Vegan Bacon Mac And Cheese

2.10.2021


This is a paid collaboration with Bute Island Foods.

Now that it has finally started snowing in the south of England, it's made me want to wrap up warm and eat all the comfort food. Like please, give me all the carbs.

One of my absolute favourite comfort meals is mac and cheese (along with every other pasta dish...) but it took me so long to find the perfect way to veganise this dish in particular and although I have a classic, simple mac and cheese recipe on my website already, I wanted to share my more updated version which I love even more, with the addition of vegan bacon!

I've teamed up with Bute Island Foods on this recipe, using their dairy-free mild cheddar shreds. This makes the sauce so much creamier and of course, gives it that cheesy flavour that you need in any mac and cheese recipe. Bute Island Foods have a huge range of vegan cheese available and I couldn't recommend them enough! 

Check out some of my other recipes using vegan cheese:



- VEGAN BACON MAC 'N' CHEESE -

Serves: 2.  Prep Time: 10 mins.  Cook Time: 25 mins

You will need:

- 100g macaroni elbows, dried
- 100g vegan bacon
- 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 1/2 tbsp plain flour/sauce flour
- 1 cup oat milk (or other dairy free milk)
- 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp dijon mustard 
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp dried garlic granules
- 1 tsp dried onion granules
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 tsp fresh parsley, chopped
- 1 tbsp panko crumbs, optional

Method: 

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. 

2. Fill a saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add the macranoi elbows and allow to cook for 10 minutes / while you make the cheese sauce.

3. In a small frying pan, add a small amount of olive oil and add the vegan bacon pieces. Cook these according to instructions (mine usually only take around 5 minutes). Set aside once cooked.

4. In another saucepan, add the olive oil and plain flour/sauce flour. Keep it on low heat as you stir the two together to form a paste. Keep stirring until there are no lumps. This shouldn't take long at all.

5. Once the paste has formed, pour in the oat milk so that the paste starts to form a sauce. Keep stirring until the sauce begins to thicken. Once it has reached a thicker consistency after stirring for around 2-3 minutes, remove the saucepan from the heat (the sauce will thicken even more off of the heat anyway).

6. Add the nutritional yeast, mild cheddar shreds, dijon mustard, black pepper, salt, garlic granules. onion granules and paprika to the saucepan. Use a whisk to mix everything together, otherwise, there will be lumps from the cheese shreds. Place the saucepan back on the hob on low heat for another 3-4 minutes, whisking everything together until the sauce is completely smooth.

7. Remove the macaroni pasta from the heat and drain all of the water. Pour the macaroni elbows out into a small oven proof dish. Remove the sauce from the heat once again and pour the sauce all over the macaroni. Mix everything together until the macaroni is evenly coated. 

8. Add the bacon pieces to the mac and cheese and mix them in so that the cheese sauce covers them.

9. Chop up some fresh parsley and sprinkle this over the top of the pasta (or you could add this at the end as a garnish after the mac and cheese has cooked). Sprinkle some panko crumbs on top for a bit of texture to the dish (I personally love these, but this is completely optional).

10. Place the dish in the oven for around 15 - 20 minutes. 

What's your favourite pasta dish?

Love always,
Shannon x

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