Fat-Free Vegan Mac and Cheese

Brace yourself for what I'm about to say... This is mac and cheese that you can enjoy every day while still staying perfectly healthy.
I know. That's essentially the dream.

Because this is based on whole plant foods, low in fat, and high in starch, this is the perfect healthy meal for when it's cold out and you want something comforting. Carbohydrates, especially starchy ones like potatoes, get a really bad rep in society for being unhealthy and fattening, which is both hilarious and awful because they're the exact opposite. Did you know we thrive best when we eat a diet high in starchy foods? That's what Dr. McDougall says in his book, the Starch Solution. Here's an excerpt:

The gold medal for the carbohydrate most beneficial to humans goes to starch. Like cellulose, starches are made up of long branching chains of glucose molecules. Starch is valuable to us because we can break it down into simple sugars that provide us with sustained energy and keep us feeling full and satisfied. Starchy foods are plants that are high in long-chain digestible carbohydrates—commonly referred to as complex carbohydrates. Examples include grains like wheat, barley, rye, corn, and oats; starchy vegetables like winter squash, potatoes, and sweet potatoes; and legumes like brown lentils, green peas, and red kidney beans. Starch is so important that an international scientific journal—Starch—is dedicated to its study. Starch is at the core of my health enhancing diet. If you take away just one message from this book, it should be: Eat more starch. Basic to our human nature is the scientific fact that we are, and have always been, primarily starch eaters. According to the world-renowned anthropologist from Dartmouth College, Nathaniel Dominy, PhD, “A majority of calories for most hunter-gatherer societies came from plant-foods, not animal-foods, thus humans might be more appropriately described as starchivores.” Think of yourself as a “starchivore,” like a cat is a carnivore and a horse is an herbivore.

So you can have your potatoes, rice, and pasta and eat it, too!

This pasta is wonderfully flavorful without the added animal protein and fat. You'll be astonished at how tasty and creamy it is without any dairy, nuts, or oil. It leaves you feeling energized instead of sluggish. Best of all, at least in my opinion, is it leaves room for experimenting. Instead of delicata squash, feel free to try butternut or acorn. Add more nutritional yeast, or don't. Try a splash of almond milk while it blends. Leave the skins on the potatoes or peel them off (I left mine on). I love recipes that you can make your own and this is definitely one of them. Let me know what you all think in the comments here or on my instagram, @tofuandsprouts!

You Will Need:

1 cup chopped and peeled delicata squash, about 1 small
2 cups chopped golden potatoes
1 cup chopped carrots, about 2 medium
4 cloves roasted garlic (you can use fresh if you'd like, but the flavor will be slightly stronger)
1 tsp concentrated vegetable bullion base
1/4 cup nutritional yeast, or to taste
1 tbsp Bragg's liquid aminos (or plain tamari/soy sauce, but if you haven't tried Bragg's yet what are you even doing with your life?)
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of turmeric for color

To Make:

1. Combine all chopped veggies and bouillon base in a pot of boiling water
2. Cook the vegetables until they're soft and then transfer to a blender- save the water/broth!
3. Add to the blender the nutritional yeast, liquid aminos, salt, pepper, and turmeric and puree until you've reached your desired consistency. You can use a little of the leftover broth to help get things moving, but not too much or it won't be as thick and creamy
4. Boil the noodles in the leftover broth for flavor. You might need to add more water, depending on how much you had left
5. Drain the noodles once they're cooked and combine with the sauce. Voila!
6. Store any leftover sauce in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to a week