This is my love language.
Ooey, gooey, stretchy, melty, where have you been all my life- vegan mozzarella. I'm pretty sure I just made all my vegan dreams come true. I made this recipe four times this week, FOUR. That's how amazing this is. Just dip some tortilla chips in this bad boy and welcome to heaven.
You can also use this anywhere you would like a melty mozzarella experience, which is, um, everywhere! Let's see... pizza, lasagna, grilled cheese, dips, the possibilities of deliciousness are endless.
I haven't even gotten to some of the best news yet. This takes only 7 ingredients, one of them being water. It takes only 15 minutes to make, AND it doesn't even have any oils or "bad stuff". Can you tell I'm excited? I'm SO excited.
So what makes it stretchy and gooey. Tapioca! Who knew right? It's the main ingredient in Daiya, a well-known brand of vegan cheese, and I found that Somer McCowan from the blog Vedged Out also used tapioca starch in her Fresh Moxarella Cheese.  She is one smart cookie, er.. well some smart cheese, because she knew what was up. I adapted her original recipe to make a mozzarella that suited my own taste buds but be sure to try her original recipe and check out her blog. So many delicious vegan recipes to be had!
Back to tapioca. Tapioca provides this amazing stretchy, melty quality that any good vegan cheese deserves. It is an absolute must for this recipe. Any other starch will make a thick sauce, but only tapioca will give it that stretch. If you can't find it in stores you can pick it up on Amazon here.
This recipe will stay in a melty stretchy state, even when cold, but if you are looking for a grate-able cheese, try my recipe for The Best Vegan Mozzarella.
To make melty stretchy gooey vegan mozzarella:
To make Melty Stretchy Gooey Vegan Mozzarella:Â Boil the cashews for 10 minutes until softened. Then toss into the blender with the remaining ingredients, and blend until completely smooth. It will be very watery, don't worry, it will get cheesy!
Pour it in a small sauce pan, and heat over medium-high heat. Stir to keep anything from burning. You will start to see clumps forming.
Then all of a sudden, magic! Everything comes together and makes this cheesy, melty, deliciousness. Keep stirring and cooking for another minute or two, to make sure it's finished firming up. It should take about 5 minutes to cook total. That's it! Done. So easy.
If you want to save it for later, store in an air tight container in the fridge. It won't firm up like a hard cheese, it will stay pretty soft, but let's get real, who needs hard mozzarella anyways?
Serve as a dip, spread onto some toast, dollop onto pizza, do whatever your creative cooking spirit tells you. Don't worry if you eat it all in one sitting (cause I would never do that), you can always make more.
Bon appetegan!
Sam.
Melty Stretchy Gooey Vegan Mozzarella
Ingredients
- ½ cup raw cashews,, softened (see step 1)
- 1 cup water
- 3 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons tapioca starch, (also called tapioca flour)
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
Softening the cashews:
- Softening the cashews first helps them blend. If you have a high-powered blender you may be able to skip this step, but if not, this step is important to get a smooth cheese. You can either boil or soak the cashews. To boil the cashews (the fast method): add the cashews to a small pot, cover with water, and boil for about 10 minutes until the cashews are very tender. To soak the cashews: add the cashews to a bowl, and cover with water. Let soak for 4 hours or overnight until tender. Drain and rinse cashews before using.
To make the vegan mozzarella:
- Add the cashews along with the 1 cup of water and all the remaining ingredients to a blender. Blend until completely smooth. It will be very watery.
- Pour into a small saucepan and put over medium-high heat. Continually stir. The cheese will start forming clumps, keep stirring and it will continue clumping until the mixture turns from watery to a thicker melty cheese sauce. This takes about 5 minutes. Serve hot or allow to cool and store in an air-tight container in the fridge for 2 - 3 days. The cheese will get thicker as it cools but will stay in a melty state.
Notes
*If you want to return the cold mozzarella back to dipping consistency, reheat over medium heat while stirring constantly so it doesn't burn. Once it is hot and bubbling it might have thickened up too much. You can thin it out by adding a splash of water at a time, stirring it in until desired consistency is reached.
*To ensure a smooth cheese, you may also want to pour the liquid through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth before cooking to remove any cashew bits that didn't grind up. This will ensure a smooth cheese texture.
Nutrition
Madeline Files says
I was absolutely agog watching it go from liquid to the fabulously stretchy and cheesy end product. Feels like kitchen alchemy! It's delicious and the texture hits just right. Thank you!
Jess @ IDTLC Support says
Yes! Absolute vegan magic!
Kay says
Anyone try freezing this after cooking?
Jess @ IDTLC Support says
Yes it does freeze well! Thaw and warm up as needed.
Kay says
Thank you! 🙂
Sandra says
First of all: I've been making this recipe for years, and I still think its absolutely delicious. It's easy, with no weird ingredients (except tapioca starch I guess - though you can get that in the Asian supermarket!) In my opinion, it tastes better than the shredded vegan cheeses you can buy. At the very least, it is way healthier than those cheeses, who mostly consist of coconut oil.
Anyway, after using it for so long, I wanted to share two of my favourite hacks!
1. I always batch-make the liquid cheese mixture in my blender and then freeze it - in its liquid state - in various containers, e.g. ice tray cubes, small tupperware etc. That way, I always have some on hand, and depending on the recipe, I thaw only a handful of ice cubes. Then, I prepare them as intended by heating it up until it gets gooey.
2. Which brings me to my second hack - you can totally heat this up in the microwave instead of on the stove. It's what I normally do when I crave a cheese sandwich! Put about 1/3 cup of the liquid cheese mixture in a small microwave bowl and microwave it for 20 seconds. Stir, and if needed, microwave in 5 second intervals until your desired consistency. Mine is usually perfect after 30-35 seconds. Fair warning, I've never done this for larger portions (e.g. if I need enough cheese for pizza), but I'm guessing it would also work.
Thanks a ton for this awesome recipe!
Jess @ IDTLC Support says
Very cool tips, thanks for sharing Sandra!
Bill says
Easy to make and my wife who is not vegan said it tastes like mozzarella. I put it on pizza but it didn’t seem to melt either freshly made or on the second pizza after being refrigerated.
Jess @ IDTLC Support says
Sounds like it was quite thick, but a little water should help get it into a melty state again.
Rosemary says
I’m surprised! It really works! Just needs a bit more salt, for me. But I can always add that later or with a particular recipe, like pizza or lasagna. Thanks for working on this recipe. I do have a question: When I strained the liquid prior to cooking, there were quite a lot of tiny bits. I put them all back in the liquid because I thought it would not thicken. Was this assessment incorrect? No matter - it’s great! Will do the silken tofu next!
Jess @ IDTLC Support says
We're so glad you enjoyed it! If desired, you can strain out those tiny bits through cheesecloth before you cook it to make it as smooth as possible.
Kay says
I read that as "pizza lasagna," sounds good to me!
Lainey says
this recipe is so yummy!! I was wondering if you could bake this mozzarella? I was wanting to bake it on top of Japanese curry rice and wasn’t sure if it would hold up/burn. thank you!
Jess @ IDTLC Support says
It should work just fine! It works great on vegan lasagnas and pasta bakes.
Gillian Barratt says
I used this on a baked aubergine parmigiana and it was excellent.