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This vegan pepper jack cheese made with leftover wheat starch water from washing flour to make seitan gets its creaminess from cashews and packs plenty of heat. It's a hard cheese perfect for your next charcuterie board, sliced thin for sandwiches, or grated onto just about anything when you're looking to add a little kick.
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the cashews overnight or for 8-12 hours to soften them. If you're pressed for time you can boil a cup or two of water, then add the cashews and remove from the heat. Let them sit for 30 minutes in the boiled water, then give a quick rinse in cool water.
In a high-speed blender or food processor (I used the single blender cup from my Ninja) process the cashews and starting with about a 1/2 cup of water, process until smooth, adding the additional 1/4 cup as you go.
Heat the 1/3 cup of refined coconut oil in a small pan on low heat and add the seeded, finely-chopped serrano peppers and the 2 tsp of red pepper flakes. Cook them on low/medium heat for about 5 minutes until the serranos have softened. Set aside to cool.
Drain as much excess water off your starch as possible and stir. I let mine sit in the fridge for a day or two to try to get it to really separate before using for this. Make sure your starch water is at room temperature before beginning, or it can make your coconut oil solidify when mixing.* I microwave it in 30-second increments, stirring each time until it's ready. Be careful not to heat it too much or the starch will clump.
*You can also leave the starch on your counter for several hours or overnight so it begins to ferment. The sourness and slight acidity will add more depth of flavor to your cheese.
Prepare a steamer and have a container ready for your cheese. I use these silicone molds which easily release. You may want to oil a glass container if using. Whatever you choose, make sure it can easily hold up to at least 2 1/2-3 cups of liquid, because the mixture will rise by about 1/3 during cooking.
Add the blended cashews, and all the ingredients except the coconut oil/pepper mixture and lactic acid to your blender or food processor and blitz. Slowly add in the oil/peppers and continue to blend until it is fully emulsified.
Finally add in the lactic acid and pulse the blender a bit more to incorporate.* Pour the mixture into the prepared vessel and steam for 45 minutes. Allow to come to room temperature before covering and storing in the fridge. The cheese will be hardened after about 6-8 hours of resting in the fridge and will continue to harden a little more as it rests.
*SIDE NOTE: The reason I add the lactic acid last is because it can affect the kappa carageenan's ability to harden the cheese. I'm honestly not sure if it makes that much of a difference since I'm blending everything together before cooking, anyway, but it's a habit I picked up from The Non-Dairy Evolution by Skye Michael Conroy. If you're just learning about vegan cheese making or want to explore some new ideas, I highly recommend the book.
More Starch Water & Deli-Style Recipes
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the cashews overnight or for 8-12 hours to soften them. If you're pressed for time you can boil a cup or two of water, then add the cashews and remove from the heat. Let them sit for 30 minutes in the boiled water, then give a quick rinse in cool water.
In a high-speed blender or food processor (I used the single blender cup from my Ninja) process the cashews and starting with about a 1/2 cup of water, process until smooth, adding the additional 1/4 cup as you go.
Heat the 1/3 cup of refined coconut oil in a small pan on low heat and add the seeded, finely-chopped serrano peppers and the 2 tsp of red pepper flakes. Cook them on low/medium heat for about 5 minutes until the serranos have softened. Set aside to cool.
Drain as much excess water off your starch as possible and stir. I let mine sit in the fridge for a day or two to try to get it to really separate before using for this. Make sure your starch water is at room temperature before beginning, or it can make your coconut oil solidify when mixing.* I microwave it in 30-second increments, stirring each time until it's ready. Be careful not to heat it too much or the starch will clump.
*You can also leave the starch on your counter for several hours or overnight so it begins to ferment. The sourness and slight acidity will add more depth of flavor to your cheese.
Prepare a steamer and have a container ready for your cheese. I use these silicone molds which easily release. You may want to oil a glass container if using. Whatever you choose, make sure it can easily hold up to at least 2 1/2-3 cups of liquid, because the mixture will rise by about 1/3 during cooking.
Add the blended cashews, and all the ingredients except the coconut oil/pepper mixture and lactic acid to your blender or food processor and blitz. Slowly add in the oil/peppers and continue to blend until it is fully emulsified.
Finally add in the lactic acid and pulse the blender a bit more to incorporate.* Pour the mixture into the prepared vessel and steam for 45 minutes. Allow to come to room temperature before covering and storing in the fridge. The cheese will be hardened after about 6-8 hours of resting in the fridge and will continue to harden a little more as it rests.
