Healthy Vegan Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese with Cut Up Veggie Hot Dogs
Comforting and creamy, macaroni with cut up veggie dogs in a smooth carrot, butternut squash, and onion dairy-free sauce.
Instructions and Ingredients
Sauce
- 3/4 cup onion peeled and chopped.
- 2 cups butternut squash peeled and cut into small cubes.
- 1.5 cups carrots peeled and in small pieces, or whole baby carrots.
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp salt or less, to taste
- 1/4 tsp ground pepper
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast optional
- 1/4 cup almonds or almond flour (what I used)
- 1/4 cup plant milk Such as oat, soy, or almond milk.
Pasta
- 375 g whole grain macaroni 1 small box
Plant Based Weiners
- 450 g veggie dogs 7-12 plant based weiners / frankfurters
- Add butternut squash, carrots, 1/2 cup water, and onion to a microwaveable dish. Cover and microwave until soft. About 10-17 minutes.
- Optionally, prepare a vegetable side dish (for example, we recently ate chopped and steamed bok choy with this meal).
- Start water boiling for the pasta, I add the macaroni pasta to the water even before it is boiling, and I stir it so it doesn't stick to the bottom. This is a trick I learned to speed up pasta cooking, from another internet chef on You Tube. One the pasta and water are boiling, set a timer for the pasta cooking time, Remember to stir!
- While the pasta cooks, place the following in a high speed blender: almond flour (or whole almonds), garlic powder, pepper, nutritional yeast, and salt.
- Chop weiners into thick slices and place in a large pot (no heat yet). Alternatively, say you don't want to dirty another pot, you can put these aside and add them for the last minute or two of the pasta cooking water to heat them up.
- Take the cooked squash, carrots, and onion out of the microwave, and add them to the blender, along with their cooking liquid plus the plant milk.
- Blend on high until creamy, taste test (beware it will be hot) for seasonings. Add another 1/4 cup plant milk if the mixture is too thick to blend. I use a stir stick that came with my Vitamix, it fits in the top of my blender and I can stir with it while blending, it is fantastic.
- Add the blended sauce to the large pot of sliced plant based weiners and set to medium heat. Stir until bubbling, immediately reduce heat to medium low. Alternatively, if you added the weiners to the cooking pasta water, drain that, and return to the pot, then add the sauce from the blender, no need to heat further, you can remove it from the heat and serve.
- Drain cooked pasta and add to the pot with the sauce and weiners. Stir to combine.
- Serve with greens on the side.
Notes
Optionally serve with cooked cut up greens on the side, your guests may wish to stir them into the pasta. We ate this with chopped, steamed bok choy. Peas would taste good as well.
Great as a school lunch leftover.
Nutrition
Nutrition Facts
Healthy Vegan Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese with Cut Up Veggie Hot Dogs
Amount Per Serving
Calories 345
Calories from Fat 36
% Daily Value*
Fat 4g6%
Saturated Fat 1g6%
Trans Fat 1g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1g
Monounsaturated Fat 2g
Sodium 804mg35%
Potassium 454mg13%
Carbohydrates 58g19%
Fiber 5g21%
Sugar 7g8%
Protein 22g44%
Vitamin A 8853IU177%
Vitamin C 11mg13%
Calcium 80mg8%
Iron 6mg33%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
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