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This healthy vegan queso dip features real, whole ingredients to keep it gluten free and plant based: you’ll find yourself addicted.

Vegan Queso Dip | Healthy queso dip

The terms “vegan” and “gluten-free” are so hot right now that sometimes I worry about using the words, in case they make a recipe seem trendy for trend’s sake instead of just good food. As you may know, neither Alex nor I are strictly vegan or gluten-free but eat a mostly whole food plant based diet. Turns out the word vegan is one of the best ways to describe foods without dairy, so vegan it is, for this recipe at least.

Related: How to Make Vegan Nacho Cheese

Eating whole foods has never tasted so good

If there’s one person who makes special diets look particularly enticing, it’s Lindsey Love of the blog Dolly and Oatmeal. Her photography is drop dead gorgeous, and it’s hard to believe her recipes are 100% gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian. It more looks — delicious, like seasonal, real food. Which it is. Lindsey is committed to a whole foods approach to gluten-free eating, which includes, get this: whole grains.

Vegan Queso Dip | Healthy queso dip

How to make vegan queso dip

In her new cookbook, Chickpea Flour Does It All, Lindsey explores chickpea flour, a whole-grain flour that’s known for its nutritional value and thickening power. We had never cooked with chickpea flour before, but after this recipe we were intrigued to try more!

As I paged through the book (mouth watering on nearly every page), it fell open to this vegan queso, and I knew we had to try it. It’s made with both cashews and a chickpea flour sauce that’s similar to a roux, which thickens nicely and much easier than standard flour. That, along with some jalapeno peppers, chipotle powder, nutritional yeast and turmeric, made a dip with just the right flavoring and amount of heat, with a texture very similar to a standard queso! I was hooked, and can’t wait to make this again. Congratulations to Lindsey on a gorgeous book and one very fine healthy queso dip recipe.

Where to find chickpea flour

Where to find chickpea flour? Lindsey does not recommend making your own chickpea flour from dried chickpeas since it can damage your blender. However, we couldn’t find chickpea flour at our neighborhood grocery for this vegan queso and had some dry chickpeas on hand. We threw them in our Vitamix and they blended right up into chickpea flour. However, I think we’ll stay away from doing this on the regular to keep our Vitamix shiny and new. Next time we’ll look a little bit harder for chickpea flour.

If you can’t find chickpea flour, you could try our Vegan Nacho Cheese instead!

Find the book: Chickpea Flour Does It All

Looking for party appetizer recipes?

Outside of this vegan queso dip, here are a few of our favorite party appetizers:

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Vegan Queso Dip

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This healthy vegan queso dip features real, whole ingredients to keep it gluten free and plant based: you’ll find yourself addicted.

  • Author: a Couple Cooks
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 10 minutes
  • Total Time: 20 minutes
  • Yield: 2 cups 1x
  • Category: Appetizer
  • Method: Stovetop
  • Cuisine: Mexican Inspired

Ingredients

Scale
  • ½ cup raw cashews, soaked overnight and drained
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1 shallot
  • ¼ cup jarred jalapeños
  • 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
  • ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
  • 1 tablespoon jalapeños juice (from the jar)
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ teaspoon chipotle powder
  • 1 cup water
  • ¼ cup chickpea flour
  • Cilantro, for garnish

Instructions

  1. In a high-speed blender, blend the cashews, garlic, shallot, jalapeños, yeast, turmeric, jalapeño juice, salt, and chipotle powder; set aside.
  2. In a small saucepan, whisk together the water and chickpea flour until no lumps remain. Turn the heat to medium and continue whisking every few seconds to prevent scorching. Whisk for roughly 6 to 7 minutes, until the mixture thickens and resembles a roux or melted cheese. Remove from the heat and carefully scrape into the blender with the other ingredients.
  3. Blend the ingredients on high for 1 minute, stopping to scrape down the sides of the blender, until smooth and creamy. Taste and adjust seasoning, adding more chipotle, salt, turmeric, or yeast if desired.
  4. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the dip into a serving bowl, and top with cilantro. Serve immediately while hot, or let dip cool a bit (dip will continue to thicken as it cools). Leftovers can be refrigerated in a resealable container and can be eaten cold or reheated on the stove.

Notes

Adapted with permission from Chickpea Flour Does It All by Lindsey Love

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About the authors

Alex & Sonja

Hi! We’re Alex & Sonja Overhiser, authors of the acclaimed cookbooks A Couple Cooks and Pretty Simple Cooking—and a real life couple who cooks together. We founded the A Couple Cooks website in 2010 to share seasonal recipes and the joy of home cooking. Now, we’ve got over 3,000 well-tested recipes, including Mediterranean diet, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, smoothies, cocktails, and more!

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7 Comments

  1. Becky says:

    You could also use gluten free rolled oats for the thickener and if you have a Vitamix you can just add all the ingredients and cook right in it. Yum!

    1. Sonja says:

      Great idea! Thanks for mentioning this :)

      1. Becky says:

        You’re welcome :) I forgot to mention I use extra thick rolled oats.

  2. Sarah | Well and Full says:

    I love that chickpea flour is used as a thickener in this vegan queso! That’s such a creative idea. :)

  3. Lindsey says:

    You two are the best! Thanks so much for sharing on your space here! xoxo!

  4. Ellie | Hungry by Nature says:

    I just read another recipe for banana bread with chickpea flour… I need to order some and make this queso dip ASAP!

  5. Erin@WellPlated says:

    I totally agree that “vegan” gets used as a buzz word, but “darn good” is often the better descriptor. I need to get my hands on some chickpea flour and start playing around!