Cashew cheese

Love, Love, Love this cashew cheese. It's something like a cream cheese and we use it like a spread. It's great on sandwiches, crackers, some fresh crusty bread (recipe to follow), crumbled onto pizza, or on bagels. This recipe is a multi-day process; all said it's going to need 4 days from start to finish, however it is an easy recipe. When going to buy the supplies it is going to cost a bit to get the probiotic but don't let that scare you off. You only use a couple capsules in each batch so the bottle will last you for many batches of cheese.

I got this recipe from the Sunny Raw Kitchen blog. I changed up the flavors and I don't roll mine into balls. I just leave it in a container.

All blended up and ready to be covered up to sit for 12-18 hours

My two favorite flavors of finished cheese: herb (on the left) and "plain" (on the right)

herb on cracker

Ingredients

3 cups raw cashews soaked in water for 12-14 hours

3 capsules probiotics; make sure they are vegan

2/3 cups water

Directions

DAY 1 

• Soak the cashews in water. You want to make sure that the cashews are completely covered. 
• Let soak for 12-14hrs

DAY 2

• Dump out the water that the cashews were sitting in and give them a quick rinse. 
• In a tough high speed blender, like a VitaMix or a food processor, blend the cashews, water and probiotics until smooth.
• Next, you need to set up a way for the water to drain out of the blended mixture. I place a colander in a large bowl and then line the colander with a couple of layers of cheesecloth. 
• Pour the cheese mixture into the cheesecloth and cover it with the excess cheesecloth. 
• Let this sit at room temperature for 12-18 hrs. This will allow the cheese culture to develop.

DAY 3
Here you get to do the fun flavoring. I have found two flavors that I like so I just split my cheese into half and put them into two containers to be flavored. For each below, just mix the additional ingredients in with your cheese and place it in a sealed container in the refrigerator for 12 hours.

Herb cheese ingredients

Half the cheese, about 1 1/2 cups 

1/4 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. dry crushed basil

1 tsp. dry thyme

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

"Plain" cheese ingredients

Half the cheese, about 1 1/2 cups

1/4 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp onion powder

3/4 tsp. garlic powder

DAY 4
After the cheese has been in the fridge for 12 hours, it's ready to use. Enjoy!