vegan thai red curry mac & cheese
Kick up the heat a little with this tangy, spicy, and fresh Thai red curry mac & cheese.. it'll hit the spot!
Servings 6 servings
Ingredients
Pasta & Mix ‘ins
- 3 C elbow macaroni
- 2 pkgs vegan chicken pieces (340 g or approx. 2 cups)
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 C baby spinach
- ½ C chopped fresh cilantro
- 2 tablespoon roughly chopped thai basil (optional if you can find it)
Topping
- ¼ C bread crumbs
- ¼ C roasted peanuts, finely chopped or crushed
- 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
Cheese Sauce
- 1 C raw cashews (soaked for 20 minutes in hot water)
- 1 can (400 ml/13.5 oz) coconut milk (about 1 ½ cups)
- 1 C water
- ⅓ C nutritional yeast
- 3 tablespoon tomato paste
- 2 tablespoon red curry paste (can add 1 more tablespoon for hot)
- 1 ½ tablespoon miso paste
- 1 lime, juice and zest
- 5 to 6 dried kaffir lime leaves
- 2 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 teaspoon arrowroot flour
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon white pepper (or ground black pepper)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- To cook the pasta, bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta until al dente. Drain, but do not rinse.
- To prepare the topping, combine the bread crumbs, peanuts, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, chili powder, and sea salt in a small bowl.
- To make the sauce, drain and rinse the cashews. Add to a high-powered blender with the remaining ingredients and blend on high until very smooth.
- Heat a 9-inch cast-iron pan over medium-hight heat and add the vegetable oil and chicken pieces. Brown for 5 to 6 minutes adding salt and pepper to taste, if necessary, until golden brown and crispy in most parts of the pieces of chicken.
- Then turn off the burner and add the pasta, sauce, spinach, cilantro, and thai basil to the pan and stir with the browned chicken until well coated and combined. What looks like an excess amount of sauce will thicken during baking!
- Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture evenly on top.
- Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove the foil and bake on the top rack of the oven for 10 minutes until the top is golden brown and the sides are bubbling slightly. Depending on your oven and the distribution of heat, you might want to set the skillet under the broiler for 5 minutes to get the top crispier instead of continuing to bake at 350°F.
Notes
Serve immediately. When reheating leftovers you may want to add more nondairy milk to get it creamy once again.
