Cashew Cheese for Pizza and Toast

If there's one thing I love about my training and nutrition routine, it's the "cheat meal."

That one meal where I allow myself to exceed the recommended calorie threshold and go all out once a week.

It can be anything I don't usually permit myself during the week: an indulgent cake, chocolate, or like here—pizza with cashew cheese.

It sounds very complicated to make, but I can promise you that making cashew cheese is truly child's play.

What are you afraid of? I'm with you step-by-step.

I love using cashew nuts to create spreads that look and even taste like cheese or cream.

You can make countless dishes from them, such as cashew cream, soft cheeses, hard cheeses, and even these excellent ones for pizza, toast, or just over a vegetable salad—Italian style.

Why cashews?

Due to the high fat content, the nut can be ground relatively easily even without professional equipment; even a simple immersion blender can do the job and produce a smooth, lump-free spread.

If you want to make cheese from other nuts, such as almonds, you would need a stronger blender, but that's a topic for another post.

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So, how do you eat it?

A combination of 3 cashew cheese balls with a portion of carbohydrates, such as a slice of pizza, can be a nutritious and good lunch solution.

Note that the fat content is relatively high, so I would slightly reduce other oil quantities in the meal.

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Nutritional values by Noam Bachar, clinical nutritionist and fitness trainer:

One cashew cheese ball out of ten contains:

70 kcal

5g carbohydrates

3g protein

5g fat (of which 0.3g is saturated fat)

Want a great pizza dough recipe? Click here.

Cashew Cheese

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Servings 10 balls

Ingredients

• 150 g cashews approx. 1 cup
• 1 tbsp Dutch mustard
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast found in health stores
• 1/2 lemon's juice
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• pinch of salt
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 cup water

Instructions

1. The night before (or at least 5 hours prior), soak the cashews in water until covered.
2. Drain the cashews from the soaking water.
3. Grind the cashews with the rest of the cheese ingredients in a food processor for a few minutes until a uniform and stable mixture is formed.
4. Transfer the mixture to a small non-stick pan.
   
5. Heat over low heat while stirring constantly.
6. After a few minutes, the mixture should pull away from the sides and become a sticky, cohesive mass. This means the cheese is ready.
7. Prepare a large bowl filled with ice water.
8. Using a spoon, scoop out 10 cheese balls and transfer them immediately to the ice water bowl to firm up.
   
9. Wait 10 minutes, then place over pizza, toast, or a vegetable salad.
   
10. Ta-daaaa!