Vegan Holiday Cheese Ball

Ah, the Holiday Cheese Ball. When you're standing around snacking on it at a family gathering, you feel like you've got the most coveted spot in the kitchen. If you take this to a real live potluck, you'd better guard it fiercely so it doesn't simply disappear while your back is turned, leaving you cheeseless and forlorn.

This is so good that the last cheese ball got eaten before I could even photograph it! It disappeared in the middle of the night last week. Apparently, I'm not the only one in this house who is obsessed with it. Luckily, the recipe is ridiculously simple with only about 10 minutes of hands-on time.

You can serve the cheese ball with any of your favorite raw vegetables; we even put sliced honeycrisp apples on our tray, the combination of the sweet crisp apples and the piquant cheese was amazing.

Holiday Cheese Ball – Vegan Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups raw cashews, soaked in purified water for 4–6 hours
• 2 packed tablespoons dry pack sun dried tomatoes, snipped into small pieces with kitchen scissors then soaked in the purified water with the cashews
• 1/4 cup Sunwarrior Nutritional Yeast
• 1 heaped tablespoon mellow white miso (use chickpea miso if you are sensitive to soy)
• 1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Sunwarrior Sea Salt
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dry ground mustard powder
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Sunwarrior Turmeric
• dash cayenne
• 1/2 cup organic unrefined coconut oil

Directions

Pour the soaking water off the cashews and sun-dried tomatoes and then rinse them with fresh purified water. Drain well. Place the cashews and the tomatoes in a food processor or high powered blender and pulse until they start to form a paste, scraping down the sides as necessary.

Add all of the seasonings and pulse until thoroughly combined. Add the coconut oil. Blend or process until the mixture is completely smooth, scraping down the sides occasionally. This process takes up to 10 minutes in a food processor and a few minutes in a power blender.

Scrape the soft cheese into a container. Cover and refrigerate for 4–6 hours or until the cheese is quite firm. Scrape the cheese out of the container and place onto a clean surface. With your hands, form the cheese into a ball. Keep in mind, it's best chilled until just before serving since it begins to soften a bit once it reaches room temperature.

See note below for topping/variation ideas.

The cheese ball can be served as is or rolled in any variety of chopped nuts and or herbs. You can use sliced almonds, but walnut pieces or pecan pieces with some fresh minced parsley, thyme, or sage.

The cheeseball is also incredibly good with raw flax crackers.

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