Amy?s Gluten-Free Non-Dairy Mac and Cheese Review

So in case it hasn’t been made clear yet, I like trying new things. Especially when it comes to innovative food substitutions! I haven’t done a lot of dairy-free/vegan posts because I try to avoid straight-up soy when possible. My mom is a breast cancer survivor and I prefer to not eat plant estrogen, “just in case.”  I’m not even sure there is any hard evidence on soy contributing to breast cancer because I honestly haven’t done much research, so don’t put a lost of stock into what I say on that. I do eat products that contain soy lecithin, etc. but I do not eat tofu, soy-based vegan cheese, edamame or drink soy milk.

Recently I have been hearing a lot on Daiya Vegan Cheese, which is not only gluten-free, diary-free, (casein-free, lactose-free and whey-free too) but soy-free, egg-free, rice-free and nut-free as well! I ordered some to sample and I have it in my possession but I am trying to figure out the best way to use it for sampling/recipe purposes. I think I will try to make Goldfish Crackers with the Cheddar Style Shreds, using arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch and palm shortening instead of butter, to see if we could get a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free and corn-free Goldfish cracker for the kiddos that cannot have those ingredients! Cross your fingers!

I’ll probably use the Italian Style Shreds for pizza!

Anyway, I recently picked up a package of Amy’s Gluten-Free, Non-Dairy Macaroni and Cheeze at my local Whole Foods to try out.

Right out of the microwave

Here is a close up so you can hopefully see the texture better.

We do eat dairy and real cheese so with that in mind, upon the first bite, we could tell “something” was different, but only a slight difference and definitely not enough to keep the four of us from polishing the entire thing off!

The texture of the cheese sauce was very creamy and well incorporated throughout. I have limited experience with non-dairy “cheese” and they were not positive ones for sure! Many of the non-dairy cheeses had either a rubbery or stringy texture that just made me very thankful for not needing to be dairy-free! The Amy’s Non-Dairy Mac and Cheeze was altogether different though and I could definitely eat it again. I also noticed that the macaroni noodles looked very similar to the macaroni noodles that Kraft uses, they were smaller and did not have the little ridges that the Tinkyada Rice Elbows have.

Here are the ingredients (copied from the Amy’s website):

INGREDIENTS : NO TRANS FAT ? NO ADDED MSG ? NO PRESERVATIVES (VEGAN) ORGANIC RICE PASTA (ORGANIC RICE FLOUR, WATER), FILTERED WATER, DAIYATM VEGAN CHEDDAR-TYPE CHEEZE (PURIFIED WATER, TAPIOCA AND/OR ARROWROOT FLOUR, EXPELLER PRESSED HIGH OLEIC SAFFLOWER OIL, COCONUT OIL, PEA PROTEIN, SALT, YEAST, VEGETABLE GLYCERIN, NATURAL FLAVORS, XANTHAN GUM, RICE EXTRACT, ENZYMES [NO ANIMAL RENNET OR ANIMAL ENZYMES], BACTERIAL CULTURES, CITRIC ACID, ANNATTO), ORGANIC EXPELLER PRESSED HIGH OLEIC SAFFLOWER AND/OR SUNFLOWER OIL, ORGANIC SWEET RICE FLOUR, SEA SALT, NUTRITIONAL YEAST, MUSTARD POWDER.

And the Nutritional Label (also copied from the website; the fat, carbs and sodium content seem high to me, but at least there is some fiber! ):