I use this vegan sour cream as a dip for my baked sweet potato chips and as a dollop topping for essentially all my Mexican concoctions (with a vegan twist, of course).

Made from cashews, lemon, and vinegar, this vegan sour cream recipe packs the thick consistency and tartness of traditional sour cream, only it’s dairy-free, easier to digest, and made in the comfort of your own home.

Cashews are exceptionally unique among most other nuts. When soaked in water, they soften and can be blended into a thick cream. Because cashews have a relatively neutral taste, especially after being soaked, you can change their flavor profile pretty effortlessly depending on the desired outcome. That is why cashews make a great foundation for both sweet (think: cheesecake) and savory (think: cheese) dishes. In this sour cream recipe, cashews effectively mimic the original dairy product. The addition of lemon and vinegar gives the vegan sour cream that iconic tartness, so you can easily distinguish it from, say, a yogurt dip.

Pair the following vegan sour cream recipe with this Vegan Burrito with Kidney Beans and Kabocha, these Crispy Baked Carrot Chips, or this Vegan Grilled Veggie Burger. It also works well as a dollop on your favorite vegan soup, such as any of these winter vegetable soups, or on a regular or sweet baked potato!

Vegan Sour Cream Recipe

Makes 2 cups

• 1 cup raw cashew, soaked in water overnight
• ¼ cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• ¼ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
• ½ cup water

Directions

Drain and rinse the cashews. Place them in a high-speed blender with all the ingredients. Blend until smooth. Test the flavor of the mixture and adjust the salt and nutritional yeast quantities to reflect your taste preferences.

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This cheesecake not only takes a vegan twist but lands itself in a cup.

It would be too good to be true if one of our most beloved desserts loved us back, but cheesecake fails to follow through. It’s a dessert that tastes phenomenal but is enjoyed rarely because of its heaviness and calorie concentration. Luckily, there are ways to make cheesecake lighter and healthier. This raw strawberry cheesecake recipe keeps the traditional cheesecake textures in check, but raises the bar on nutritional benefit.

The Cheesecake Factory’s Fresh Strawberry Cheesecake has 733 calories, 29 grams of saturated fat, 425 milligrams of sodium and 66 grams of carbohydrates in each slice. If these stats weren’t cringe-worthy enough, add a few other flavors, and the calorie count goes through the roof. A slice of the chain’s Adam’s Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple Cheesecake bears a whopping 1,326 calories, 20 grams of saturated fat, 700 milligrams of sodium, and 136 grams of carbohydrates – this dessert alone practically satisfies an entire day’s worth of caloric intake!

When you make your own homemade cheesecake using the traditional ingredients of cream cheese, eggs, and sugar, the nutritional information ranges, but can be relatively more redeeming if the portion size is kept in check. Still, the use of heavy, hard-to-digest cream cheese, fatty eggs, and empty-calorie sugar are in the ingredient list and aren’t doing your body or your health many favors.

This recipe is a raw version of cheesecake, no cooking needed! There is no sugar, no dairy, and no eggs. The recipe retains its richness with the use of nuts as the base, but because the cheesecake is served in “mini” cups, you can keep your portion control in check while still getting the definitive, dense dessert that cheesecake is all about.

Mini Strawberry Cheesecakes

Ingredients:

For the Crust:

• 1.5 cups walnuts
• 1 ½ cups raisins
• Dash of sea salt

For the Filling:

• 2 cups cashews, soaked overnight, drained and rinsed
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup honey (or maple syrup or agave nectar)
• Dash of sea salt

Directions:

For the filling, soak cashew overnight in room temperature water. This is an important step. Soaking helps to remove the enzyme inhibitors that the cashews carry to prevent them from sprouting in nature. Birds are too small to deal with the effects of live enzymes in their tiny bellies, so the inhibitors are ideal for them, but not so much for humans. Getting rid of the enzyme inhibitors through soaking helps us to more easily digest nuts. All nuts have to be soaked to get rid of these enzyme inhibitors, save for pistachios and walnuts.

For the crust, food process the raisins and walnuts until the mixture resembles chunky crumbs.

Press the crust mixture against the bottom and sides of small glass ramekins or muffin tins.

Drain and rinse the soaked cashews before use. Combine all the filling ingredients in a food processor and mix until smooth. This may take a few minutes. Be patient – it’ll come together.

