Raw vegan cheese recipes typically cashews or almonds, but not this one. This raw substitute for parmesan cheese is made with raw sunflower seeds, nutritional yeast and sea salt. Nutritional yeast is a constant in most vegan or raw vegan cheese recipes because it provides that classic cheesy flavor. As a product, nutritional yeast comes in the form of flakes, granules, or a powder. Most nutritional yeast that you find in grocery stores is fortified with high levels of many vitamins, including vitamin B6, riboflavin, thiamin, folate, and vitamin B12. So not only does it impart a cheesy flavor, but it also supplies you with valuable nutrients that can be difficult to obtain on a raw vegan diet.

To be fair, this raw vegan parmesan recipe does not taste like regular parmesan cheese. It does enhance the flavors of dishes that would normally benefit from parmesan cheese, though. Consider adding it on raw zucchini noodle recipes, in homemade raw pesto recipes, or even as a salad topper. How you use this parmesan is entirely up to you, but it is highly versatile and easy to make in a food processor or high-speed blender. Just make sure that you do not over-blend the sunflower seeds until they become a puree. You want this parmesan cheese to have some texture.

A few tips for blending: have your food processor or blender on pulse setting. Pulse for a few seconds at a time or else you will end up with some savory sunflower seed butter if you don’t. To prevent this, stop blending and give it a mix as soon as you see the mixture start to clump. Once it reaches a nice finely ground consistency, you are finished and can pour it into a jar for storage.