Cashew Cheese for Pizza and Toasts

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

One meal where I allow myself to exceed the recommended calorie threshold and go wild once a week.

It can be anything I don't allow myself during the week: a decadent cake, chocolate, or in this case—pizza with cashew cheese.

It sounds very complicated to prepare, but I can promise you it's actually child's play to make cashew cheese.

What are you afraid of? I'm with you every step of the way.

I really like using cashew nuts to create spreads that are similar in appearance and even taste to cheese or cream.

You can make countless dishes from them like cashew cream, soft cheeses, hard cheeses, and also 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, like almonds for example, you'll need a stronger blender, but that's for another post.

_______________________________

So how do you eat it?

A combination of 3 cashew cheese balls with a serving 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 cut back slightly on other oils in the meal.

_________________________________

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 wonderful recipe for pizza dough? Click here

Print

Cashew Cheese

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Servings 10 balls

Ingredients

• 150 g Cashews Equivalent to about 1 cup
• 1 tbsp Dutch mustard
• 2 tbsp Nutritional yeast Available at health food stores
• 1/2 juice from half a lemon
• 1 garlic clove
• 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 cashew nuts in water until fully covered.
2. Drain the soaking water from the cashews.
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 obtained.
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, uniform mass. This means the cheese is ready.
7. Prepare a large bowl filled with ice water.
8. Using a spoon, form 10 cheese balls and immediately transfer them to the ice water bowl to firm up.
   
9. Wait 10 minutes, then place over pizza, toast, or a vegetable salad.
   
10. Ta-daaaa!