How to make a keto cheese sauce

I am well aware of what you're thinking: what is a keto recipe doing on a vegan food blog? Before I get any hate about going keto or warnings about how impossible vegan and keto will be, I am not going keto.

Let me say that again: I am not keto.

I have a friend who is keto and for her birthday, I want to put together a cookbook of my vegan recipes for her and because she has transitioned keto, I am trying to figure out ways to maintain the integrity of the original vegan recipes but make them keto so she can enjoy them.

For my regular vegan cheese sauce, I make a bechamel base of any oil, gluten free all purpose flour, and incorporate any plant based milk I have on hand, then whisk in nutritional yeast, hot sauce, and other seasonings of choice. Even if you normally don't like spicy foods, add the hot sauce anyway. Even if it might seem like you're adding a lot, the end result is not spicy. It just adds a depth of flavor and this sauce would be very bland without it. It usually doesn't take more than fifteen minutes.

On keto, there are two problems with these ingredients.

1. Gluten free does not mean grain free or low carb and by all accounts, gluten free all purpose flour is still not keto.

2. Your plant based milk probably has some added sugar in it and if you're using oat or rice milk, those are grains and therefore not keto.

There are also ways to solve these problems.

1. You can use coconut flour in your bechamel base instead. Coconut flour has no starch unlike grain based flours but it absorbs a lot of liquid, which will keep the sauce from turning out too watery.

2. You have plenty of choices of keto friendly plant based milks, even if you have a nut allergy. I would encourage using almond, coconut, soy, flax, or hemp milk and choose an unsweetened variety because the sweetener used in original varieties is usually not a low carb sweetener.

3. Because there is no starch thickening this sauce, you will likely need a lot more nutritional yeast and you can also add tahini or sunflower seed butter.

I hope these tips help you and if any of you have any ideas to contribute regarding making vegan food keto without making it non-vegan, please let me know in the comments, on Pinterest or Instagram, or email foodfromthegarden1@gmail.com. I am a newbie and I am trying to learn as much as I can, not just for my friend but also for the general community so I can make content that is relevant to as many people as possible.

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