Meet the best Vegan Mac and Cheese recipe you’ll ever try. It’s quick to prepare and tastes just as delicious and creamy as the traditional version!
This recipe is just as fast as the popular boxed version, only it’s made without dairy. While the pasta cooks, you can quickly whip up the plant-based sauce in a blender.
When you stir the simple vegan cheese sauce into pasta, most people can’t tell that it’s not the real thing. It’s perfect for those looking for dairy-free comfort food.
This recipe can easily be made gluten-free by using your favorite gluten-free pasta. Brown rice pasta and chickpea pasta are both easy options! If you need a cheese sauce made without cashews, try sweet potato mac and cheese or my nut-free vegan cheese sauce.
Ingredients You’ll Need
All you need is a handful of pantry ingredients, plus nutritional yeast for a “cheesy” flavor.
Spices like garlic powder, onion powder, and chili powder can add extra flavor to the sauce, and I like to add a pinch of turmeric for an orange color. (But that’s optional!) Feel free to add a dash of smoked paprika or black pepper on top, too.
See the variation ideas below, if you’d like to try another flavor combination.
How to Make the Best Vegan Mac and Cheese
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, and cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. Small elbow noodles will cook in just 5 to 8 minutes, while larger macaroni noodles will take closer to 10 minutes.
While the noodles are cooking, combine the cashews, water, lemon juice, dijon mustard, salt, nutritional yeast, and spices. Secure the lid and blend until very smooth.
Pro Tip: If you don’t have a high-speed blender, cover the cashews with 1 cup of boiled water and let them soak for 10 minutes. This should help to soften the cashews, so they will blend more smoothly. Pour the soaked cashews (along with the warm soaking water) directly into the blender, then add in the rest of the ingredients to blend.
When the noodles are done cooking, drain them and return the warm noodles back to the large pot.
Pour the sauce into the pot, and stir over medium heat until the mac n’ cheese is warmed through and the noodles are well coated in the sauce.
Adjust any seasoning to taste, adding more salt, as needed. You can also add an extra few tablespoons of water to help loosen the sauce if needed.
Serve this vegan mac and cheese warm, with any extra toppings you love. It’s delicious with veggies added in, such as steamed broccoli or roasted butternut squash, or you can add any other toppings you love.
Leftover mac n’ cheese can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. You may need to add an extra splash of water when you reheat it on the stovetop since the cheese sauce will thicken when chilled.
Flavor Variations
Prefer baked Mac and Cheese? Add an extra 1/4 cup of water to this recipe, to thin out the sauce (because it will thicken when baked), then pour the cooked pasta and sauce into a greased 9-by-13-inch baking dish. For a crumb topping, stir together a 3/4 cup of breadcrumbs with a 1/4 cup of melted vegan butter and a 1/4 teaspoon salt in a small bowl, then sprinkle the mixture over the top of your mac and cheese. (Use gluten-free bread crumbs if you need to.)
Bake the casserole in an oven preheated to 350ºF for 10 minutes. When the timer goes off, turn on your oven’s broiler and let the breadcrumbs brown for 1 to 2 minutes, just until the topping looks golden brown. Watch closely, so it won’t burn! For a gluten-free topping, try using chopped almonds or other crushed nuts, instead.
Green Chile Mac and Cheese. Replace a 1/2 cup of water with a 4-ounce can of green chilies. You can also add in a few slices of jarred jalapenos, for extra flavor and spice. (This is inspired by vegan nacho cheese, which is my favorite vegan cheese dip ever!)
Miso Mac and Cheese. Did you know that white miso tastes similar to Parmesan cheese? If you don’t have nutritional yeast on hand, you can add a teaspoon of white miso to this recipe to help bring out all of the cheesy flavorings in this recipe. It’s always a good idea to start small with miso, as it can start to overpower a recipe quickly, so start with just a 1/2 teaspoon if you aren’t sure about the flavor.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can experiment with using hemp hearts instead of cashews, if you like. (This works great for vegan ranch dressing, so it might work here, too.) Otherwise try Sweet Potato Mac and Cheese, as an alternative.
Of course! I recommend using a non-dairy milk that has no added sweetener, but you can use oat milk, almond milk, or even soy milk if you’d like to add extra protein to this recipe. I don’t recommend using coconut milk, unless you don’t mind the added coconut flavor.
Looking for more vegan comfort food? Try Vegan Quesadillas, the Best Veggie Burgers, Vegan Pad Thai, or Lentil Bolognese for more ideas.
Best Vegan Mac and Cheese
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups raw cashews
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- ¾ cup water
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (or ½ clove garlic)
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
- pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon spicy brown mustard (optional)
- 16 ounces Elbow or shell pasta of choice (gluten-free, if needed)
Instructions
- Prepare the pasta according to package directions. Be sure to add a tablespoon of salt to the cooking water, so the noodles will be well seasoned.
- While the pasta is cooking, combine the cashews, lemon juice, water, salt, nutritional yeast, chili powder, garlic, turmeric, cayenne (if using), and mustard in a high speed blender and blend until silky smooth. If the mixture is too thick, add another tablespoon or two of water and blend again.
