There\’s a lot of great options on the market these days for people who can\’t have dairy milks or cheeses – Biocheese and Notzarella are two brands that are doing very well in the Australian market (they\’re pricey, but excellent). Almond and soy milks are now standard at most cafés, and available in every major supermarket. However, if you\’re going raw, are on a budget, miss the squeakiness of haloumi or the ricotta in your spinach and ricotta rolls, here\’s a few really easy recipes you can try at home.
CASHEW CHEESE SAUCE
Soak one cup of raw cashews overnight – or if you\’re pushed for time/not on a raw diet, boil them for 15 minutes. Add to a blender with garlic, salt, a generous knob of margarine and a squeeze of lemon juice. Blend until smooth. This sauce works really well on macaroni, in a lasagna, or over boiled veggies.
SOY RICOTTA
A note before you start: you can make this recipe with light soy milk, but full fat tends to get a better yield.
Pour soy milk into a saucepan, and when it\’s on the brink of boiling/has just started to boil, pour in a generous amount of white vinegar – it\’s usually best if you wait until you see some bubbles. The milk will separate, when you see a clear distinction between liquid and curds pour the mixture through a cheesecloth – what\’s left is your ricotta.
DAIRY-FREE HALOUMI
Haloumi cheese is essentially dairy milk curds, and soy milk curds = tofu. To get it tasting more cheesy than egg-y, Cooking with Plants freezes the tofu overnight, presses it between two heavy boards for a few hours (with something to soak up the liquid), bastes it with a marinade made from nutritional yeast, tumeric, paprika, onion powder and sea salt, leaves it for another few hours, and then fries it in neutral oil.
NUT MILK
Making your own nut milk is incredibly easy. For cashew, almond or macadamia milk, all you have to do is blend your nuts with a decent amount of water (depending on how strong you want your milk, one cup nuts to three cups water usually gives a good consistency) until it\’s completely smooth, and then strain out any sediment (which, if it\’s from macadamias, cashews or peeled almonds, can then be seasoned and used as another ricotta alternative). If you like a little sweetness to your milk, you can add a few dates or organic vanilla.
TOFU FETA
The process here is much the same as it is for tofu haloumi, except instead of basting and then frying, you need to cut it into cubes and leave it to marinate for a few days in this mixture: one part lemon juice to two parts apple cider vinegar, mixed with two parts water (so if you used one cup of lemon juice, you\’d need two cups of vinegar and two cups of water). As a rule of thumb, 1/4 of a cup of lemon juice plus double that of water, and then of vinegar usually covers one block of tofu very well.
VEGAN RANCH DRESSING
This technically isn\’t a milk or a cheese, but it\’s so damned good and it\’ll be a winner with any vegans you have over (as they won\’t usually be able to have any creamy dressings, due to milk and/or eggs).
Mix together two tablespoons of crushed garlic with the juice of half a lemon and a little salt – some fresh dill is good if you have it. Add half a cup of non-dairy milk, and blend that together (this will reduce the amount of oil you need). Keep blending the mixture at high speed, and slowly pour in a neutral oil – the thinnest stream you can manage, or the mixture won\’t emulsify. When the oil begins to sit on top of the mixture rather than blending in, you\’ve added enough.
This makes a great dressing on its own, or it can be whizzed with green olives or beetroot to make a great, dairy-free creamy dip.