The Quintessential Vegan Cream

This stuff is absolutely amazing. It takes me 5 minutes to make. I’ve used it to replace sour cream, crème fraîche, mayonnaise, and cooking cream in dishes as diverse as tarts, cole slaw, and burritos. You can even use it in sweets. It serves as a base to which you can add any other flavors you’d like. The best part? It’s a delicious way to get your daily serving of nuts.

It is, as advertised, The Best Damn Vegan Sour Cream. I use the recipe exactly as described by Savanna at Gluten-Free Vegan Pantry. I’ve saved here for 1 reason – to make some of your lives easier by giving the ingredient amounts in metric.

• 1 c. (135 g) raw cashew nuts, soaked for 8 hours or overnight
• 1/4 c. + 2 T (90 ml) lemon juice
• 1 tsp nutritional yeast (you might omit this for use in certain sweet items)
• 1/2 c. (118 ml) water
• 1/4 tsp salt

Throw everything in the blender and you’re done. In the original recipe, it says to blend for 5 – 7 minutes, but I get impatient and only blend for 3 – 4 minutes. It comes out really nice and creamy for me, but that may depend on your blender.

More dilute than nut butters because about half the contents by volume are nuts, you can use about 4 T or 1/4 c. (60 ml) of cashew cream for one serving of nuts. I like to think about it this way: if I eat 2 sweet potato & black bean burritos, that’s 2 T for each burrito.

Here’s just a couple of ways I’ve used & modified this recipe so far, and I’m looking forward to discovering more:

1. Add parsley, chives, garlic, and shallots to make a vegan herbed-cheese-like spread.
2. Swap out the lemon for lime and add garlic, cilantro, & avocado for an amazing cilantro-lime spread or dip.
3. Add mustard to make a remoulade for celeriac, carrots, or cole slaw.
4. Use in place of cooking cream in leek (& mushroom) tarts or pies.
5. Add as-is to sandwiches, paninis, burritos, or anything of that ilk.
6. Use in place of cream or mayonnaise in salad dressings.