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I love veganising good old family recipes. Like vegan spaghetti bolognese, spaghetti with vegan meatballs or chilli sin carne. They are all family favourites without meat and taste great.
There are a couple of things that I find hard to replace and one of them is definitely cheese. Whilst there are many vegan cheese alternatives available not all of them serve the purpose. Whilst I enjoy a lot of flavoured vegan cheese, it’s difficult to find vegan cheese alternatives to cook with.
I’ve been sent the Violife vegan cheese range to try out – so here’s my verdict.
About Violife
Violife is a range of award-winning vegan alternative to cheese products that can help you move effortlessly into a plant based diet.
It is free from dairy, preservatives, casein, lactose, gluten, nuts and soya. It is based on coconut oil and is fortified with Vitamin B12, which plays an important role in the metabolism of every cell in our bodies.
Violife products are available in a variety of delicious flavours and styles. You’ll find everything from French Camambert-like chesses, Cheddar-like flavours, spreadable cream cheese-like products but even plant based Cocospread.
What I thought about it
I’ve been sent a selection and I enjoyed them all!
I also made a dish to see how it would work when using for cooking – and the result was simply delicious. So I’m going to share it with you, it’s super simple and it’s delicious to the degree that – I am going to say this: I can serve it to omnivores! Yes. My husband ate it. He did know that it’s made with vegan cheese and thought it was yummy. What a win! I used the Violife Epic Mature for this recipe. But on their page you can find more inspiration for vegan recipes.
Best Vegan Macaroni Cheese with Broccoli and Peas
Like I said, it’s a pretty straightforward recipe, you just swap the cheese for Violife vegan cheese, the milk for oat milk and the butter for olive oil, really simple. I do like the added vegetables, especially the combination of robust broccoli and sweet peas, perfect! You can, however, swap them for others or add more vegetables. Squashes, pumpkins, leek and sweet corn are my other favourites.
Best Vegan Macaroni Cheese With Broccoli And Peas - this is a simple yet great vegan version with lots of possibilities to add other or more vegetables. Delicious and filling - you'll ask for seconds.
- 200 g grated vegan cheese I used Violife
- 300 g dried macaroni pasta cooked half way
- 1 small head of broccoli broken into small florets
- 100 g frozen peas
- 600 ml oat milk
- 3 tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp flour
- 2 slices of old bread I used the ends
- handful fresh thyme
- 1/5 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3-4 garlic cloves minced
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Preheat oven.
Toss the broccoli florets with some olive oil and roast them on 180 Celsius for about 15-30 minutes.
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Cook the pasta as per instructions, but only halfway what you normally cook it for, so just before al dente. This is because it will cook in the over further.
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In a pan, fry the garlic until it's soft. Add the flour and let it clump up and get golden brown whilst stirring continuously. Add the milk bit by bit and keep stirring with a whisk. When all the milk is in the pan, then add the cheese and let it dissolve. Stir in the frozen peas and spices.
Set the sauce aside.
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Blitz the bread pieces in a blender for breadcrumbs.
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When the pasta is cooked, mix in the roasted broccoli florets and the cheese sauce. Pour it over to a baking dish and top it with bread crumbs. Bake it for 20-25 minutes in the oven on 180 Celsius.
Serve immediately.
