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Comment by tpoacher | Hacker News Reader

Pro tip when it comes to pasta / pizza.

Forget about vegan cheeses on pizza/pasta. They taste crap.

What tastes really good is ground nuts. I sprinkle a mixture of ground pine nuts, cashew nuts, and tiny bit of pecan, (-/+ possibly some macademia nuts) and it tastes great. When ground properly in the right proportions, this mixture also has that nice fluffy, "cheesy" feel to it (i.e. it's not rough to the touch, it's soft and spreadable).

Different experience from actual cheese, but very tasty. Whereas whenever I've tried vegan cheese on pizza/pasta, they always leave an ugly aftertaste, have a disgusting texture and stick to my teeth and throat, and leave me bloated and feeling like crap afterwards.

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This is what I'm more interested in: Don't try to replace animal foods directly, create great plant based foods. I'm not vegan or even vegetarian, but I am interested in reducing my animal consumption.

I mean, ground nuts are a classic "replacement" for cheese, so I don't really see how this is at all different from what the vegan cheeses are doing.

Presumably the person you replied to means they'd prefer healthy plant-based flavours that shine as flavours in their own right, rather than synthetic imitation foodstuffs that just happen to be vegan-compatible.

I don't know where the line between "healthy plant-based flavours" and "synthetic imitation foodstuffs" starts and stops is I guess my difficiulty.

Most vegan cheeses I have are just fermented ground up nuts or soy.

There are some cashew-based queso dips that are pretty darn tasty. Although, it's a bit easier for vegan to compete in that context since "real" queso dips are the whey stuff not cheese, per se.

Edit: to be clear, I'm commenting as a tangent to the ground nut suggestion. I'm not suggesting anyone put queso on pizza, unless that sounds good to you :)

I couldn't agree more. Cheeseless pizza is also a lot more fresh in my opinion. It's more like a flat focaccia with more toppings, in my case hiding under a mountain of arugula.

Thanks for the tip. When you say grind, do you mean like put it through a food processor?

Actually, sorry, I should have said 'grated' instead of 'ground'.

When I do it, I actually use a rotary cheesegrater in the finest setting (i.e. something like this: www.thebakerskitchen.net/images/products/detail/811642026798.jpg). This makes the nuts come out soft and flakey.

But, yes, presumably a food processor should be ok too.

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