Sprinkle this vegan Walnut Parmesan on salads, pasta, popcorn, or anything else that could use a little flavor boost! It’s made with just 4 ingredients and comes together in a matter of seconds. Who knew that dairy-free cheese could be so easy?
Non-Dairy Parmesan
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed that I like to make vegan “parmesan” using nutritional yeast and almonds. It has a nice flavor and it tastes great on pasta and salads. Sure there are a few vegan parmesans available on the market now, but it’s so easy to make your own that it seems silly to buy it. Plus, homemade versions are always much healthier.
One day I was making a Caesar Salad for lunch, and I went to the pantry to get almonds so that I could whip up a batch of parmesan, but there were none to be found. I dug through the freezer, because surely there must be a bag of almond meal somewhere at the back. But sadly, there wasn’t. Back in the pantry, the only nuts I could find were walnuts. I decided to give it a go. How bad could walnut parmesan be?
Vegan Walnut Parmesan
It turns out that walnut parmesan is amazing! I’ve found that I now prefer it over the almond parmesan. Around the same time that I made this amazing discovery, I was sent some vegan cheeses from The Sanctuary at Soledad to try. Their parmesan, which is pine nut based, has a little extra bit of tang to it. It turns out that it comes from mustard powder, so I decided to add a pinch to mine as well. Parmesan perfection!
It couldn’t be easier to make this dairy-free cheese. You just throw all of the ingredients into a spice grinder, a small food processor, or the dry blade of a high-speed blender and mix! Be careful not to over-process it, as it will turn into a cheesy nut butter. (Which might not be too terrible!)
If you’re allergic to walnuts, you can substitute just about any other kind of nut or seed. I love to make parmesan with hemp seeds or almonds.
You can always find a jar of vegan parmesan in my fridge. I love to sprinkle – okay, douse – it on my pasta and on Caesar salads. It’s delicious on popcorn, too! What’s your favorite food to sprinkle parmesan on?
Vegan Walnut Parmesan
Sprinkle this vegan Walnut Parmesan on salads, pasta, popcorn, or anything else that could use a little flavor boost!
This recipe makes about 1/2 cup of parmesan. I serving size is 1 tablespoon
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1/4 cup walnuts
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground mustard seed
Instructions
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Mix all of the ingredients together in a spice grinder, a small food processor, or the dry blade of a high-speed blender. Do not over-mix or you'll end up with cheesy walnut butter! It only takes about 10 seconds to grind everything together in my Blendtec high-speed blender.
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Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Recipe Notes
If you're allergic to walnuts, you can substitute just about any nut or seed.
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Sounds great! I’ll try it tomorrow.
I hope you like it, Mary!
Thanks for this tweaked recipe–love the dry mustard addition. This is really good! I sprinkle ‘parmesan’ on pasta, veg cooked a variety of ways, things with tomato sauces. I will try this in my collards pesto and spinach pesto, as well. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Thank you, Gina!
Lucky Me! I have walnuts and nutritional yeast in the cupboard. Gonna whip up a batch of this to try on pasta tonight. We have been meaning to give vegan parmesan a try for quite some time now but it’s taken us some time to “sidle up to” nutritional yeast. The breakthru moment for us was adding it to our “chickpea pancakes”. So good. Now it seems like we want to add it to everything LOL. Your idea on adding a pinch of mustard seems like a really good one. Thanks ever so much.
I hope you enjoy it, Shelly! i love the idea of using it in chickpea pancakes!