Almond Feta Recipe. Raw Vegan.
Almonds can make a delightful plant-based cheese that has the qualities of feta or ricotta with a delicate flavour. It really is a labour of love though as you need to peel the almonds to get that beautiful white colour. However, I promise that the end result is absolutely worth it. I love this recipe as you can truly create an authentic cheese that is soft, spreadable, and has that genuine feta look and taste.
The perfect plant-based alternative for dairy feta is raw, vegan, pure, and easy to make nut cheese. Here I’m giving you the basic cheese recipe, your starter. Once you have successfully made this basic raw cheese, I encourage you to get creative in the kitchen and explore new flavoured cheeses with herbs & spices, or different nuts and seeds for your base! Pine nuts, macadamias, cashews, hemp seeds, and sunflower seeds also make a great base for a raw vegan cheese.
I made this feta yeast, miso, & oil free. A lot of raw vegan cheeses that I've seen in the health food stores & recipes online either have miso (which is soy), nutritional/savoury yeast, or olive, coconut or truffle oil. I'm not a fan of soy, yeast or oil, and in my opinion you don't even need to add these in for it to taste good. Some of my friends, including myself, have felt quite sick in the past from eating vegan cheeses with added soy and yeast, or that is dense with oil. After eating these clean feta, my tummy & digestion felt GREAT. I didn't have a full, nauseous, heavy or bloated feeling like I would experience after consuming dairy cheese or nut cheese with added nasties. This soy, yeast & oil free feta tastes INCREDIBLE, fresh & light! I made some blocks of this feta for my non-vegan friends and they couldn’t tell the difference.
This feta was so much fun to make, and styling it on a cheese board or incorporating it into another recipe is my favourite part! I usually will serve this feta on a cheese board with some freshly cut up carrots, cucumber, capsicum, snap peas, and some olives. You could also serve with some pears, grapes, figs, or raw dehydrated veggie crackers too. When I made this specific feta, I actually crumbled it on top of a raw vegan pizza, which was heavenly.
You can also choose to make the feta into whatever shape you'd like. If you have a small rectangular container- you could make a block and slice it up that way as I did. Or if you have circular dish, use that as a mold and cut your cheese up like a pie!
Warning- this is insanely delicious so I encourage you to make extra. You will not want to stop eating it hahaha.
Ingredients
2 cups almonds, soaked 8 hours or over night
1/4 tsp probiotic powder
1 tsp lemon juice
Celtic salt, to taste
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
Method
Soak your almonds (or nut or seed of choice) in Kangen water 9.5pH for at least 8 hours or overnight.
Rinse your almonds well. Place in a bowl and peel the skins off the almonds. (It is important that the almonds are soaked in water long enough so that they absorb the water and become softer, making it easier to pop off the peels.)
In a blender or food processor, grind up your almonds. It is important that the almonds are soaked overnight so that they have a high-water content (absorbed when soaking). This will make them easier to blend and will prevent you from having to add too much additional liquid.
Add in your probiotic capsules to the mix.
Add small amounts of water at a time when blending. If your almonds have a high water content, you may not even have to add in additional water for them to blend. You want to get the almond blend to be smooth with no chunks or a rough texture, while still being thick and creamy. You can always add in water but you can't take it out! So be slow & patient with this :)
Take out a teaspoon of of the almond mixture and run it between your fingers, if its grainy, keep blending, if its smooth and silky- good job!
Next is the fermentation process. Put the feta mixture into a cheese cloth or a thin piece of cotton/linen. Then put this bag of feta into a strainer over a bowl. Add weight to the top of the feta by getting a jar of water and placing it on top of the feta with a bowl separating the cheese bag and the jar. Leave to ferment on a counter /shelf for a minimum of 24 hours. The weight on top of the feta will also squeeze out any liquid into the bowl below. If you are fermenting anything else at the same time, eg kombucha- KEEP THEM SEPERATE. Don't put the feta and kombucha/coconut yogurt etc near each other.
(When other food items are fermenting in close proximity to the feta it ruins the feta’s fermentation process. Different cultures contain and need different kinds of bacteria for a successful ferment. It’s all about cross-contamination. You see, bacteria are microscopic beings. They are floating about in the air all around us all the time.)
After fermenting your feta for 24 hours (or longer), take it out of its cloth and put it into a bowl. It should have a lovely cheesy aroma. Now is the time to add in the flavours & lemon juice. Mix in your Celtic salt, lemon juice, garlic, and onion powder into the feta. Note- using powdered garlic and onion, rather than fresh bulbs of garlic or onion, work much better for this recipe.
Start with a small amount of each flavour, and then add more. I encourage you to taste test along the way and create a mixture that is perfect for your taste buds! (Eg-some people love lots of garlic or salt, whilst others only enjoy a subtle hint of it).
After mixing in all the ingredients you can totally enjoy the feta just like this as a cream cheese dip! If you would like to enjoy it as a semi-soft, slightly firm feta, continue with the following method.
Form a square or rectangle shape using a spatula and place in the dehydrator for 4 hours at 39°C to form a rind. The culture and flavour will continue to develop will drying. Once dried you can either it store it in a glass container in the fridge, or serve it up straight away and cut it into cubes. If you don’t have a dehydrator- don’t worry! You can form the shape and pop it straight in the fridge to firm it up a little, then serve :)
Serve your feta on your favourite cheese board with veggies, crackers, fruit - whatever you'd like! Or store it in the fridge and use on wraps, sandwiches, pizzas, crumble on salads, pastas... it can go beautifully with anything!
I love to add a little fresh thyme to my feta for decoration. You can also store or serve it with some olive oil drizzled on top with your favourite herbs if you desire.
