Vegan cashew bryndza (feta-like cheese)

I like to use ceshews to make cheese, cream or milk. They’re easy to blend and give a smooth, silky texture. And my poor blender is not that „tired”.

They also easily blend with flavors of spices and herbs, so it’s nice base for both sweet and seasoned dishes.

Today, it supposed to be a vegan feta cheese. 🙂 Flavor is good – spicy, slightly salty, slightly sour, with a distinct taste of spices (pepper and garlic), but this structure is too silky and smooth. More like bryndza than feta…

But I’ve read that a good feta will have very creamy, smooth texture. I’m not I am not convinced, internet is not always best source of knowledge.

This cheese is perfect for sandwiches – with green onion, cucumber or radish, is absolutely sensational. It works well in a salad, as long as you don’t mind that it is more like a dressing than a neatly trimmed cheese cubes.

Preparing cheese is not particularly labor intensive, but it will take us a long time. I assure you that it is worth every minute.

Bought products are not this good. 🙂

Bryndza, feta, djath, pendir, gvina bulgarit – and now we add vegan cashew bryndza. Enjoy 🙂

Ingredients:

160g cashew (unroasted, unsalted)

2 – 3 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons of avocado oil (you can use olive oil)

1 clove of garlic

1 – 1.5 tsp salt

boiled water approx. ¾ cup

plus:

thick gauze/cheesecloth

sieve

Preparation:

• Rinse nuts and soak in fresh water. At least three hours, preferably overnight.
• Drain cashews, translate into a blender, add the remaining ingredients and start mixing. The longer we mix, the softer, more creamy and smooth the nut pulp will be – I left my blender for approx. 10 minutes.
• Spread the cheesecloth in a sieve, pour the cashews pulp.
• Sieve place over a bowl and leave in the fridge overnight. This will help with not only with accurate filtration of cheese, but also combine flavors.

This is the basic recipe. You can add the peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted nuts, miso or rejuvelac to get a different taste. Enjoy your meal 🙂