Three rice-flour cheeses: cumin, pepperjack, & cheddar

I know that several of you have been waiting for these vegan cheese recipes, so here we go!

The base recipe for these cheeses is not mine. It was brilliantly invented by Martine van Haperen and has been posted on her webpage https://lowcarb-vegan.net/vegan-steamed-rice-cheese/. I do hope you will all visit her website as it has several other really cool cheese recipes.

As you will see in the original recipe, a key ingredient is rice flour. For the first cheeses that I made, I used a rice flour that was produced in Thailand and that feels almost like a rice starch. That worked brilliantly. I ran out of that rice flour and – in a pinch – bought Bob’s Red Mill rice flour. I absolutely love Bob’s Red Mill products but that rice flour did not work for making this cheese. Last week, I finally made it to Indy and bought my familiar Thai brand of rice flour and Bingo! All was well in my cheese-making world. Picture of the rice flour that I used in the comments. I imagine that any other brand of Asian rice flour (NOT glutinous rice flour) should work just as well :).

Here are the adaptations that I made to the base recipe:

Cumin cheese:

Replace 1.5 tsp mustard with 1/2 tsp ground mustard powder. Add 4 tsp of cumin seeds to mixture in blender cup. Otherwise, just follow the recipe.

Cheddar:

Replace 1.5 tsp mustard with 1 tsp ground mustard powder. Increase coconut oil to 90 grams/3.2 oz. Add 1 tsp tomato powder and 1 TBS of miso to mixture in blender cup. Otherwise, just follow the recipe. The idea to add tomato powder to the cheddar came from the Gentle Chef’s Non-Dairy Evolution cookbook. This is a wonderful cookbook that helped me get started on my adventurous journey of making vegan cheeses.

Basil-Olive:

I did not like my recipe for this cheese, the basil taste was just too overpowering. So for this one it is back to the drawing board :).

Pepper jack:

Replace 1.5 tsp mustard with 1/2 tsp mustard powder. Replace 2 tsp vinegar with 2 tsp brine from pickled chillies. Add 1/2 tsp chili powder (or more) and 35 gram/1.2 oz. pickled chillies to mixture in the blender cup. Otherwise, just follow the recipe.

After the cheeses are done, let them cool down for about 1/2 hour before placing them in the freezer for 1/2 hour. By that time the cheeses have firmed up enough to remove them from their moulds. Place them uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours to allow them to firm up further and dry out a bit.

The cheeses can easily be sliced with a cheese slicer. Grating them is also a breeze. I have not yet tried to melt them.

If you make any of these cheeses and post pictures or share the recipes, please do give credit to Martine and add #cilantroroots to your post.

Happy vegan cooking and eating!

Margot/Cilantro Roots