hi
I hope you don’t mind me asking, did you try with out the coconut oil?
I am in the same boat as you, my son also has a dairy, soya and coconut allergy so trying to find a cheese!
Mel says
I am going to try this recipe. I wondered if this cheese can be frozen like your cheddar recipe? If not how long will it last in the fridge?
Thanks!
Alison Andrews says
Hi Mel, yes it can be frozen, see the section ‘storing and freezing’.
Annie says
Easy to make and tastes delicious.
Alison Andrews says
Thanks Annie!
Landon says
I made this yesterday. It is so tasty! I’m new to vegan after having my allergies tested. I’m allergic to coconut, and react to oil and derivatives (same with soy), so I left the coconut out. Everything else is just as written. I know that chilled the coconut would add some firmness. Today it shreds, but is still too soft to really shred it. Do you have any suggestions for a suitable replacement for coconutoil? Should the agar be increased if the coconut is left out?
Thanks for any wisdom you can share.