If you know me at all, you know my love for fires. The worlds most perfect carb. The only way they could possibly be better is if you add cheese sauce.

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I would eat them everyday and I am afraid to admit to you just how often I do eat them. I mean I air fry them half the time so that has to make it ok, right?!?!

Anyways, the only thing I love more than fries is loaded fries. Piled high with toppings and always some kind of cheese.

We make Bbq jackfruit pretty often because its cheap and easy. Dump two cans of jackfruit into a crock pot with some bbq sauce and leave it alone. Dinner when you get home that takes 5 minutes to prepare. We often have leftovers and once upon a time the leftovers yielded these glorious fries!!

Deliciously easy jackfruit bbq, easy vegan slaw, and the best vegan cheddar cheese sauce, ever. All piled high onto of homemade crispy fries!!

Remember if you don’t want to fry them in oil and own an air fryer, that will work just fine! I set mine to 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes depending on how many fries I am making. I give the basket a little shake a time or two while they are cooking to help them not stick and to move them around a bit.

Also If you don’t feel like making them yourself you can just buy frozen! I won’t judge you. I have 3 bags of frozen Trader Joes fries in my freezer right this moment. Some days call for frozen foods. Thats all there is to it!

The cheese sauce is pretty easy to make and good on sooooo many things, if you happen to have any leftovers you can use it on lots and lots of stuff. It makes a tasty chip dip, its delicious on baked potatoes, in a quesadilla, on nachos, or even drizzled over chili!

So if you are looking for a new loaded fry and love bbq, look no further! These things are so good and pretty addictive. And if you eat fries more than twice a week, just know you are not alone in your love of the worlds most perfect carb.

Ingredients:

4 - 6 russet potatoes
oil for frying

BBQ Jackfruit:

2 cans jackfruit in brine
1 bottle bbq sauce

Vegan Cheddar Cheese Sauce:

1/2 cups cashews soaked overnight, or covered in water and microwaved for 3 minutes then drained
1 cup water
2 tablespoons corn starch or tapioca starch
1 teaspoon light miso paste
1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon smoke paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt

The Slaw:

14 oz bag of shredded cabbage
1 carrot
1/2 small yellow onion
1/3 cup vegan mayo
1-2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
optional, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Instructions:

FOR THE BBQ JACKFRUIT; Drain both cans. Chop or shred the fruit. I find it easiest to just use my fingers to shred the jackfruit. Add the jackfruit and BBQ sauce to a crock pot on medium heat for 6 - 8 hours. You can also cook it on the stove top if you prefer. Just add jackfruit and BBQ sauce to a large pot and cook on medium/low heat for about an hour, stirring occasionally. The longer the BBQ cooks, the more flavorful and convincing it will be. I prefer the crockpot method for this reason, but it works fine to cook it on the stovetop.
TO MAKE THE CHEESE SAUCE; Add all of the ingredients to a high speed blender or food processor, and blend until completely smooth.
Transfer the cheese mixture to a medium pot and heat on medium/low heat, whisking continuously until the cheese begins to thicken to a queso consistency. If it gets too thick, you can add a little more water to thin it back out.
FOR THE FRIES; Wash your potatoes and cut them into fries. Heat a few inches of oil in a deep skillet (I use a cast iron skillet) on medium heat. Once the oil is nice and hot, start adding small batches of the fries to the oil. Allow them to fry until nice and crisp, about 5 minutes. Once they are done frying, remove from oil and place on a wire cooking rack with some paper towels underneath. This will help them stay crispy while you finish frying the rest.
FOR OVEN BAKING; Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly coat fries in a few teaspoons of oil and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Make sure the fries are not over crowded. Sprinkle with salt and bake for about 15 minutes or until the fries seem crispy on one side. Take the cookie sheet out of the oven, and turn the fries with a spatula or a pair of metal tongs. Put the fries back in the oven for another 15 minutes, or until the fries seem fully crisp.
FOR THE SLAW; Shred the carrot using a box grater and finely dice the onion. Add onion, carrot, and cabbage together in a bowl. In a smaller bowl combine remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour the wet mixture over the cabbage mixture and stir well.
Top fries with BBQ jackfruit, cheddar sauce, and slaw to serve.

Serves 4 - 6.

If you like this recipe, try these

In college I worked at Chili’s. You know the place with the song about the ribs.

At the time I ate meat and I loved ribs, so other than the annoying song I was often asked to sing by customers, it was a pretty sweet gig. Never mind the fact that I still have nightmares to this day, 20 plus years later, about being the only person working and waiting on a full restaurant. I mean It actually happened once 5 minus before close when a convention of people came in and I was the last server there to close…..needless to say I have some PTSD about ti.

So once going vegan and learning all of the wonders of vital wheat gluten, I knew I wanted to learn to make ribs. And I did.

Once again I turned to Robin Roberson and the Veganze it cookbook (buy this book..trust me) and internet to investigate vegan ribs. What I learned is that most recipes I looked at, including the vegan queen Robin’s, were all pretty much spot on, so I married several of the recipes that seemed very much the same, and made adjustment according to what had on hand and made ribs. I was not disappointed.

I would say this is one the easiest seitan recipes I make! Mix, baked, then grill. Its not hard at all y’all and I have even watched a non vegan 9 year old boy tear a plate of these up.

Vital wheat gluten can be found in most health food stores or on line. If you have never worked with it, it’s just the gluten part stripped from the wheat. It is like making any kind of bread, as you are just making a dough out of the wheat gluten. Once you add liquid and knead it, It becomes stretchy and that texture is what give seitan its remarkable ability to mimic meat.

So fire up the grill and get ready to be wowed! And just as friendly suggestion, never ever ask me to sing that rib song. I promise it won’t end well.

NGREDIENTS:

1 cup vital wheat gluten
3/4 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 teaspoons onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons nut butter (I use almond butter)
1 tablespoon coconut aminos
1 - 2 cups BBQ sauce

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS:

Add all ingredients except for the BBQ sauce in a food processor, and blend until a sort of dough forms. Let the dough mix for about a minute.
If you do not have a food processor, you can combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix together the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry, combining until forming a dough. Kneed the dough for several minutes by hand.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Press dough into an 8x8 baking dish. Score the dough with a sharp knife, cutting only about halfway through the dough (don't cut to far, you want then to hold together through grilling.) 8 lines down, then one through the middle making 16 ribs. This will make it easy for them to pull apart after you grill them.
Bake ribs for 25 minutes
Remove ribs from oven, and let cool enough to handle.
Baste ribs with BBQ sauce, then transfer to a heated grill.
Grill on each side for about 5 minutes, adding more sauce while grilling. You just want to get a little char on them, and some nice grill marks before taking them off of the grill.
Once done pull the ribs apart, and serve with extra BBQ sauce for dipping.

Serves 4.

Vegan BBQ Cheddar Fries with Slaw