The other day I came up with what I though was a great idea for a white/cream sauce replacement. I had been racking my brain on how to incorporate additional cruciferous vegetables in my diet per Dr. Michael Greger, MD who wrote in his book How Not to Die,
“Common cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cabbage, collards, and kale. I recommend at least one serving a day (typically a half cup) and at least two additional servings of greens a day, cruciferous or otherwise.”
Greger MD, Michael. How Not to Die (p. 311). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition.
Armed with this idea to increase my cruciferous intake I started to wonder if I could make a sauce that could be used on multiple dishes. When looking a most of the cruciferous vegetable you come to realize that they are mainly green and while there is nothing wrong with that in general, it tends to not be as appetizing on many dishes. It struck me that there was one cruciferous missing on the list above that could be the perfect solution, CAULIFLOWER! Once I got the idea to use cauliflower my thoughts went to how I could make it a silky / creamy sauce that fit into the WFPB mode of cooking. Thankfully we have many options to provide the smooth texture with the use of corn starches or tapioca flour. In this case I used both. I was able to make the John’s WFPB White Sauce meet all the requirements to be what is referred to Salt, Oil and Sugar (SOS) free. Some of the tricks include the use of white miso which is high in salt, but as Dr. Greger puts it:
“Over a four-year period, they tracked men and women in their sixties who started out with normal blood pressures to see who was more likely to be diagnosed with high blood pressure: those who had two or more bowls of miso soup a day or those who had one or less. Two bowls a day would be like adding half a teaspoon of salt to your daily diet, yet those who consumed at least that much miso were found to have five times lower risk of becoming hypertensive. The researchers concluded: “Our results on miso-soup have shown that [the] anti-hypertensive effect of miso is possibly above [the] hypertensive effect of salt.” So miso soup may actually be protective overall.”
Greger MD, Michael. How Not to Die (pp. 318-319). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition
I also keyed in to one of the missing characteristics for many cream-style plant based sauces which is the addition of lactic acid. Once I figured out that adding a bit of plant based lactic acid to my non-dairy recipes the products came to life.
Enough of the blah, blah, blah…Recipe time.
John’s WFPB Béchamel Sauce
1 Head of Cauliflower
½ cup Corn Starch
¼ cup Tapioca Flour
½ cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes
2 tbsp Granulated Garlic
1 tbsp Granulated Onion
1 tbsp White Miso
¼ tsp Nutmeg
3 tsp Latic Acid
4 cups Low Salt Vegetable Broth
Remove the green leaves and stem from the cauliflower. Pressure cook the cauliflower for three minutes at high pressure then let natural release for 10 minutes.
In a high-speed blender combine all the ingredients. Recommend starting with the vegetable broth to help the blend from getting stuck. Blend all ingredients at the highest setting for five to six minutes. When the sauce is done it will no longer whirlpool in the blender and the sound of the blending will change. Transfer to storage dish or use right away. This will thicken more as it sits, you can add water a preparation time to thin it to the level you need.
John’s WFPB Carbonara
1 serving of either a whole grain pasta or grain free (chickpea or lentil) pasta
Enough of John’s WFPB Béchamel Sauce to completely coat pasta and vegetables, you can’t add too much
Additional items frozen green peas (requirement for this carbonara), onions, peppers, carrots really any extra vegetable is good option
Let’s get in so extra cruciferous and use 1/2 cup of chopped kale
Cook pasta according to package. With about one minute left add in the kale. Drain and place back in pan. In a skillet add all but the frozen peas and sauté to soften. combine John’s WFPB White Sauce in with the pasta to coat thoroughly. Add in the frozen peas, do not thaw the heat will warm them through. Add remain sautéed vegetables and serve.
I topped mine with some toasted sesame seeds.
Bonus time:
Take about a third of the prepared John’s WFPB Béchamel Sauce and heat it in a pan and add in agar-agar. This will cause the sauce to thicken more like a block of soft cheese which is perfect for the John’s WFPB Burger recipe that I will be posting soon. Note: I used 1/4 of the water when preparing the agar-agar per it’s recipe. I did this to not dilute the white sauce too much. After adding the agar-agar I mixed the sauce for about five minutes to make sure I dispersed the agar-agar throughout.