Guilt Free Snacking: Chips and Queso

If you're like me and my sweet hubby, you have a soft spot for creamy and delicious cheese filled goodies.  One of our favorites being warm tortilla chips dunked into piping hot and spicy queso dip.  Since we've been in Vienna, I've been craving Mexican food.  Needless to say, there are not a lot of options here for that type of cuisine.  Plus, the combination of high fat cheese and fried tortilla chips can be a hazard to your health and your jeans size. 

I set out on a personal mission to make one of our favorite snack foods not only healthy, but vegan.  How in the world I was going to make a cheese and cream sauce without cheese and cream, I did not know.  And then my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of nutritional yeast.  You can read all about the magical substance here.  Just in case you're not interested in the chemistry of it all, it is basically a flaky substance that makes things have a cheesy taste without having any cheese.  Thanks to so many recipes on the internet for queso using nutritional yeast, I was able to find one that I adapted to make this one.  Perfect! 

If you have a whole foods, Fresh Market, or any other type of organic or natural food store, you can probably find a package of the stuff.  Don't worry about not using it all, it keeps for months!  So go pick up a package and make yourself an awesome snack!

Vegan Chips and Queso

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Nutritional yeast flakes
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 4 tbsp. vegan margarine
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups salsa (or you could use a can of rotel or a can of diced green chiles)
• Homemade tortilla chips or prepackaged ones, just make sure they are natural!

Directions:

1.  Add yeast, flour, garlic powder and salt to a small saucepan over medium heat.  Stir to combine.

2.  Pour in the water and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until thickened.  Make sure you whisk constantly, or your sauce will be very lumpy!

3.  When mixture becomes thick, turn off heat, stir in margarine and salsa until queso is an even consistency and begins to turn the color of a traditional cheese sauce.

5.  What the sauce should look like when completely combined.

6.  Pour into a dish and serve warm with tortilla chips, veggies, pretzels, or other dippers.  Enjoy!






Other serving ideas:

• Make vegan nachos with beans, vegan queso, sauteed veggies and salsa
• Boil pasta and mix this dip in as a nice vegan version of mac and cheese
• Make (or buy) vegan chili and combine with this queso to top vegan burgers or hot dogs
• Drink straight from the bowl.  I won't judge you!