Ellen Kanner is the author of the award-winning book, Feeding the Hungry Ghost, contributor to outlets including HuffPost, Eater, VegNews, and Edible South Florida, and writes the Substack newsletter Broccoli Rising. Find more vegan recipes at her website www.soulfulvegan.com.
Pimento Cheese and
Cat Head Biscuits
Vegan Pimento Cheese
• 8 ounces cashews soaked overnight
• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• ¼ teaspoon turmeric
• 2 pimentos—canned or jarred is fine—plus 1 to 2 teaspoons of their juice
• a squeeze of fresh lemon juice (about a teaspoon)
• sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
• optional adds:
â—‰ splash of hot sauce or pinch cayenne
◉ ½ teaspoon white miso
◉ ½ teaspoon garlic powder
Drain and rinse cashews. Pour into a food processor and whiz or pulse until you’ve got a thick paste.
Add remaining ingredients:
• nutritional yeast for cheesiness
• apple cider vinegar for a spangle of acidity
• paprika to deepen flavor
• turmeric for little bit of earthy funk and to nail that adorable pale orange shade
• pimento—you cannot make pimento cheese without pimento
Blitz it all together for 3 to 5 minutes or until it’s luscious, totally smooth with no graininess from the nuts and you’ve achieved that particular pimento cheese shade.
Squeeze in fresh lemon juice, and taste. Add any optional ingredients—the miso, hot sauce, and/or garlic powder. Season with sea salt and fresh pepper, and taste again.
It’s tempting to scoop up and eat straight out of the food processor, but cover and chill for at least an hour for flavors to develop and deepen. The cheese will firm up some too, becoming more of a lush cream cheesy consistency.
Serve with raw vegetables, use as a sandwich filling, or for an elevated vegan pimento cheese experience, serve with my cat head biscuits. Cat heads, another Southern specialty, are big (cat-head-sized, if you’re into hyperbole). Mine bake up tall, tender, and cat-free. C’mon, they’re vegan.
Vegan Cat Head Biscuit
• ½ cup unsweetened oat milk
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus additional for shaping biscuits
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 4½ teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
• pinch sea salt
• 6 tablespoons) vegan butter or margarine chilled
• 1 tablespoon vegan butter or margarine melted (optional)
Preheat oven to 400°. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, whisk together oat milk and cider vinegar to make vegan buttermilk (mixture will clabber—it’s supposed to). Set aside.
In a food processor, sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Pulse a time or two to combine.
Pulse in the chilled vegan margarine and mix quickly, just until mixture becomes like coarse meal. Pour in vegan buttermilk and give a quick mix to form a damp dough.
Dust rolling surface generously with more flour. Turn out the biscuit dough. Knead oh-so-briefly, working in flour—a tablespoon or two at a time—just until dough loses its stickiness. Pat or roll out dough to ½-inch thick. Flour the rim of a water glass, empty jelly jar, or use a floured 3-inch biscuit cutter to form biscuits.
Place biscuits on the rimmed baking sheet. Brush tops with melted vegan butter if desired.
Bake for 15 minutes. Biscuit should be lightly golden, pillowy, and fragrant. Best served at once, split, with a generous smear of vegan pimento cheese.
