This vegan cheese pizza recipe is the ultimate comfort food. It's a recipe that guarantees love at first bite - cheesy, creamy, with a rich tomato sauce, and bursting with flavour!
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💌 Why I Love This Recipe
- Failproof homemade cheese that ANYONE can make
- Packed with healthy fats from cashews!
- Easy to customise to your taste
- So versatile!
- No special equipment needed (just any blender!)
- Rich and flavourful tomato sauce
- The creamiest homemade vegan cheese
- Fresh and fabulous arugula and nuts toppings
🍅 Ingredients
Here's what you will need.
For the tomato sauce:
- Onion
- Vegetable oil
- 1 can chopped tomatoes
- 2 tablespoon dry basil
- Other seasoning: salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano (to taste)
For the vegan cheese:
- Cashews
- Dairy-free milk
- Tapioca flour
- Citric acid
- Salt
- Agar
- Ice cubes
Apart from that, you just need a pizza base and your favourite toppings (nutritional yeast, arugula, nuts, etc) and you're good to go!
🧀 Making Vegan Cheese
Wondering how to make cashew cheese for pizza? Breaking news - making vegan cheese is super duper easy.
In fact, it's absolutely beginner-friendly.
You'll just need one cooking pot, a blender/food processor, and some ice cubes.
Here's how you'll do it.
- Place raw cashews in a bowl and fill with boiling hot water. Soak until soft.
- Drain and rinse the cashews.
- Place cashews in a blender or food processor. Add all the remaining ingredients.
- Blend until a thick paste is formed.
- Pour mixture into a non-stick pot and slowly heat up while stirring continuously.
- You will notice the mixture is starting to thicken.
- Keep stirring on the heat for a further 1-2 minutes.
- Prepare an ice bath by using half a tray of ice cubes and 2 cups (500 ml) of cold water in a large bowl.
- Scoop the cheese mixture into small balls and dunk in the ice water mixture. Allow to chill for 10 – 20 minutes before eating.
- Cut vegan cheese into slices, ready to be used for your pizza.
🥄 Expert Tips
- Be generous with your toppings. There's nothing more disappointing than a bland pizza!
- Add a raw, fresh ingredient like arugula/rocket or salad cress to ensure extra crunchiness.
- Add a scattering of nutritional yeast for some extra vitamins!
- Don't be afraid to add PLENTY of seasoning to your tomato sauce.
- Tomato sauce is the heart of your pizza and it needs to be packed with flavour.
🍕 Dough
Instead of making this vegan cheese pizza from scratch, I would definitely recommend getting a good pizza base. I own a breadmaker which meant I did make my own wholemeal crust pizza.
Don’t fret about it if you don’t, though. Vegan pizza bases are easily available and will save you tons of time.
If you're making your own, these are 2 lovely vegan pizza crust recipes (Wholemeal Pizza Dough and Vegan Pizza Dough).
Feel free to experiment with toppings of choice, but I wanted to keep mine simple, like a vegan margherita pizza to highlighting our star ingredient – vegan cheese.
🍝 Similar Recipes
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Ready to make your own vegan cheese pizza? Let's get started!
🍴Recipe
The Best Vegan Cheese Pizza
INGREDIENTS
TOMATO SAUCE
- 1 onion finely diced
- 1 teaspoon olive oil or other vegetable oil
- 1 can chopped tomatoes
- 2 tablespoon dry basil
- Seasoning: salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, basil add to taste
CHEESE
- ½ cup (80 g) cashews raw
- ½ cup (125 ml) dairy-free milk unsweetened
- 1½ tablespoon (1.5 tablespoon) tapioca flour
- ⅛ teaspoon (0.13 teaspoon) citric acid
- ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) salt
- ½ tablespoon (0.5 tablespoon) agar
- 20 ice cubes
TOPPINGS
- 2 large tomatoes
- ½ cup (67.5 g) pine nuts roasted
- 2 cups (40 g) arugula rocket
OTHER
- 2 pizza bases
INSTRUCTIONS
TOMATO SAUCE
- Heat up oil in a medium-sized pan. Add onion.
- Gently fry for 5-7 minutes until translucent. Add a can of chopped tomatoes.
- Generously add your seasoning and adjust to taste. Let simmer for 2 minutes.
- Remove from heat and set aside.
VEGAN CHEESE
- Place raw cashews in a bowl and fill with boiling hot water until they are covered completely. Soak until soft - approx. 20 minutes.
- Drain and rinse the cashews.
- Place cashews in a blender or food processor. Add all the remaining ingredients (except for the ice).
- Blend until a thick paste is formed.
- Pour mixture into a non-stick pot and slowly heat up while stirring continiously.
- In a few minutes, you will notice the mixture is starting to thicken.
- Keep stirring on the heat for a further 1-2 minutes to ensure the agar is activated and the cheese sets.
- Prepare an ice bath by using half a tray of ice cubes and 2 cups (500 ml) of cold water in a large bowl.
- Scoop the cheese mixture into small balls and dunk in the ice water mixture. Allow to chill for 10 – 20 minutes before eating.
- Cut vegan cheese into slices, ready to be used for your pizza.
ASSEMBLE
- Grab your pizza base and generously spread tomato sauce over your base.
- Add freshly sliced tomatoes, spreading them equally across your pizza.
- Add other toppings of choice (or leave as it is) and bake at 200°C (fan oven) for 15 minutes. Important - if you’re using a premade pizza base, follow the baking instructions on the packaging.
- In the meantime, roast a handful of pine kernels in a non-stick pan (no oil).
- Once baked, remove pizza from the oven and generously top off with pine nuts, sliced vegan cheese and arugula.
Notes
- Be generous with your toppings. There's nothing more disappointing than a bland pizza!
- Add a raw, fresh ingredient like arugula/rocket or salad cress to ensure extra crunchiness.
- Add a scattering of nutritional yeast for some extra vitamins!
- Don't be afraid to add PLENTY of seasoning to your tomato sauce.
- Tomato sauce is the heart of your pizza and it needs to be packed with flavour.
Nutrition
Disclaimer: The nutritional information above is calculated automatically. The author of this post cannot guarantee 100% accuracy of this data.
Disclosure: this post was sponsored by Mad Millie. Thank you so much for supporting the brands that help make My Vegan Minimalist possible. All opinions are my own.
Bob Cook
Just found this site!! Looking forward to making the vegan pizza.
Tajda Ferko
Aw how lovely Bob, thank you! Hope you enjoy it and thank you for stopping by x