- Once the pasta is tender, drain and return it to the pot. Stir in the cheese sauce, and adjust any seasoning to taste. Serve warm, with any toppings or add-ins you like, such as steamed broccoli.
- Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. The mac and cheese will thicken when chilled, so you may need to add a splash of water when reheating it on the stove top, plus an extra sprinkle of salt.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
If you try this Vegan Mac and Cheese recipe, please leave a comment and star rating below letting me know how you like it.
Simply delicious!
Came out delicious! I also added a pinch of white pepper and a tablespoon of the brine of my fermented veggies for a more cheese-like taste. Loved it!
It’s so yummy! I go to high school and I don’t really have time or money to make my own meals, so this is perfect, since it took me only 30 minutes to make.. I’m trying to convince my family to start eating healthier and they love this recipe! Thank you so much 🙂
There are so many recipes out there for vegan mac & cheese, but i’m so happy I tried this one. It was absolutely fabulous with a bit of roasted broccoli. Everyone loved it. I plan on making it again with some sliced tofu dogs thrown in there.
Definitely a home run with this recipe. It was delicious. The cheese sauce was a bit liquid for our taste so we added about half of a small potato steamed (80g) in the microwave and it gave it the creamy consistency we were looking for. Can’t recommend this recipe enough
Just made this for my family who is not vegan, and it was an absolute hit! The flavor is amazing!
Easy and extremely tasty. An excellent mac n’ cheese recipe that will be a part of my favorite recipes. Thank you!
uhm amazing! you know when other vegan mac and cheese recipes just taste kinda like paper or something,, well this one doesn’t! for real. my not-vegan-loving mom said and i quote “that’s actually really good” plus this recipe is easy (no boiling veggies or anything). so even if you end up not liking this, you didnt even waste any time because it takes little to no thought and effort. highly recommend!!
This is my new FAVORITE Mac and cheese recipe. I’ve made it several times now, making minor tweaks each time and my favorite way to make it now is to leave out the garlic clove, chili powder, and mustard and I add 1 tsp each of onion and garlic powders, plus I add some oil to the mixture to make it a little less “coat your lips” sticky. I really don’t think you can go wrong any way you make it, though! I can’t wait to make this for my non vegan friends because I know they’ll love it.
Can you freeze this??
Thanks for the recipe. I was a little disappointed by the sauce to macaroni ratio. I’m assuming it assumed a 16 ounce box of dry macaroni but I didn’t use all of what I cooked because there didn’t seem like there was enough sauce to cover it. It looked a lot like the photo, though, so I’m assuming that was the intent. I like the combo of cashews and nutritional yeast here and it was quick and easy to whip up so I definitely appreciate that. I am likely to use a recipe with more sauce to macaroni in the future just because I like mine a little creamier and I may omit some (but not all) of the spices as well.
I made this for lunch and it was so good! I had half the amount I needed of cashews, so I added the remainder in volume in hemp seeds. Still turned out great!
Switched to vegan a few months ago. Really wanted mac n cheese so I bought all the ingredients. I’m glad I made the sauce before boiling the pasta. This tastes nothing like cheese and is really unappealing in both look and smell, Needless to say dinner plans were changed around. Now I have a sauce I’m going to have to figure out what to do with because throwing away a cup and a half worth of cashews ($$$) isn’t happening. Hopefully I can switch it to some kind of queso.
For anyone who still knows what cheese tastes like wait until you don’t to try this type of recipe.
I found my new favourite Mac and cheese 🥰 I’ve never been the biggest fan of nutritional yeast so I halved it and it was the perfect amount for me definitely making again
Can’t wait to try this! Just wondering, is the mustard necessary for this recipe? I’m not a huge fan. Thanks!
You can leave it out! I just added it for another layer of flavor.
This is so freakin good, tonight will be like the tenth time we make this. Thank you so much for this recipe!!!
Too much mustard that unfortunately ruined the dish.
Just made it today. It’s delicious!!
Thank you for this lovely recipe!
I am just a bit confused about the amount of uncooked pasta in grammes I need for this recipe. Coult you help me with that?
The only issue I had with this recipe is that it was so good, I ate three peoples serve in one day (over lunch and dinner) added some extra herbs and veggies but the flavours from your original recipe turned out absolutely amazing!! Didn’t even miss the dairy. Thanks heaps.
This is absolutely delicious!!! My favorite Mac n cheese recipe by far!
This was AMAZING!!!!
This is the closest to the real thing I’ve had! Great recipe – the only change I made was adding a little more water to the sauce.
Does anyone happen to know if this could be all assembled together and then baked the next day? Just curious how that would turn out.
