Jazz up your salad with this delicious Creamy Cashew Sauce. This little recipe adds a cheesy, creamy decadence to any salad, raw or cooked vegetable and turns a simple meal into an incredibly tasty dish.
It has a creamy, smoky, cheesy flavour without the dairy and is also suitable for gluten free folk. Just be sure to use organic high quality herbs and spices to ensure they are gluten and excipient free along with an alkalising hand harvested salt.
This has become a go to recipe in our house as it's very versatile and quick and easy to whip up. Shhhh......A little secret, if you forget to soak your cashews for the minimum time, just boil some water and soak in a glass container or jar with the lid on for 15 minutes while you prepare the rest of your meal, then follow the recipe as described below.
Ingredients
1 cup cashews
1/2 red capsicum
1 tsp garlic powder or 1 clove raw garlic
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp dried chipotle
1/2 tsp smokey paprika powder
Dash of olive oil
2-3 TBS water
Salt to taste
Method
1. Soak the cashews in filtered water for at least 4 hours or overnight.
2. Drain and rinse the cashews.
3. Add rinsed cashews to a high speed blender along with all the other ingredients except water and salt.
4. Blend on medium speed to get the ingredients moving, slowly adding the water 1 TBS at a time. Check the consistency is not too thick so the mixture can move around easily and blend to become creamy.
5. If mixture is too thick, add a little more water and another dash of oil until you reach a thick pouring cream consistency.
6. Add salt to taste. I usually add around 1- 1/2 tsp.
The Salt will bring out the flavour of this creamy sauce and enhance the combination of the garlic and the smoky chipotle chilli.
The olive oil adds richness, while the water helps thin out the cream. By alternating the 2 you will reach the level of thickness and creaminess you desire.
This sauce is so delicious on its own as a dipping sauce for chips, a salad dressing, or mixed through pasta or zucchini noodles for a creamy and cheesy non dairy creamy pasta.
Enjoy!
