One of the quickest and easiest lunches to prepare is macaroni and cheese.
It’s a rich dish that’s typically tough to make healthy, but with a few simple swaps, you can actually make it a nutritious, delicious staple.
This mac & cheese is loaded with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants thanks to its secret ingredient: cashews.
Blended cashews give it a creamy texture, but with mild flavor. You’ll feel like you’re digging into a buttery, cheesy dish … but … it’s quite the opposite.
This mac is free of dairy, gluten and any animal protein. Plus, it’s easy as heck to make!
The first order of importance is your pasta. Invest in some quinoa, chickpea or lentil pasta which are all gluten free and come in all shapes and sizes.
It has much better flavor than whole wheat pasta and it’s also SO much healthier than white pasta (which the body processes like sugar, spiking insulin levels).
Both whole wheat and white pasta tend to leave you feeling bloated and heavy, which is not how you ever want to feel after eating … anything.
I love this particular brand, Ancient Harvest. Banza chickpea is a fave too. They both taste fantastic and have amazing texture.
The only ingredients in the quinoa pasta are organic quinoa flour and organic corn flour. There’s less than a gram of sugar and it has 4 grams of protein per serving. It’s the perfect nutritional formula for good health and weight loss.
To make this mac, you only need a few ingredients and the only prep involved is soaking your cashews – 30 minutes up to a few hours.
Here’s exactly what you’ll need:
Mac & Cheese Ingredients:
1 box gluten free pasta
1 cup cashews, soaked 30 min- 2 hours
the juice of 1/2 to 1 whole lemon
1/2 tsp. to 1 tsp. of pink himalayan salt
1 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
2 Tbsp. water
1 garlic clove (optional)
1. Cook your pasta according to instructions. While pasta is cooking, make your cashew cheese.
2. Drain the liquid off your soaked cashews and give them a quick rinse under cold water.
3. Place the cashews in a blender along with the water, the juice of 1/2 of a lemon, nutritional yeast, 1/2 tsp. of sea salt.
4. Blend everything until creamy then give it a taste.
5. If it’s bland, add a little more salt 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. You may also want to add more lemon juice to balance out the salt by using the juice of the remaining half of lemon. Blend again
7. Once pasta has cooked, strain it through a colander then mix pasta and cashew cheese.
8. Garnish with a little parsley and then serve.
When I’m making this for the kids, I leave out the garlic, or I add just 1/2 of a garlic clove. It tastes great both ways, just a matter of preference.
You can also serve this a variety of ways. This is a little pea, tomato, parsley option I made for dinner one night.
I also love it this way; just add 1/2 cup marinara sauce to the cashew cheese to make it a decadent pasta dish. I discovered this by accident. It totally reminds me of lasagna, but without all the cheese and fat.
Gluten-feee pasta and a cup of cashews is all it takes to take your mac and cheese game … to a whole other, HEALTHIER level.
Bon appetit!
