Vegan Mac & Cheese Balls
Prep for 20 minutes
Cook for 50 minutes
Ready in 1 hour 10 minutes
Serves 2-3 people
It’s Vegan! ✌🏻
Ingredients
Cheese Sauce:
Veggies & Bulk:
- Potatoes (4-5)
- Carrots (3 ½)
- Jalapeño (1)
- Olive Oil
Seasonings/Extras:
- Chili Powder (optional)
- Nutritional Yeast
- Onion Powder
- Garlic Powder
- Salt
- Black Pepper
- Liquid Smoke
Other Ingredients:
- Spiral Noodles
- Shell Noodles
- Corn Starch
- Whole Wheat Flour
- Panko
Preparation
- Fully cook your potatoes and carrots either by steaming them the old-fashioned way using a pot and steam basket, or by using an Instant Pot on the ‘steam’ setting. Either way, it should take about 20-30 minutes for them to cook fully.
- Preheat your oven to 400F.
- Take your potatoes and carrots, and put them into a food processor, smashing them down slightly by-hand as you get ‘em all in there.
- Quickly chop up one jalapeño, and toss that into the food processor, too!
- Now, pour olive oil liberally into the food processor, until you’ve included about ⅓ cup. If you don’t want to use that much oil, you can easily replace about half of the oil for water, and you’ll be fine.
- Blend it up! Check on the consistency periodically, and blend until it becomes a thick sauce, with no chunks!
- Honestly, it will already taste suspiciously good, but make it even better and cheese-sauce-ier by adding:
- Salt
- Black Pepper
- Nutritional Yeast
- Garlic Powder
- Onion Powder
- Liquid Smoke (just a dash!)
- Chili Powder (optional, for a spicier sauce!)
- Fold the spices in using a spatula, and give it a try to make sure it’s perfect!
- Set aside, and allow to cool while covered.
- Now, boil a pot of water, and make about four (4) cups of noodles, according to box instructions; about 8 minutes.
- When your noodles are done, strain them, and then put them back into the pot. Then, fold in your cheese sauce.
- Now you’ve got yourself totally ready-to-eat delicious mac ‘n’ cheese! Temptation be damned, though, ‘cause you must press forward!
- Add in a bit of corn starch, and then start adding flour, folding it in slowly, and adding corn starch and/or flour only until the consistency is very thick, and not to the point where there are any built-up bits of powder. Add in just little bits at a time– you can always add more, but you can’t take any back out!
- Once this mix is quite thick and becomes difficult to stir, taste it and see if it needs any seasoning added– I seasoned mine back up with just a bit of Black Pepper and Garlic Powder.
- Now, when they taste perfect, just fold in about a cup of Panko with your hands, and start to mold and pack them into ball-shapes using the palms of your hands.
- Place each one onto a greased cookie sheet, about 1” apart from each other. This recipe should yield about 12 mac n’ cheese balls!
- Just top with whatever extra seasonings you’d like, such as extra chili powder or salt, and then throw ‘em in!
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, and then allow to cool! Viola!
- Enjoy.
Thanks for reading!
~ Jessica G.
