7 vegan mac and cheese recipes that made this National Mac & Cheese Day unforgettable (even for the skeptics)

The first time I attempted vegan mac and cheese, I stood in my kitchen holding a box of nutritional yeast like it was some kind of alien artifact. “This is supposed to taste like cheese?” I muttered, squinting at the yellow flakes that looked more like fish food than anything that belonged on pasta.

That was decades ago. Today, on National Macaroni and Cheese Day, I’ve just finished testing seven of the internet’s most beloved vegan mac recipes in what can only be described as a carbohydrate odyssey of cashew-soaking, potato-boiling, and breadcrumb-toasting. My kitchen looks like a pasta bomb went off, but I’ve discovered something surprising: vegan mac and cheese isn’t just possible—when done right, it’s transcendent.

The Contenders

I chose recipes that represented different schools of vegan mac philosophy: the cashew devotees, the potato pioneers, the butternut squash believers, and one intriguing butter bean rebel. Each promised to be “the best” or “the ultimate,” which in the world of plant-based cooking often translates to “tastes somewhat like the thing you’re missing.”

But I wanted more than somewhat. I wanted that specific alchemy of creamy, tangy, salty satisfaction that makes mac and cheese the unofficial therapy food of stressed adults everywhere—a need that’s only intensified in our age of climate anxiety and ethical eating.

The Cashew Cream Dream Team

Nisha Vora’s Rainbow Plant Life version immediately caught my attention with its use of roasted butternut squash alongside soaked cashews, creating a sauce that’s “ridiculously creamy and cheesy.” The addition of miso paste for umami depth showed a sophistication I hadn’t expected.

Nora Cooks’ approach was more straightforward but no less effective, blending cashews with lemon juice, nutritional yeast, and turmeric for color. Meanwhile, Ambitious Kitchen went bold with a jalapeño thrown whole into the blender—seeds and all—promising it “adds lovely flavor” without overwhelming heat.

Hot for Food’s Lauren Toyota took a different tack, incorporating tomato paste and miso into her cashew base, creating what she calls “the perfect vegan mac & cheese.”

The Root Vegetable Revolution

Love and Lemons surprised me with a combination of yellow potatoes and sweet potatoes as the sauce base, with only a quarter cup of cashews for support. This felt revolutionary—using the starch and natural creaminess of potatoes to mimic dairy’s body.

The Dark Horse: Butter Beans

But the recipe that made me do a double-take came from Make It Dairy Free. Their secret weapon? Butter beans. Blended with the usual suspects of nutritional yeast and plant milk, they promised a protein-rich sauce without any nuts. (Yes, butter beans and lima beans are the same legume, just named differently depending on where you live and when they’re harvested.)

The Bechamel Purist

Loving It Vegan went full classic, creating a traditional roux with vegan butter and flour, then building a bechamel with coconut milk. No vegetables, no beans, no cashews—just old-school sauce-making technique applied to plant-based ingredients.

The Testing Panel

I made each recipe exactly as written, fighting my instinct to tweak and adjust. By batch three, my partner wandered in, surveyed the chaos, and asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m doing science,” I replied, stirring a pot of orange sauce that would have looked at home in a lava lamp.

By evening, I’d recruited my own testing panel: my cheese-obsessed partner, my lactose-intolerant best friend Sarah, and my neighbor who claims to hate nutritional yeast. Each mac got the same treatment: a taste straight from the pot, another after the suggested resting time, and a final judgment after reheating the next day, scored on creaminess, flavor complexity, and that essential comfort factor. Because let’s be honest—great mac and cheese needs to survive the leftover test.

The Revelations

The Cashew Contingent

The butternut squash addition in Rainbow Plant Life’s version created a sauce that was less “cashew-forward” and more mysteriously creamy. The sweetness played beautifully against the sharp nutritional yeast. My lactose-intolerant friend Sarah actually teared up a little: “This is what I remember mac and cheese tasting like.”

Ambitious Kitchen’s jalapeño addition was genius—not spicy enough to register as heat, but present enough to add a background complexity that made me keep going back for another bite. Even my heat-averse neighbor admitted it added “something interesting I can’t quite place.”

The Potato Surprise

Love and Lemons’ potato-based sauce achieved something I didn’t think possible—it was actually gooey. The yellow potato’s starch created that stringy, melty quality I’d given up on finding in vegan cheese. My partner, mid-chew, pointed his fork at me: “This. This is the one. This is what cheese does.” Coming from someone who once described vegan cheese as “sadness wrapped in hope,” this was high praise.