Fill each walnut crusted ramekin with a generous tablespoon of the cashew cheesecake mixture.

Set in the refrigerator to help firm or to store for later. You can also eat them right away. Garnish with fresh strawberries before serving.

Bon Appetit!

Images: Zingy Yellow, Aylin Erman

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post Nutritional Breakdown: Vegan Cheesecake (In a Cup) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Time stands still as the best blend of flavors melt in your mouth.

Two summers ago, I had a dream: Salted. Caramel. Ice Cream. Just hearing those words together, I could taste the cascade of sweetness, saltiness, coolness and warmth, all at once, melting in my mouth. And so, the quest began to experience what I imagined would be the sweetest delight on earth.

And then, it happened. Salted Caramel Ice Cream hit the charts. Nearly every micro-creamery was whipping up the flavor. To make it all worse for a tantalized vegan, some began to add crispy bacon to the affair. And yet, my search for a vegan version remained futile. With that, I vowed to concoct my own variety (and acquire an ice cream maker to get the consistency just right).

So, here we are, nearly 730 days later. I’ve whipped up batch after batch and tasted spoonful after spoonful to create the richest, smoothest, creamiest and yes, even healthiest, recipe for all to enjoy. The base of this melting concoction is handmade cashew nut milk. While rich in fats, an ice cream staple, cholesterol-free cashews are full of monounsaturated fats, the “good kind” of fats. They are also full of copper, magnesium, zinc and even Vitamin E—critical to stabilizing a healthy blood pressure and preventing against heart conditions, all while supporting a balanced nervous system and with it, a good mood. It’s no wonder you’ll feel so joyful with every little spoonful.

The Original – Salted Caramel Ice Cream
From Brown Eyed Baker, adapted from David Lebovitz’s original

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar (divided)
• 4 tablespoons salted butter
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 5 egg yolks
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

The Vegan Version – Salted Caramel Ice Cream
Makes approximately 2 pints

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups cashew nut milk (divided):
• 1 cup raw cashews, soaked
• 3 cups water
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup coconut milk (optional—can substitute with an additional cup of cashew milk)
• ½ teaspoon gaur gum
• 1 cup granulated sugar (divided)
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon salted vegan butter (I used Earth Balance soy-free butter)
• ½ teaspoon (or more—to taste) fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pecans or other nuts (optional topping)

Directions

1. To make the cashew nut milk, first soak the 1 cup of cashews in tepid water for at least 3 hours or overnight. Then, in a large blender, mix the following for at least three minutes, until thoroughly blended: cashews, water, agave nectar, coconut oil and vanilla extract. Once the cashews are thoroughly blended, use a nut milk bag or very fine cheesecloth over a large bowl or Mason jar to strain the milk. You should be left with a creamy mixture (just like milk) in your bowl or jar.

2. Pour 2 cups of the nut milk back into the blender and add the coconut milk, if using, along with the guar gum and vanilla. Blend together and let stand.

3. In a quart size pot, melt the sugar over medium heat, stirring constantly until liquefied. Once the sugar begins to turn to a copper-red color, add in one tablespoon of butter and stir until melted. Then, slowly add in the ½ cup cashew nut milk and stir together until fully mixed and boiling. Remove the mixture from the heat. Let cool slightly, and pour ½ cup of your caramel mixture into the cashew nut mix in the blender. Blend together until fully combined.

4. Pour the custard mixture into your ice cream maker and use according to the manufacturer’s directions.

5. Meanwhile, add at least ½ teaspoon of fine sea salt to your remaining ½ cup caramel mixture. Once the ice cream custard has been mixed together in the ice cream maker for at least 15 minutes, add in the remaining caramel by simply pouring it into the custard base.

6. Freeze your ice cream until it’s reached the desired consistency, and enjoy!

* Note, top this sweet summer delight with your choice of nuts, caramel, chocolate sauce, cherries or any other vegan toppings you can dream of. I made a candied pecan topping by chopping a few tablespoons of pecans and toasting them on the stove top (in a shallow cast iron pan), with 1 teaspoon melted vegan butter, 1 teaspoon of light brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon and sea salt, until lightly brown and crunchy.

Images: Jennifer Barckley

The post Vegan This: Salted Caramel Ice Cream (That took 730 Days to Perfect) appeared first on EcoSalon.