Oh mozzarella cheese, how I loved you in all of your many forms.
Soft, shredded, on pizza, in a caprese salad, in lasagna, any way at all.
So once going vegan I had to, HAD TO, find a way to mimic soft mozzarella. It is the cheese I missed the very most and could not imagine a world where I would not longer eat mozzarella!
Honestly, hard cheeses are really easy, and coming up with a shreddable mozzarella wasn’t too hard, but what stumped me was a soft vegan mozzarella, one that I could make my favorite salad with!
This may not be my easiest cheese recipe, but it is certainly not difficult. Just a little more time consuming than some agar quick set cheeses. This cheese cooks up like a regular agar cheese, but instead of pouring it into a mold, you scoop the mixture and drop it into ice cold water, causing it to quickly set into soft vegan mozzarella cheese balls!
It’s brilliant really! Agar agar will begin to set at room temperature, so dropping this cheese mixture into ice cold water will have it set into a ball almost instantly! It still needs some time in the fridge to completely set, but over all, this recipe is really easy, quick, and pretty straightforward.
Now, before you glance at the ingredients and gawk at addition of sauerkraut, hear me out. It works! It adds a fermented briny-ness (is that a word, if not it is now on this blog if nowhere else) that a lot of vegan cheese recipes are missing. You will never even be able to taste it in the cheese, but I adds a kick that you would miss if you didn’t add it! You gotta trust me here!
This vegan soft mozzarella will keep in the fridge for about a week and will work perfectly for a caprese salad, sliced on top of pizza, diced on a green salad, or in any recipe where you are missing soft mozzarella!
So don’t be intimidated and try your hand at making this soft mozzarella!! I think you will be surprised at how easy it is and how close it mimics the real deal!
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup cashews soaked over night or microwaved for 3 minutes in 1 and 1/2 cups water, then drained.
1/2 cup sauerkraut, without the juice
1/4 cup plant based milk
1 teaspoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons tapioca starch
2 tablespoons triple filtered coconut oil
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons agar powder
COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:
Add drained cashews, and all other ingredients EXCEPT the water and agar to a high speed blender or food processor.
Blend on high until the mixture is completely smooth. You may need to scrape the sides down a few times to make sure all of the cashew bits get processed.
Fill a large bowl halfway with water and a cup of ice. Stir in a few teaspoons of salt and place next to your stove top.
In a medium sized pot, bring water and agar powder to a boil.
Once it is boiling reduce heat to med/low.
Mix the cashew mixture into the water and agar, stirring continuously unit it becomes thick and stretchy. This will take just a couple of minutes, as it comes together pretty quickly. Just keep stirring and scraping the cheese from the sides of the pot. It will resemble a stretchy dough/ batter and scoop easily once it is ready.
With a medium size cookie scoop (or you can use a large spoon or ice cream scoop) scoop out balls of mozzarella and drop them into the bowl of ice water.
Once all of the mozzarella balls are formed and in the water, place the bowl in the fridge for about an hour, or until the mozzarella has firmed up a bit.
Once firm, remove mozzarella and place in zip lock bags or a shallow storage container adding just a little of the liquid brine for storage. You don’t need to fully cover them. Just add a little of the liquid so they do not dry out.
Store in fridge for up to 5 days
