Mac N Yeast
Our family, extended family, and friends love Mac & Yeast. Considered by many to be a vegan form of Macaroni & Cheese, I find it to be quite different but very tasty and nutritionally great. It is made using Nutritional Yeast, which is a nutritional supplement similar to Brewer’s Yeast. It comes in Flake or powder form, and can be bought in bulk in most health food stores or coops.
I started making Mac N Yeast in college when I started meeting more vegans, and it is an easy to make comfort food for our family throughout the year. The ingredients list is short and easy to have on hand to make when you can’t or don’t want to make a trip to the market to buy food for dinner. I am not a vegan, and I love butter, so I use it in this dish. If you would like to make this recipe vegan just substitute a vegan “butter” such as Earth Balance Margarine.
We usually serve Mac N Yeast with some steamed broccoli, a salad, or other vegetable of choice. Leftovers are great in the lunchbox, so for dinner I make a pound of pasta for our family of 4, and we have leftovers for 1 or 2 lunches for the kids. They like it fine at room temperature in their lunchboxes.
Ingredients
- 1 pound of pasta (I find that non-spaghetti shapes work best, like macaroni, penne, bowties, wagonwheels etc.)
- 1/2 a stick of butter
- 1/3 c. flour
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
- 1+ cup water from the water the pasta is cooking in
- 1 cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes (if using powder form use around 3/4 cup)
- salt & pepper to taste
Boil water with some salt for the pasta, and cook the pasta while you make the sauce.
In a separate large saucepan (big enough to hold all the pasta once it is cooked), melt butter over medium heat. Sprinkle in flour to form a thick paste and add garlic. Cook gently for a couple of minutes and add water from the pasta water as the pasta cooks. Stir in soy sauce & nutritional yeast. Add water as needed to maintain a medium thick sauce. When pasta is cooked, drain and pour into the Yeast sauce & stir. Salt & pepper to taste. Enjoy!
Did you like it??
If you like the taste of Nutritional Yeast, try to keep it at hand in your kitchen for its many uses and great health benefits. There are lots of good ideas out there on how Nutritional Yeast can be used. YourVeganMom.com gives a bit more information on just what Nutritional Yeast is, and in the comment section is a brainstorm of ideas for using Nutritional Yeast in cooking. Many sprinkle Nutritional Yeast by itself on popcorn, and others fancy up the flavor with other things. One popcorn recipe I found at Suicidal Squirrels.net uses Nutritional Yeast plus a mix of other herbs and spices to make an easy and healthy snack. Whining and Dining advocates that popcorn is a great substitute for chips in a lunchbox. If you sprinkle a bit of Nutritional Yeast on their popcorn, it will add a lot of diversity in terms of vitamins and minerals to their lunchboxes. Plus, it’s yummy and kids love to eat it!
