Recipe Directions
1. Get your cashews. Soak them in water for 2 days. After the 1st day of soaking, switch the water out for new water.
2. Now that your cashews have their nice clean water, let them soak for their 2nd day.
3. Is it day 2 yet? Yay! Ok, on the 2nd day, drain the water from the soaked cashews. Place the cashews in your food processor (a blender will work too). Blend blend blend!
4. Add the nutritional yeast and the lemon juice to help the mixture turn in the processor. Add in the garlic and salt. Then add the basil.
5. Keep blending until its nice and smooh.
Meganthevegan's Thoughts
By meganthevegan A true cheesy delight. Reminiscent of traditional pesto :)
And there you have it! “Cheese” that tastes like pesto!
I used purple basil, that’s why mine looks like it has dark specks in it.
This was my first attempt at cheese.
A raw friend of mine told me how to make it, but she told me it would be really delish with nutritional yeast. It IS yummy, but I can’t help it…nutritional yeast isn’t raw.
I want to give this another go just by using lemon juice next time.
Enjoy! It’s seriously amazing. Everyone’s going to love it!
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Comments
Top voted
richlady
Nov 15, 2010
I want to make all these yummy desserts and spreads, but cant handle the nuts right now. My body is just wanting easier to digest things.... is there a substitute? I mean everything is made with nuts... plus its really expensive.
meganthevegan
Sep 05, 2010
babycat - that's a fab idea. i would love to try that sometime!
rawvoice - i don't know. haha! my friend was telling me how she does it, so i followed her "soak them for 2 days" advice. it turned out great, but i don't know what difference it would make from 8 hours-2 days...probably tastes the same. Yeah I should have been more specific about the basil. I'd say probably about 25-30 medium leaves. I could only measure by the "bushel" because I bought it at the farmers market...it used almost every leaf on that thing!! It was amazing!
simplyraw - so that's why people use pine nuts?! i never have pine nuts. not by intention...next time i'd love to try that! If I could have an amazing flavor without the nutritional yeast, i'd be on cloud 9!!! Well thanks for the comment, I can't wait to try it your way!
sweetpea
Sep 03, 2010
sounds wonderful!
All
reaching4raw
Oct 26, 2011
reaching4raw's Review
Basil Cheese Spread
I just had to throw in that this is one of my ALL TIME favorite spreads and everyone in my fam is addicted to it as well. I sometimes toss a few pine nuts in there too. Love this!!!
richlady
Nov 15, 2010
I want to make all these yummy desserts and spreads, but cant handle the nuts right now. My body is just wanting easier to digest things.... is there a substitute? I mean everything is made with nuts... plus its really expensive.
meganthevegan
Sep 14, 2010
Ooooh...christy breeze, you know what? I JUST saw rejuvelac at my local Co Op for the first time!! I'll be trying that next time..thanks so much!!!
christy breeze
Sep 09, 2010
Recipe sounds great..try using Rejuvelac (soaked wheat 'juice') instead of the nutritional yeast as that works well with every other kind of nut/seed cheese I have made. (Web has info on 'making' Rejuvelac - it's really easy and very good to drink neat as well - full of vitamins. Keeps well in a lidded jar in the fridge for up to 5 days so is very useful!). I use a cup or mug of whatever ground up seeds/nuts (usually half and half of 2 different kinds ie. sunflower seed/walnuts)I fancy plus the same again of rejuvelac (ie. one of same cup or mug). Add the seasoning/herbs I want and leave it,once mixed, covered with a tea towel, at room temp. for 12 hours (it will then set). Refridgerate.
meganthevegan
Sep 05, 2010
babycat - that's a fab idea. i would love to try that sometime!
rawvoice - i don't know. haha! my friend was telling me how she does it, so i followed her "soak them for 2 days" advice. it turned out great, but i don't know what difference it would make from 8 hours-2 days...probably tastes the same. Yeah I should have been more specific about the basil. I'd say probably about 25-30 medium leaves. I could only measure by the "bushel" because I bought it at the farmers market...it used almost every leaf on that thing!! It was amazing!
simplyraw - so that's why people use pine nuts?! i never have pine nuts. not by intention...next time i'd love to try that! If I could have an amazing flavor without the nutritional yeast, i'd be on cloud 9!!! Well thanks for the comment, I can't wait to try it your way!
SimplyRaw
Sep 03, 2010
Is there another seed or nut you would recommend
to substitute the cashews??? I am wondering how it
would taste using pine nuts. They tend to have a cheesy
flavor without the use of nutritional yeast.
Never the less....Your recipe sounds and looks Simply Divine!!!
I am going to give it go, using pine nuts.
We were just talking about making a nice cheese spread.
Looking for something new to eat with our sliced red peppers,
cucumbers, carrot sticks, etc..
Thanks!
RawVoice
Sep 03, 2010
Sounds great, but why do you soak your cashew for 2 days? I usually only soak them 8 hours. Also, I'm not sure how much a "bushel" of basil is. Can you tell me approximately how many leaves that might be?
babycat
Sep 03, 2010
Hmmm I have a surpluss of sunflower seeds, I think I'll try that
sweetpea
Sep 03, 2010
sounds wonderful!
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