I looked at various recipes for vegan ricotta – some recipes used firm tofu and some recipes used cashews. Because I had tofu and cashews on hand, I decided to use both! Why not? #protein
The results were scrumptious!
My niece, who is not vegan (and she’s not too fond of tofu), thought these manicotti’s were delicious – she thought I really put cheese in the dish.
(One day I’ll have the time to figure out how to add the Recipe plug-in on wordpress but until then, this is what you get lol: ghetto version)
Vegan Ricotta:
Fills about 15 shells
Ingredients:
1 block extra firm tofu
1 1/2 cups soaked cashews (and then ground with saltNpepper to taste and 1/2 Cup water)
1 Cup chopped fresh Spinach
1 Cup chopped white mushroom
1 package (about 2 cups) veggie crumble (optional)
1/2 Cup diced onions
1/4 Cup minced garlic
1 TBS olive oil
(Seasonings)
3 TBS Nutritional yeast
2 tsp dry basil
2 tsp dry oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
In a skillet, let oil heat up on medium low heat.
In the meantime, chop onions, garlic and mushrooms.
Add onions and garlic to oil and sautee for 10 minutes or until translucent.
Add veggie crumble and mushrooms to the skillet. Sautee for about 5 minutes then turn off burner.
Next, ground cashews in blender with 1/2 Cup water + SaltNpepper
Drain tofu (you don’t have to dry it with a papertowel).
In a bowl, crumble firm tofu with your fingers – I was able to get the ‘ricotta’ texture by simply squeezing tofu in my hands/fingers. (Result shown in the pic above)
Add your veggie crumble and mushroom mixture to the bowl of squeezed tofu.
Add chopped spinach and ground cashews. I found that the cashews made the tofu creamier and added moisture.
Mix all ingredients until fully combined.
I think you could use this Ricotta in stuffed shells or lasagna 😋
For the manicotti…
I used dry manicotti shells and a premade organic marinara sauce. (Optional: vegan mozzarella cheese)
Boil shells in salted boiling hot water for 9 minutes. Once boiled, drain water from shells and let shells cool.
I used a piping bag to fill shells with tofu ricotta, but you could use a spoon.
In a shallow baking pan, pour 1 cup of your marinara sauce covering every inch of the bottom of your pan.
Lay your filled manicotti shells side-by-side until pan is full.
Add the rest of your marinara sauce. You can add your vegan cheese on top.
Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes.
When finished baking, let cool… then serve.
Enjoy!
The håle' 