Sunflower Seed Vegan Cheeze Spread Recipe- Gluten Free, Nooch Free

I know I rarely post two posts in one day (and I should just schedule my posts so that instead of two in one day, I have a post every day).... but... I just invented this really yummy vegan cheese spread/sauce, and it's so good that I didn't want to wait to post it until after everything else in my lineup was posted. So I'll just post it today.
I had a vegan cheese sauce recipe that I had been using for a while. It's mainly nutritional yeast with some other stuff, and it tastes good...
But I've been in a dilemma about whether or not I should be using nutritional yeast, because its something I can't make at home myself, and that's pretty much where I draw the line at healthy vs not healthy... And there is the slight possibility that it's been causing me headaches.
But almost all vegan cheeses seem to call for that.
Or if they don't, they call for cashews or almonds or both, and I never use those in recipes. Ok rarely. I tend to avoid cashew or almond recipes because they are a fortune!!!
Sunflowers, though, are a decent replacement for them in some recipes, and sunflowers are much cheaper... and on top of that, I buy them in bulk, so they're even cheaper for me.

So I made this vegan cheese sauce/spread using sunflower seeds as the base. And with no nutritional yeast. And the sunflower seeds are soaked to make them more digestible. And the "cheeze" tastes really, really, yummy. I can't tell you what exactly it tastes like, because it's been a while since I've had any real cheese. And honestly, no vegan cheese is a perfect replica- it just gives the suggestion of cheese. But either way, this cheeze has a taste which is a cross between cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and feta cheese. And something entirely different too.

I ate it on buckwheat already tonight, and ate it on mashed potatoes. It would be awesome as a topping for baked potatoes and stuffed potato skins, and in tuna "melts" and in casseroles. And I can already tell it will be unbelievable as vegan macaroni and cheeze, and on pizza.

In short, amazing.

But you don't have to take my word for it! Try it out yourself!

P.S. I very very very very very loosely based this recipe on a recipe for almond "cream cheese" from this book "The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook" by Jo Stepaniak, but really, its something I invented all on my own. Because even though I started out with her recipe, none of the ingredients stayed the same, other than water and lemon juice and salt, and nothing was substituted one for one in this recipe. I just started out with that basic concept and went from there, adding stuff according to my taste...

Sunflower Seed Vegan Cheeze Spread Recipe- Gluten Free, Nutritional Yeast Free, Nut Free

Ingredients:
3/4 cups soaked sunflower seeds
1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup and 1 1/2 cups and 1/8 cup
2 tablespoons whole tahini paste
2 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 teaspoon miso (make sure to use gluten free miso to keep this gluten free)

Instructions:
1. Soak your sunflower seeds 10-12 hours in enough water to completely cover them. Pour off the water.

2. Mix the soaked sunflower seeds with 1/2 cup water and process in a food processor or blender until it's as smooth as you can get it, ideally 2 minutes or so.

3. Add tahini paste and another half a cup of water and blend for another minute.

4. Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk well so its all mixed evenly.

5. Bring to a boil on the stove, mixing thoroughly, and cook until thickened.

6. Use either hot, or cold.

Does this look like a recipe you'd try out?
If you have a go-to vegan cheese recipe you use in your house, what's in it?

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