VEGAN RECIPE REVIEW: Mac & Cheese Powder

Today's recipe review is a bit of an odd one--it's for a powder mix that you can use for things like macaroni and cheese. You know the Kraft boxed mac and cheese? I used to LOVE that as a kid! Well, this powder is supposed to be a replacement for that. You could also use it as a "cheese" dip. (I'm going to stop putting quotes around "cheese"--being vegan, there is no cheese in this, but it's easier than trying to figure out what else to call it.)

I actually got this recipe from a book by Sam Turnbull, who owns the website It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken. I've found that I like how her recipes don't use a ton of ingredients; nor do they use weird ingredients that you'll only use one time and then have the rest of it leftover. When I was at Barnes & Noble with Noah for his birthday, I spent some time looking through the recipes in the book and I found SO many that looked good to me. Just check out all the post-it tabs I used!

This recipe for the Mac & Cheese Powder is in this book, but it's also on her website (I wanted to try to find a recipe that I could link to). You can find the recipe here on It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken. (I'll link again at the end of the post.)

I did make another recipe earlier in the week for a queso dip but I realized it wasn't in the book. If you're a new vegan or if you just want to experiment with some recipes, I think hers would be a good start. You can find the book here on Amazon (affiliate link). As much as I love my Kindle, I would not recommend the Kindle version. There is a picture with every recipe and it's a beautiful book! She has a ton of recipes on her site, though, too.

Anyway, I was absolutely starving last night for dinner and I was on my own. I had no idea what to cook, so I started flipping through the recipes that I'd marked. The Mac & Cheese Powder was so simple and looked super quick and easy to make, I decided on that. And really, it couldn't be any easier.

To make the powder, here are the ingredients:

Nutritional yeast, flour, sugar, onion powder, garlic powder, turmeric, paprika, lemon pepper, and salt. I'd never used turmeric in my life until becoming vegan and now I use it all the time. I think it's used for color in this recipe (in a lot of recipes, actually). Simple enough!

The recipes says to just mix everything together and store in a container. However, I don't love the texture of nutritional yeast, so I ended up putting it all in the blender for 20 seconds or so to make it more uniform.

This is what it looked like before blending:

It doesn't make a huge difference, but this is what it looks like after blending. It was a lot smoother:

It made probably about 1-1/3 cups. I filled an 8-oz mason jar and had some leftover to make my macaroni and cheese as well as a couple of tablespoons that wouldn't fit in the jar.

Anyway, making macaroni and cheese with this was SO EASY. While I was measuring out the ingredients for the powder, I had a pot going on the stove for the macaroni. Once the macaroni was done, I drained it and set it aside for a moment. Then I poured some unsweetened almond milk into the pot along with 1/4 cup of the cheese powder. I stirred it over medium-high heat until the sauce thickened (which happens really quickly--probably three minutes).

Then you just add the macaroni back to the pot! I made a single serving of this, which was perfect for me when I had the house to myself and I was starving.

I was very skeptical about this one, but I was really surprised when it actually resembled macaroni and cheese! I didn't expect it to taste like mac and cheese, but I hoped it would be good. And honestly? It was! Clearly, I like black pepper on my mac and cheese, but it didn't even need more seasoning. I thought it was delicious and creamy and it absolutely hit the spot for macaroni and cheese.

My favorite part, though, is that I have the powder on hand so that I can make it very easily whenever I need something fast. It has about a million less calories than traditional mac and cheese, too! Just for reference, I used 2.5 ounces of elbow macaroni (which was 1/2 cup dry). And I used six tablespoons (1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons) of almond milk.

Eli came home right as I was about to eat, so I asked if he would try it. It said it's not bad--which is a big compliment from Eli! I don't think he'd eat a whole bowl of it like he did with the vegan Truffle Mac & Cheese, but I'm glad he didn't hate it.

Noah's having a birthday party with his friends this week, and I think I'm going to try making the vegan chocolate cake for next week. (I'll make a back-up dessert as well, but I think it'll be fun to try a cake--let's hope it works out!)

Once again, here is the link to the Vegan Mac & Cheese Powder.