I Love Cheese but I REALLY Love This Vegan Queso
In these trying times, not many things give me more comfort than dunking one tortilla chip after another into a bowl of molten queso dip. I love partaking in this gooey pastime at restaurants, but at home it’s a different story. A quick glance at the ingredient list on a jar of grocery-store queso is enough to make me jump back in terror. Just what exactly is “sodium hexametaphosphate?” Recently I found a queso brand with ingredients I can get behind that also tastes amazing, but there’s one catch: It has zero cheese. I’m talking about vegan queso, specifically Siete’s Spicy Blanco cashew queso, and I’m obsessed.
Austin-based brand Siete was launched in 2014 after Veronica Garza could no longer indulge in the foods of her Mexican-American heritage due to an autoimmune condition. After going grain-free to alleviate her symptoms, her six family members (mom and dad included) joined her in forgoing grains. Eventually, Garza got tired of lettuce wraps in lieu of tortillas and delved into the world of grain-free tortillas. “She got in the kitchen and solved her own problem by making a tortilla out of almond flour,” says Miguel Garza, CEO and co-founder of Siete. “We all thought, ‘Wow. This is actually really good.’”
Siete’s lineup began with grain-free tortillas and tortilla chips, but Veronica had been fiddling with a vegan queso recipe for years. “We grew up eating queso in our house. We ate it with tacos at breakfast and we would eat it with fajitas for dinner,” says Miguel. While Veronica isn’t vegan, she gave up dairy when she discovered that it’s another inflammatory culprit. Miguel says, “She created this product to solve this problem of [wanting] the nostalgia of our heritage but in a way that conformed to our current dietary restrictions.”
There are two varieties of queso, mild nacho and spicy blanco. Of the two, I prefer the blanco with its zesty flavor and rich, creamy texture. What’s most impressive is how the ingredients are all whole, plant-based foods like cashews, tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, jalapeños, and coconut milk—and yet somehow it all works together to create a “cheesy” dip.
Pure bliss comes when you pop the queso in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it through, then get to dunking. Miguel likes to spread the queso over a tortilla and drizzle it with hot sauce. “It’s almost like a quesadilla.” He’s also heard of customers drizzling it over mashed or roasted potatoes. And the milder nacho queso works well as a base for macaroni and cheese.
So I say to vegans and non-vegans alike, embrace this spicy blanco queso. Not because it’s dairy-free but because it’s delicious and full of ingredients you actually want to eat.
Buy it: Siete Foods Spicy Blanco Cashew Queso, $7.99
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