Lactid acid powder is not afailable in the Netherlands.
Is it possible to substitude with liquid acid and what will be the amount? Or is there another subtitude ?
I would rally like to make this cheese
I have read that you can use 2-3 drops of the liquid in place of 1 tsp. of the powder. Hope that helps!
The chili oil is not on the ingredients list. How much do you use.
The chili oil is what I was calling the coconut oil that the chili peppers (Serrano and red chili flakes) are sautéed in. I’ll update the recipe to make that more clear. 😊
I just started doing the WTF method and have only made a couple of recipes with the starch water. This recipe is the bomb!! I licked the spoon and my eyes bugged out. It tastes like the Pepper Jack cheese I remember from 10 years ago. You hit a home run with this! A+++
Thanks and so happy you like it! 😊
How much grams you can get out with this recepie
Love the flavour of this cheese but it doesn’t seem to melt very well. Do u think I oversteamed it (45mins in my rice cooker with steam function)? I will try again but steam it a bit less.
This and the other cheeses are a great use for wheat starch water because the wheat starch gets very firm when cooked and so it yields a nice solid, sliceable cheese. That said, it isn’t the easiest to melt and it’s why I chose the steaming method over thickening this in a pot. So I don’t think cooking more or less will help, but you could try lessening the wheat starch to tapioca starch ratio which should allow for more stretch/meltability. If I were to experiment I might start with 1/4 cup less wheat starch water, add an extra 2 tablespoons of tapioca, and an extra 1/4 cup of cashew milk and keep working my way from there, but I haven’t tried so I can’t guarantee any success. If you do try it please let me know how it goes!
Unfortunately for me, lactic acid is not available here unless I’m willing to pay $50 for it. Is there ANY other acid I can use in place of it? Maybe ACV since the ph level is somewhat similar? TIA!
Any substitutions will change the flavor, lactic acid provides a tang most reminiscent to dairy. That said, I often blend my cashews with water and culture them on the counter with about 1/16 tsp of vegan mesophillic culture which produces an amazing, dairy-like tang. If you can’t access that, you can try culturing in the same manner using the contents of a couple vegan probiotic capsules. If none of those subs are available, you could try an equal amount of citric acid powder, or finally I’d recommend adding a 1-2 tablespoons of brine from a jar of olives or sauerkraut before I’d resort to ACV.
If I can find lactic acid but only in liquid form (88%), would you suggest I use less than what the recipe calls for?
Yes, I have read in vegan cheese groups that you will only need 2-3 drops of liquid to replace 1 tsp of the powder, though I’ve never tried it myself.
I absolutely loved the taste and texture of this cheese! But do you have any suggestions of how to make mine look more like the picture with the pieces of pepper visible but still get the oil to emulsify the mixture? I’m sure I overblended (and it’s also very dark colored lol) but I needed to get the oil mixed in.
WONDERFUL recipe.
So happy you enjoyed it! You can try cooking the peppers for a shorter period of time so your oil doesn’t get too hot, or perhaps even cook them separately with just a fraction of the oil then mix it all together. As for adding in the oil, you want to put it in last and you don’t need to blend it too much, just enough to get it fully incorporated. I realized the more and more i made these cheeses, they were less likely to leech oil during cooking if I blended it in less/made sure not to over-emulsify. Finally if you’re having trouble getting it to mix, you can try adding a teaspoon of sunflower or soy lecithin. It really helps with quick emulsification and sometimes I add it in with my cashews and water to get the cashew milk to stay together better. Hope those suggestions help, and thanks for your message!
OMG this is incredibly helpful. My next batch was awesome. I don’t know why i go so nuts with my blender. And now I have a use for the bag of soy lecithin I bought last year!!!! Thank you Jen, I am loving this page so much.
I have high hopes for this! ☺️
I have the same molds but they only hold 2 cups? Do you split it?
I don’t usually split it using those molds – and I pretty much always use them, but I don’t necessarily mind if a little spills over the edge while cooking (it shrinks back as soon as it’s done steaming). If you’d rather avoid that, you could cut back on the ingredients fractionally, or if you split it you may want to cut back on the cooking time by a bit. I might try only 30 minutes or so. Hope you enjoy and feel free to message back if you have any more questions! 🙂