There are many dishes I love from my childhood that use cottage cheese or skuta as we call it in my home country of Slovenia. It was really important for me to create a taste that will be an excellent substitute for this ingredient. After many tries I finally succeeded in making a very good imitation. I make it with silken tofu, cashews and coconut cream, mixed in a creamy sauce that I then add to crumbled firm tofu. You can use this cottage cheese in dishes like börek with vegan cottage cheese, vegan layered strudel cake (prekmurska gibanica), baked crepes with vegan cottage cheese and cottage cheese strudel. Trust me, they will taste as the real thing with this imitation of cottage cheese. You won’t notice the difference.
In this recipe I use probiotics to achieve a real tangy feel in the taste. This takes some time for the final product to be ready but it’s worth it.
Vegan Cottage Cheese (V, GF)
Ingredients
- 20 g cashews
- 100 g silken tofu (I used extra firm silken tofu)
- 50 ml (3 tbsp + 1 tsp) coconut cream* just cream from a can of coconut cream (without the water)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 150 g firm tofu*
- 1/2 probiotic capsule (make sure it's vegan)
Instructions
- Carefully clean a big glass and sterilize it with boiling water. Leave it to dry.
- Crush cashews in a food processor.
- Add silken tofu, coconut cream and salt to the food processor. Blend again until the mixture transforms into a smooth sauce. Put it into a bowl.
- Crumble firm tofu with the back of a fork and add it to the bowl. Mix well.
- Transfer the mixture to a sterilized glass and sprinkle the content of half of a probiotic capsule on top. Then take a wooden spoon and mix the probiotics into the mixture. It's important that you use a wooden and not a metal spoon. Metal can kill the probiotics. Cover the top of the glass with a paper towel and wrap elastic around it.
- Turn the light in your oven on (but don't turn on the oven)* and put the glass with vegan cottage cheese into the oven. Leave it there under the warm light for about 24 hours.
- After 24 hours take the cottage cheese out and store it in the refrigerator.
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