This Mac and cheese recipe is SO GOOD! I’ve probably tried 10+ vegan Mac and cheese recipes at this point, and this one is our new go-to. I love how easy this recipe is, making it a perfect week night meal 🙂
Raw cashews are supposed to be poisonous – do I need to steam the cashews before trying your recipe? Don’t want to poison my family…
Cashews that are labeled “raw” in a package at the store aren’t truly raw– they have to go through a steaming process before they are sold, similar to the way almonds do. I think I would only be concerned about raw cashews if I were handling the actual plant and shell myself. Here’s more info: https://ucdintegrativemedicine.com/2017/11/cashew-not-nut/
How long does this keep in the fridge or freezer? This was amazing!
I usually keep in in the fridge for up to a week, but I imagine you could freeze it for up to 3 months in an airtight container. Gla you enjoyed it!
So delicious!!! I made the cheese sauce to the recipe… it is the best vegan cheese sauce I have tasted! I then mixed my noodles and sauce w sautéed mushrooms and onions, and tossed with salsa. So yummo and exactly what I was craving! Thank you! 💜😊
Love this recipe. This is my third time making it and my family loves it! Quick tip: Toss the cooked pasta and the cheese sauce in a large mixing bowl. Toss and then put in the oven with some panko crumbs on top. Omg!
It was delicious!! Thank you for the recipe!
I’m a there’s-never-too-much-cheese person. Like, I put parmesan on top of my regular mach and cheese, no matter how cheesy the pasta is. I made this because I loved the vegan sriracha mayo so much. And I can tell you, there is no need for more cheese with this. I can honestly say, I don’t miss the cheese. And that just never happens!
This is so good, I’ve made two batches in a week. Even my anti-vegan husband said it was really good.
On my second batch, I reduced the mustard by half, for my taste. Overall, just freaking delicious. I could eat this all day.
I didn’t have raw cashews on hand so I used roasted and it actually came out great! It definitely adds some kind of smokey flavor but complemented the other spices really well. I added bread crumbs and baked it as well. Delicious!
I added 1/2 a sautéed onion to the sauce. The recipe is delicious and a hit in the house of one very picky eater.
Yum! What’s your family’s favorite kind of pasta? We’re on a banza kick right now.
best vegan mac and cheese EVER!!!
Hits the spot! Let me preface this by saying I struggle in the kitchen…I have a wimpy nutri-bullet blender but it handled this recipe like a champ. I soaked my cashews and it was smooth sailing. I decided to bake the mac but forgot to set a timer so it dried out a little but that’s totally my fault & it’s still sooo good. I put some crushed up potato chips on the top but accidentally burnt it when I broiled it trying to make the top crispy (classic). Still 5/5 situation for this culinarily-challenged vegan. If I can do it so can you!!
Delicious! I added a blend of breadcrumbs and shredded violife parmesan to the top and broiled for like 10min for some crunch!Thanks so much
Thanks for the recipe, it’s really great! Definitely a staple recipe to experiment with 😊 How long does this keep for? Is it freezer friendly? I do apologise if I missed where you wrote that
This sauce should last for up to a week in the fridge in an airtight container, or up to 3 months in the freezer. Glad you enjoyed it!
I forgot the chili powder & it still turned our really good. Thank you for posting this delicious recipe!
Beautiful looking recipe, is there anything i could substitute the mustard for?
I have made so many cashew cream sauces but this one is so good it makes me wonder how I was so satisfied with the other ones! I followed the recipe exactly except that I didn’t have mustard, instead I added a dash of white vinegar.
Can’t wait to have the leftovers for lunch 🙂
Just made this for lunch. It was delicious! I have made a couple of vegan mac and cheeses before but they just didn’t hit the spot like this one did. I added a few things extra. I only had unsalted roasted cashew nuts so used that. I added 1 small steamed carrot, 1/4 tsp onion powder, 1/4 tsp veggie stock powder and used soya milk instead of water to make it more creamy. Will be a regular for us. Thank you!
This was amazing! The spices were in perfect balance. I LOVE traditional dairy mac and cheese, and this was just as good, but wonderfully different.
Amazing. I will make this recipe over and over again. It was delicious. Thanks for sharing!
WOW! I have made a dozen types of homemade vegan mac n cheeze, and none of them have been this delicious AND simple. Absolutely give this a try– I highly recommend soaking the cashews first.
This is one of my new favorite recipes. I can’t believe how simple and easy to make it is. LOVE!
The lemon is too overpowering for me and my family. I also wasn’t a fan of how the flavours blended together or the consistency. I did my best to fix it up by adding more water and adding vegan cheese but it could not be fixed. I appreciate the hard work that went into making this, but I would not recommend this recipe.
I am not sure if I made the recipe correctly but I strongly disliked it. I am seeing all of these positive comments raving about the sauce but mine turned out watery and smelled terrible and tasted even worse. I followed the recipe but I must have been doing something wrong!
Is it possible you used brewer’s yeast instead of nutritional yeast? That would make a HUGE difference, as it has a very strong smell and taste. That would be my best guess, but I also have a cheese sauce that doesn’t call for nutritional yeast if you want something with a little spice to it: https://detoxinista.com/vegan-nacho-cheese/
does the sauce freeze?
Made this today and it’s one of the BEST meals I’ve had in forever! Made so quickly and soo tasty. Thank you 🙂