Vbites Food ‘Cheezly Nacho Style’
A hard, meltable nacho cheese replacement
Hard, red leicester-type nacho cheese
Pros: Rare to find a vegan nacho cheese, melts, easy to grate, well priced
Cons: Dries out quickly so must be stored carefully, not the best to eat on its own/on biscuits, not hugely presentable for a platter
Cheezly Nacho Style Cheese comes as all their cheeses do — in a plastic-wrapped sausage. It’s a fabulous bright orange colour that, if you don’t look carefully, can have you grabbing their soy-free cheese instead. It’s all one colour, except for some more brightly orange flecks, and occasionally has small air bubbles.
VBites Foods, formerly known as Redwood Wholefoods, and their Cheezly brand are pretty well known to Aussie vegans. Despite being a UK-based company, they’re one of the more widely available cheeses across the states and territories, and I can always rely on there being at least one block of the stuff at Vegan’s Choice in Sydney’s Newtown, Dr Earth, or in my Southern Cross Go Vita.
You might also know the brand for their other food stuffs, under the VegiDeli, Wot No Dairy and Cheatin’ labels that are found across Melbourne and Sydney, as well as the internet. I’ve had less exposure to these foods, but they’re generally raved about.
Slightly peppery or even spiced in flavour, and of a firm consistency that you can pick apart with your hands, it’s easy to grate, melt and use. I likely wouldn’t eat this one just in slices necessarily, but it goes fantastically melted on toasties, pasta, or basically anything (I even had it melted on a bean stew from the hotpot). Because of this ease of use, it’s unsurprisingly popular with vegan restaurants (in particular those offering pizzas tend to use the different Cheezly flavours), and it can be ordered in bulk sizes. When you are grating it, it does tend to clump together with heat (even the heat from your hands) — so you need to be quick with scattering it over the food that you’re making, but it’s generally easy to use. Luckily, it grates perfectly regardless of which type of grater you’re using.
Sadly, as is my problem with many of Vbites’ offerings, it’s tricky to make it look nice on a platter due to the shape that it comes in. They offer large slices of their cheeses overseas, which would be better on a platter or for cooking, but sadly that option doesn’t seem to be in Australia yet. The matte style, when on its own, just isn’t that appealing — which is a shame when it tastes so good.
I was going to do this on nachos (which I did as well), but had a huge pizza craving. I’d never made my own pizza dough before, but I had all the ingredients and figured I may as well go for it and try the nacho cheese out on something new. It turned out pretty well, being a nice neutral base for the toppings and Nacho Cheese.
What you need
I used 500 grams of gluten free flour (from the Has No Aldi range) plus spare flour
Three teaspoons of yeast
Half a cup of warm water
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 teaspoons salt
Olive oil (liberal pouring)
Quick and easy steps (promise, no cooking genius required)
Get the yeast and put it into the water with the teaspoon of sugar. Stir and leave aside.
Put the flour into a bowl, and add salt, mix up.
Add the yeast/water mix into the flour, pour in some olive oil, and stir thoroughly.
Add some extra flour and make into a ball shape. It will probably cover your hands at this point, but it’s all good.
Put cling wrap over the bowl, and leave it aside for 25 minutes.
Come back to it and, using a floured surface, knead it out. We turned ours into three sections and everyone individually kneaded/created their pizza shapes. Make sure your hands are well-floured or it will stick to you and you won’t get a silky shape. Dry is better than wet with this process, as you don’t want it to stick.
I then covered a pizza stone in aluminium foil, poured on some olive oil and then put the individual pizza dough onto the stone and into the oven on a “high” setting.
Take it out when it’s just about starting to brown. It will rise a little — if you don’t want it to rise then you need to use a fork to prick the base all over. I like mine doughy so I didn’t do this stage.
Then add your toppings, and put it back into the oven for around 10 minutes for it to be complete. Adding the toppings is so much fun, and I really love preparing it all and then having everyone do their own individual pizzas and just get a bit more hands on with the food.
A quick note on toppings (and suggestions)
The tomato-based red sauce is crucial — I grabbed a bowl and added a little bit of finely chopped onion and garlic, basil, olive oil, tomato paste, finely sliced chilli, soy sauce, a squirt of ketchup, salt, pepper and a nip of red wine. Stir thoroughly and then use to cover your bases.
Toppings (our favourites are listed here, but use any combination that suits you — mock meats, whatever): Mushrooms, tomato, sliced black olives, marinated artichokes, baby spinach, pineapple, sweetcorn, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, dried mixed herbs, fresh basil and jalapenos.
You probably need a quarter of a block of Cheezly per person to amply cover each individual pizza. I recommend drizzling olive oil over the top and putting it in at a high heat to get the best melting result, as it does have a tendency to dry out. If you’re melting it on a toastie, then a quick blast in the microwave is always a good option (although we don’t currently own a microwave, so this is from past attempts!).
Unfortunately, if you don’t keep the Cheezly in a pretty tightly sealed plastic bag when in the fridge after opening then it goes dry really quickly and starts to crack and become unusable. This is all sorts of annoying if you’re dipping into it as much as I am.
I’d imagine it would also go perfectly in a vegan queso (or you can just get this one from Smith & Daughters).
To date, my favourite of the Cheezly range remains their edam (review pending), which I use on plenty of different dishes. However, this does have an unusual spice that I enjoyed.
The price
At Go Vita Southern Cross this cost me $7 for the block, which is 250 grams. I think this is a good amount to offer it in, and a fair price for it. I’ve seen the price nearer to the $10 mark in some shops. Mine had a use by date of next year, so really not a bad length of storage time.
The ingredients
Water, coconut oil, tofu, soya protein, potato starch, nacho seasoning (onion powder, sugar, tomato powder, maltodextrin, citric acid, garlic powder, herbs & spices, spice extract), thickeners (carrageeenan, locust bean gum), salt, natural flavouring, dried yeast, calcium phosphate, sugar, yeast extract
It’s great to see that it’s palm oil free — my partner is dead against palm oil, and so this makes things a bit easier for us.
One irritating Cheezly factor is the material they print their labels on — the second you open the packet and the label folds, it starts fading and the words get tricky to read. This has made this review a little tough, so I’ve relied to online reports of the ingredients somewhat for this.
The nutritional value
There’s no cholesterol or hydrogenated fats, and no artificial colours or preservatives. In fact, while there’s little in it that gives a hugely nutritional health boost… it’s not a killer in small quantities.
