Butternut Squash Mac & Cheese | Vegan & BLW Friendly

Who would have thought that butternut squash can actually taste like cheese? Thank you, nutritional yeast, for your magical plant-based powers!

I had a butternut squash laying around for about a week now, waiting for someone to come along and turn it into soup. But you know when you’re just not in the mood for soup? I’m usually a huge soup person but my heart wasn’t in it. I was craving mac and cheese for lunch but have been trying to stay away from naughty things lately. The truth is, I’ve been naughty for a whole year and while I had a very good excuse, (pregnancy, breastfeeding, covid) my pants are becoming less-forgiving and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable in my (already) oversized sweatshirts. I know when it’s time for me to scale back on certain things, and although I don’t eat a lot of it, cheese goes right to my waistline.

And then it hit me. I had a lonely butternut squash. My taste buds were yearning for mac and cheese. Archie had to eat lunch too and BOOM the idea to make butternut squash mac and cheese was BORN.

I googled a few different recipes and the one from nobread.com called out to me! It was super easy to make. I abandoned my butternut squash in the oven for an hour at 350 and that seemed to do the trick but you can cook your butternut squash however you like! The secret to this sauce tasting cheddar-like is the nutritional yeast. I’ve always bought Bob’s Red Mills and it’s never let me down.

Throw everything in the blender and ALAKAZAM — “mac and cheese”!

This recipe is “Baby Led Weaning” friendly! I left the salt out for Archie and added it only to my plate. The wheat pasta was a little tough so I cut them into quarters for him to eat and he loved LOVED it! Kid likes pasta like his mama! I can already tell we are going to be foodie besties.

RECIPE

• 1 1/2 cups of cooked butternut squash

• 1/4 cup of unsweetened plant-based milk or dairy milk (I used unsweetened oat milk)

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 1 tbsp of water

• 2 garlic cloves or 1 tsp of garlic powder (I used garlic powder because I was lazy)

• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast

• Juice from half a lemon

• Salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

• Roast or boil your butternut squash until soft

• Add all ingredients to a blender or Nutribullet and blend away! If it struggles, add a little bit of water to make it go

• Taste as you blend! You may prefer it to have more garlic, more lemon, or more nutritional yeast. This recipe is a great starter to take you to flavor town!

• Pour over your pasta of choice! I love the texture of whole wheat penne or fusilli pasta

• Hello, plant-based mac and cheese! Enjoy!

If you try this recipe, I hope you love it as much and Archie and I did!