Simple WFPB Cashew Cream
A simple blender cashew cream that replaces sour cream, cheese sauce, or heavy cream in any recipe. Soaked cashews blended smooth with lemon, optional garlic, salt, and nutritional yeast. The texture you control with the water.
Ingredients
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- 1 cup raw cashews
- ¾ cup water, plus more as needed
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1 small garlic clove (optional)
- ¼ tsp sea salt (optional)
- 1-2 Tbsp nutritional yeast, optional, for a cheesy flavor
Method
- Soak the cashews in hot water for 15 to 30 minutes, or in cool water for 4 to 6 hours.
- Drain and rinse the cashews.
- Add the cashews, 3/4 cup fresh water, lemon juice, garlic (if using), salt (if using), and nutritional yeast (if using) to a blender.
- Blend until completely smooth, scraping down the sides as needed.
- Add more water 1 tablespoon at a time until it reaches your preferred thickness.
- Taste and adjust lemon juice, garlic, or seasoning.
- Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. It will thicken as it chills, so stir in a splash of water before using.
Nutrition per serving (estimated)
- 203 cal
- 6g protein
- 15.9g fat
- 12.2g carbs
- 1.4g fiber
- 1.8g sugar
- 8mg sodium
About the ingredients
- raw cashews Anacardium occidentale
- Cashew is botanically a drupe seed (accessory fruit pseudocarp), commonly called nut. Roasting is required to destroy urushiol in shell — no edible raw cashew tradition. Name-literal: no additives.
- water, plus more as needed
- Plain potable water (H2O). Universal solvent and culinary base, no calories or nutrients beyond trace minerals. Not derived from any organism; an unprocessed essential. WFPB canonical.
- lemon juice Citrus limon
- Lemon is the acidic tree fruit (hesperidium) of Citrus limon, a Rutaceae shrub of likely Northeast Indian origin. Eaten as fresh fruit, juice, and zest. Rich in vitamin C, citric acid, flavonoids. Whole fruit and its fresh juice are canonical WFPB foods.
- small garlic clove (optional) Allium sativum
- Garlic itself is canonical, but extract denotes a concentrated/isolated derivative outside the whole-food canon. Marketed as natural/healthy supplement, hence mistaken-as-WFPB flag.
- sea salt (optional) NaCl
- Crystalline sodium chloride, harvested by evaporating seawater or mining rock-salt deposits. Used as seasoning and preservative since antiquity—central to trade and food economies for millennia. A mineral, not a plant food, and a sodium isolate; noncanonical to WFPB.
- nutritional yeast, optional, for a cheesy flavor Saccharomyces cerevisiae
- Nutritional yeast is deactivated Saccharomyces cerevisiae grown on a sugar medium, harvested, washed, and dried into flakes. The whole yeast cells stay intact (not an isolate). Rich in B-vitamins and complete protein; often fortified with B12. As a whole deactivated fungus, it is WFPB-canonical.