I was first introduced to the magic of nut-based cheeses in Guilty Kitchen's cookbook Cooking With Coconut Oil. I made her cream "cheese" frosting and was immediately in love. It inspired me to create a sweet cashew cream cheese to use as the authentic filling in my Paleo King Cake.
Recently, I got a review copy of my friend Carol Lovett's new cookbook Ditch The Wheat, which features a popular bagel recipe. I knew I had to make a savory dairy-free cream cheese with which to top these beauties off. Her recipe simplifies the traditional method for making bagels - no boiling required, and instead you use a doughnut pan to create their shape. I bought this one, which is 100% silicone with no additives, and worked perfectly with Carol's bagel recipe.
This savory cream cheese is the perfect companion for these bagels. It is ridiculously simple to make and a very welcome addition to any dairy-free kitchen, including Paleo and vegan. It was easy to adapt my existing sweet cream cheeze recipe to savory with the removal of added sugar and by adding in nutritional yeast and garlic, which surprisingly does not add much garlic flavor to the recipe but instead gives it a nice "bite".
Carol's bagels are going to be a regular addition to the "breakfast treat" rotation in my household. My husband is a New Yorker and bagels are one of the things he has missed the most since we went Paleo in 2010. Yesterday just happened to be our 9-year anniversary, and this combo of bagels + cream cheeze was the perfect breakfast to start out the day.
We are overdue to try another bagel superstar in the Paleo cookbook world - Jennifer and Simone's traditional boiled recipe from The New Yiddish Kitchen. Maybe we'll have a bagel showdown on the blog here with the two recipes :)
Now I hope you enjoy this savory cream cheese recipe!
Savory Dairy-Free Cream "Cheese"
Published 03/06/2016
If you are following a Paleo or vegan diet and seriously miss cheese, this savory cream cheese is just what you need! It's the perfect topping for a bagel.
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 2 cups filtered water for soaking, plus additional 2 TB for recipe
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 1/2 to 1 TB raw apple cider vinegar
- 2 to 4 TB nutritional yeast
- 1/2 to 1 tsp finely ground unrefined salt
- juice of 1 lemon (about 2 TB)
- optional, but recommended: 1-2 cloves of garlic
Instructions
- Soak cashews in the 2 cups of water ideally overnight, but for a minimum of 2 hours.
- Drain cashews and add to a food processor (recommended) or a blender (I use a Ninja blender and it works fine for this). Add remaining ingredients (including the 2 TB water) and blend until smooth. Scrape down the sides a few times.
- I recommend beginning by adding the lower end amount of ACV, yeast, and salt and tasting to see if it suits your preference. Add additional of each ingredient until it tastes perfectly delicious to you!
- The garlic is optional but highly recommended - it adds a nice "bite" to the flavor and doesn't really add much garlic flavor at all.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge and enjoy!
- Goes perfectly with the bagel recipe in either the Ditch the Wheat or The New Yiddish Kitchen cookbook or your other favorite bagel.
Cook time: 00 hrs. 0 mins.
Total time: 10 mins.
Recommended Tools and Ingredients
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Kuku sabzi is an herb-packed frittata that is traditionally eaten to welcome the arrival of spring in Iran. This version adds some cruciferous leafy greens to maximize the nutrient density. You can easily adapt this recipe to suit your tastes and experiment with using different herbs and different greens. Plus it is perfect for Paleo, Whole30, or low-carb eaters!