Nut-Free 1-Pot Macaroni & Cheese

Nut-free macaroni and cheese made in one pot with your favorite pasta, steamed root vegetables, SunButter, and a crunchy sunflower seed topping.

Friends, I finally picked my pumpkins for Halloween. 

And by “picked” I mean I ordered two pumpkins on the Target app and picked them up in the Curbside pick up spot on the way home from outdoor climbing yesterday. 

There was something so calming about a nameless Target employee in a red bullseye shirt picking out my gourds this season. 

Picking out the “perfect” pumpkin can be a bit frustrating, can’t it? 

Darting from pumpkin to pumpkin in the patch, grabbing them by the stem and rolling their bulbous body over only to find a rotting or flattened backside. 

Gah. 

Since all forms of decision making feels hard right about now, I was more than ready to let a stranger decide the fate of my front step decor. 

Luckily, whoever it was picked me out two really solid pumpkins; round and red-orange with a stocky sturdy stem. 

I literally can not wait to carve them up this weekend! 

I also can’t wait to share this Nut-Free 1-Pot Macaroni & Cheese with you.

It’s the perfect cozy companion for your table this fall made with veggies and seeds. 

If you’ve experimented with vegan cheeses before, you know that most of them are made creamy and crave-able with nuts. 

I love a good cashew cheese as much as the next person, but hey, seeds have healthy fats too!

A reader requested a nut-free macaroni & cheese a while back and I recorded the recipe title in an empty cell on my giant recipe inspiration Excel spreadsheet  under “Dinner ideas”. 

Wait, you don’t have one of those?  

Anyway, I finally created this Nut-Free 1-Pot Macaroni & Cheese.

In this version we use No Sugar Added SunButter in place of cashews to create a nutritious one-pot macaroni & cheese.

It’s cozy, “cheezy”, and so smooth without any dairy, gluten, oil, or nuts!

Here’s what you need to make the best nut-free mac & cheese: 

• grain-free pasta
• sweet potato
• carrots
• nutritional yeast
• unsweetened almond milk
• No Sugar Added SunButter
• lemon juice
• garlic powder
• Himalayan sea salt

That’s it!

For this recipe we start by making the nut-free cheese sauce. 

This sauce starts with boiled sweet potatoes and carrots.

Place the chopped root veggies into the boiling water and cook them for about 10 minutes, until they’re fork tender and pliable. 

Drain the potatoes and carrots and set them aside to cool sightly.

Rinse out the pot (it doesn’t have to be perfect or spotless), then re-fill with filtered water and bring to a boil again to cook your pasta!

For this recipe, I love to use a legume-based pasta, but any pasta will work. 

Select a gluten or grain-free pasta to meet your dietary needs! 

While the pasta is cooking, finish preparing your nut-free cheese sauce.

Add the sweet potatoes and carrots with the rest of the remaining sauce ingredients in a food processor or high-speed blender and blend for 1-2 minutes, until the sauce is thick and creamy.

Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning as needed, maybe adding a little more nutritional yeast or salt as needed. 

Drain the pasta, keeping it in the pot, and pour the cheese sauce all. over. it.

Stir the pot until the noodles are well coated with sauce. 

Your nut-free mac ‘n’ cheese is complete with just one pot!

But wait, there’s more! 

Instead of bread crumbs, let’s top our Nut-Free 1-Pot Macaroni & Cheese with a seasoned sunflower seed toppings. 

For the Sunflower Seed Topping, you need: 

• sunflower seeds
• nutritional yeast
• Himalayan sea salt

That’s it!

Nutritional yeast, sunflower seeds, and salt create a “cheezy” savory parmesan that adds texture to the top of this easy mac. 

It’s easy to blend up by pulsing in the blender.

Then you can store leftover sunflower seed topping in the fridge for several months.

Save it for future macaroni cheese or any other dish where you might use a vegan parmesan. 

Serve your Nut-Free 1-Pot Macaroni & Cheese immediately with sunflower seed topping sprinkled on top. 

This plant-based macaroni & cheese is so easy to mix up for an easy plant-based dinner or side dish! 

Pick your favorite pasta and mix up this easy vegan cheese sauce made with sunflower seed butter, veggies, and nutritional yeast. 

You can store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.

I recommend storing the macaroni & cheese and sunflower seed topping separately so the topping retains its flavor and crunch! 

Recombine and reheat the dish in the microwave or on the stovetop before serving. 

Enjoy!

If you make this Nut-Free 1-Pot Macaroni & Cheese, let me know! I’d love to see how yours turned out!

Be sure to leave me a comment, rating, and review so I can use your feedback to create more yums.

Give me a shout on Instagram and use #floraandvino to show me your creations.

Check out my Pinterest page to pin more recipe like this one to make later.

For more “cheezy” recipes, check out my Mac ‘N’ Peas Bowls with Cheezy Tahini Sauce and my “Cheezy” Chickpea, Broccoli, & Cauliflower Rice Casserole!

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XO Lauren

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This post is brought to you by SunButter, but all words and eats are my own. Thanks for supporting the sponsors that keep me hungry!

Photography by Hot Pan Kitchen