Cream Sauce

While it’s true that I generally try to avoid blatant “substitute” recipes, this one is tasty, versatile, and healthy–so it makes the cut. What I’m going to show you is not really a recipe in and of itself, but rather a base that can be incorporated into a dozen different recipes.

First, take a can of navy beans. If you’re really hardcore you can cook your own–it’s certainly cheaper that way–but that assumes you’ve got an extra day to pre-soak the dried beans, then another couple of hours to cook them. Plus, it assumes your children will let a large bowl of tantalizing liquid sit undisturbed on the counter for 15 minutes, let alone 15 hours. Ain’t gonna happen in this household.

Do be careful to check your brands, but this is another one of those foods where you ought to be able to just pick the right label off the shelf: it should basically say “Navy Beans, Water, Salt.” Don’t even bother with anything else.

Dump the whole can in the blender. If you cooked your own, you’ll have to estimate how much of the cooking liquid to use to get the right consistency.

Now, add 2 Tablespoons of nutritional yeast. (You may notice the picture shows a smaller measuring spoon, but that’s because all my tablespoons were dirty. 3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation.) Now what on God’s green Earth is nutritional yeast, you ask? Well, I’m glad you asked. Most people are familiar with the concept of the “good bacteria” in your stomach that aids digestion. It’s the healthy stuff you find in yogurt, as opposed to the nasty bacteria that can give you food poisoning. Well there’s actually a form of good yeast, too, which is totally different from the bad yeast (Candida albicans) that can cause intestinal distress just like its bad-bacteria counterpart. The scientific name for this good strain of yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae–which is precisely why people call it “nutritional yeast” instead.

You can buy nutritional yeast at health food stores, usually stocked in those big self-serve bins in the bulk department. Buy a half a cup or so, and you can store it in an airtight container in your pantry indefinitely. The flavor is just sort of… magic. It’s kind of like salt, in that it somehow brings out and complements the flavors of whatever it’s added to. But it doesn’t taste like salt. The closest way to describe it is it tastes like Cheetos. (And it is, in fact, what they use in these things, one of the best GFCF snacks out there.) Anyway, it tastes so good, I even know people who eat it straight out of the container. And just like the good bacteria in yogurt, your body needs the good yeast to maintain the right digestive balance, so it’s got benefits beyond flavor.

Blend again, and it’s ready to go! At this point it’s a basic white sauce: you can add sage and cooked ground sausage, and all of a sudden you have a flour-free sausage gravy. Or you can mix it with chicken broth and use it as a base for any kind of cream-based soup. Or cook it on the stove to thicken it a little bit, and you have a “cheesy” filling for enchiladas. Or mix in some tahini, garlic, and lemon juice, and you have a dip for veggies or chips that’s very similar to hummus. The possibilities are endless! (But if they’re too endless to manage, don’t worry, I’ll be posting some recipes that incorporate it in the near future.)

Happy Eating!

Cream Sauce

1 can plain navy beans
2 TBS nutritional yeast