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This easy smoky vegan cheese recipe is one to bookmark for the plant-based cheese plate! It’s raw, lightly fermented, giving it a great depth of flavour with the added benefit of goodness for your gut. AND it only calls for 6 ingredients:

• Raw cashews (yup, trusty old cashews again!)
• Coconut cream
• Miso paste (soy-free if needed, such as chickpea or quinoa miso)
• Nutritional yeast
• Good earth-made salt
• A couple of probiotic capsules.

How to Make Simple Fermented Cashew Cheese

To make this recipe you will need a good blender (ideally a high-speed blender) and some organic cheesecloth or linen.

If you’ve been following my recipes, you may have tried my delicious fermented cashew cream cheese recipe.

This recipe is similar in the way it’s made and fermented, but with a few key changes.

Firstly, we don’t use as much liquid to the amount of cashews, which makes for a more solid cheese.

Secondly, the fermentation is done with some cheesecloth wrapped around the cheese, to absorb the excess moisture.

And thirdly, we add a few extra ingredients to give it a more cheddar-style taste, as well as the smokiness. Mmmm…

The steps are as follows:

1. Blend the cashews with the coconut cream in a high-speed blender until silky smooth.
2. Add two probiotic capsules, some soy-free miso paste, salt, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika and liquid smoke and pulse until well combined.
3. Pour the cheese mixture into a bowl then cover with a clean tea towel and wrap a rubber band around the top to secure it. Leave it to ferment for 48 hours. A slight crust may develop on the surface as the mixture ferments and becomes aerated. This is perfectly normal. Just give it a stir with a fork once or twice a day.
4. Line 2 small bowls or cheese baskets with 1-2 layers of organic cheesecloth and divide the mixture evenly between the two. Press it down gently and fold the layers of cheesecloth over the top.
5. Place them in the fridge for 2-3 days where they will continue to ferment and the cheesecloth will dry the outsides a little so it may look a little ‘crusty’ on the edges.
6. Consume within 5 days – you can also freeze the cheese wheels for up to 3 months.

This plant based cheese recipe is so creamy and delicious! It’s quite firm when it first comes out of the fridge but then will soften as it sits out.

If you love this one and want to check out some more easy home made vegan cheese recipes, check out some of my others:

• Vegan cashew parmesan cheese
• Melty oil-free mozzarella
• Vegan ricotta cheese
• Easy creamy cashew cheese (non-cultured)
• Miyoko’s-style vegan cream cheese
• Vegan tahini cheese

I try to keep my vegan cheese recipes pretty simple, but there’s a whole world out there of vegan cheese-making involving traditional methods to create those rich umami flavours that you get in regular cheeses.

It’s really exciting if cheese is something you’ve been missing or are finding difficult to give up!

Anyway, hope you like this one! Let me know what you think by dropping the recipe a quick rating (just click on the stars!).

Enjoy x