(mis)Adventures in cooking: vegan mac n cheese

So far on my journey to be a better, healthier me, most of my vegan homecooked meals have been really tasty – even my meat-eating friends have enjoyed them. That was, until last week when I decided to make a vegan mac n cheese.

Mac n cheese – particularly that made by Kraft (I know I know, so not healthy!) – is one of my all-time favorite comfort foods. I remember eating it as a kid with a side of steamed broccoli seasoned with a little spike and lemon juice and feeling like everything was right with the world. As an adult, I still get that same feeling from a nice big warm bowl of mac n cheese.

Now that I’m on a mission to only eat a whole-foods, plant-based diet at home, I can no longer eat mac n cheese. So when I found a recipe sans dairy products, I was VERY excited to try it. Instead of cheese and milk, the sauce calls for cauliflower, nutritional yeast and carrots. I like all those ingredients, so I thought it would be great. I was wrong. It wasn’t terrible (or as my husband put it, “offensive”), but it wasn’t very nice. Perhaps it’s because my brain was expecting a cheesy flavor, and this just didn’t have it. Or perhaps I’m still getting used to the flavor of nutritional yeast. Either way, I was pretty disappointed by the outcome (although the roasted veggies were lovely!).

I’m still determined to find a good substitute for mac and cheese, so if you have any recipes you have tried and really liked, please let me know in the comments!