The Bean Queen

Make It Dairy Free’s butter bean sauce was shockingly good. Creamy without being heavy, with zero bean flavor detectible. Plus, the recipe delivered on its allergen-friendly promise—no nuts needed. Sarah ranked this one her second favorite, saying it reminded her of Velveeta in the best possible way.

The Traditional Triumph

Loving It Vegan’s bechamel base proved that sometimes the old ways are best. The coconut milk created richness without any coconut flavor, and the sauce clung to the noodles like a cashmere sweater. My nutritional-yeast-hating neighbor? He went back for thirds of this one, muttering something about “not tasting the hippie flakes at all.”

The Texture Wars

Here’s where things got interesting. The recipes fell into distinct texture camps:

The “creamy-smooth” camp (most cashew-based versions) delivered silky sauces that coated noodles evenly but sometimes felt more like a very good pasta in cream sauce than mac and cheese.

The “mysteriously stretchy” camp (potato-based and some with added vegan cheese shreds) achieved moments of actual cheese-pull, that elusive grail of plant-based cooking.

The “crispy-topped champions” all benefited enormously from their breadcrumb crowns. As Nora Cooks notes, mixing panko with melted vegan butter and broiling creates that essential textural contrast.

The Leftover Lesson

By day two, clear winners emerged. The potato-based sauces held their texture best, while pure cashew sauces tended to dry out. But here’s the game-changer: every recipe creator who mentioned it recommended adding a splash of plant milk when reheating. This simple trick revived even the saddest-looking leftovers. Though I’ll admit, Hot for Food’s version never quite recovered its day-one glory—the tomato paste seemed to intensify overnight in a way that threw off the balance.

The Winners

After heated debate over leftover containers the next day, we reached a consensus:

For Weeknight Comfort

Nora Cooks’ stovetop version, ready in 20 minutes with no vegetables to roast. The lemon juice adds just enough tang to cut through the richness. My partner deemed this his “Tuesday night go-to.”

For Special Occasions

Rainbow Plant Life’s butternut-cashew hybrid, baked with crispy panko on top. The recipe notes that letting it rest for 15-20 minutes allows it to “almost solidify into a mass”—exactly what you want for Instagram-worthy slices. This was Sarah’s number one pick: “I’d serve this at Thanksgiving and watch people’s minds explode.”

For Allergen Concerns

Make It Dairy Free’s butter bean version. Nut-free, soy-free if you choose your milk carefully, and easily gluten-free with the right noodles.

For Skeptics

Loving It Vegan’s bechamel-based recipe. The familiar technique and rich results convert doubters who think vegan automatically means weird. This won over my nutritional-yeast-phobic neighbor completely.

The Dark Horse Champion

Love and Lemons’ potato-based magic earned the most enthusiastic response from my cheese-loving partner. “If you told me this was regular mac and cheese with some weird new cheese blend, I’d believe you,” he said, scraping the pot.

What I Learned

Standing in my kitchen, surrounded by empty pots and very full stomachs, I realized something profound about vegan mac and cheese in 2025. We’re past the point of apologetic substitutes, past the era of “it’s good… for vegan food.” The best vegan mac and cheese isn’t the one that tastes most like Kraft or your grandmother’s recipe—it’s the one that makes you stop comparing altogether.

When we tallied up our notes the next morning—my partner marking “would eat again” next to five recipes, Sarah drawing hearts, my neighbor texting for “that one with the breadcrumbs”—I knew we’d crossed into new territory. These recipes have evolved past imitation into their own cuisine. The potato-based versions feel almost molecular in their innovation, while the bechamel approach shows that classical technique transcends dietary boundaries. The real secret? Combination. The best recipes layer multiple approaches—cashews for creaminess, vegetables for body, nutritional yeast for umami, acid for brightness.

The box of nutritional yeast that once seemed so alien now sits in my pantry next to the salt and pepper, just another flavor in the arsenal. Because sometimes the future of comfort food looks like cashew cream and potato magic, and that future tastes pretty incredible. It’s a small revolution happening in home kitchens, one pot of orange sauce at a time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have seven different types of mac and cheese in my fridge, and they’re not going to eat themselves. Though after today, I might need to take a break. At least until dinner.