JALAPENO CHEESY SAUCE
I enjoy potatoes and Mexican food so why not combine the two? Even my non-vegan husband liked the creamy "Jalapeno Cheezy Sauce" on his plain potatoes.
The recipe for the cheesy sauce is in “The Garden Grazer” MEXICAN FIESTA BAKED POTATO comment section (I copied and pasted it below).
The "Jalapeno Cheezy Sauce" calls for arrowroot. What is the difference between using flour, cornstarch, or arrowroot as a thickener? Read this short article.
Jalapeno Cheezy Sauce recipe by someone named Diane:
2 cups water (divided)
1/4 cup raw unsalted cashews (presoaked in water if you don't have a power blender like Vitamix)
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsps. arrowroot (see note below)
1 tbsps. lemon juice to taste
1/2 red bell pepper, from a jar or fresh, or 1/2 small jar pimentos. Just enough to give it that orange cheese color. Optional. You may want white cheese.
6 jarred pickled jalapeno rings (usually found in the International food aisle of most supermarkets. Optional but a delicious addition.)
Pour half the water into a saucepan and bring to a boil while adding the other half of the water, plus all the other ingredients to a blender.
Blend all until completely smooth.
Add contents of the blender to the boiling water in the saucepan and bring it back to a boil while stirring constantly.
It will thicken to nacho cheese consistency.
Serve hot as a sauce or after it thickens in the fridge, you can spread it on toast or bread or in a quesadillas.
You can reheat it to make it into a sauce again. You may need to add a bit of water. If you want a thicker sauce, add up to 1 more tbsps. arrowroot or cornstarch.
What I did differently for the Jalapeno Cheezy Sauce:
-Presoaked the cashews in hot water for at least 30 minutes
-Reduced salt to 1/2 tsp
-Used 1/2 of red bell pepper from a jar
-Added 8 pickled jalapeno rings
-Mixed all ingredients in a Vitamix including all of the water. A Vitamix can also heat and thicken the sauce but I transferred the mixture to a pot to see how it did on the stove. I heated on high, stirring constantly, and it thickened nicely within a few minutes.
