There is possibly nothing more delicious and versatile than cheese: Parmesan, Camembert, Brie, Bleu, Comté, Trou du Cru 😉 and much, much more! I love cheese, but cheese doesn’t seem to share a similar feeling towards me (or to a majority of the autoimmune folks for that matter)… As a desperate cheese foodie I tried to reintroduce dairy in a number of occasions, experimenting with goat & sheep yogurt and cheese, but I suspect that my gut is still leaky (due to different stressors) and cheese remains a problematic food item for me. Luckily, I am ok with ghee or goat butter in small quantities.
When I embarked on the autoimmune paleo diet I went through a period of grief over missing cheese as I was ready to give up everything: bread, chocolate, fluffy cakes, but cheese! In France I felt spoiled by an impressive variety of cheeses and this is where I’ve tasted the most delicious ones. Back in Canada I’ve discovered nutritional yeast, which sort of reminded me of certain cheeses, a bit stinky so to speak 😉
I’ve been working on this Parmesan cheese recipe for a while with my French hubby assuming his habitual role of the Guinea pig. In my initial trial I used a virgin coconut oil but my husband said that he could taste a coconut flavor, which is not what we are looking for in cheese. So, the next time I made it with a refined coconut oil, which gave it a more neutral taste. I used lemon and apple cider vinegar to balance out a strong yeast flavor and added probiotics, as cheese without beneficial bacteria loses its nutritional purpose. So, little by little this recipe has got its final shape and taste.
- 1 cup coconut butter
- ½ cup coconut oil
- ½ cup nutritional yeast
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- 2 dairy-free probiotic capsules
- In a food processor mix together all the ingredients except the probiotics.
- Next add the probiotics and pulse to incorporate.
- Pour the batter into a tupperware and place in the fridge until the cheese hardens, minimum 30 minutes.
- Serve and enjoy!
Maria is the blogger behind the Zesty Paleo website. As a Hashimoto's patient for more than a decade, Maria has constantly been taking steps to improve her quality of life, including nutrition and lifestyle choices.
This is just genius! Bravo, bravo 😀
Hey, Samantha-thank you for a nice comment, I appreciate it 😉
Brilliant, my Italian husband will flip. One thing though- will it do a sort-of-melt on pizza do you think?
Hi Cate! I haven’t tried it on pizza yet, but I don’t see why not. It melts pretty well on spaghetti, though it remains difficult to recreate a genuine cheesy (je ne sais quoi) structure.
Can’t wait to try this. Thx!
You are very welcome, Joelle! I hope you will like my recipe.
This is such a creative recipe! Creating dairy-free cheese is the ultimate challenge and it looks like you conquered it beautifully!!
Thank you, Andrea! And you are right, cheese remains one of the most challenging foods to create while trying to adhere to the autoimmune protocol.
Fascinating! We’re in Italy and Parmesan – you can imagine – is one of the things we miss. I’ll have to track down probiotic capsules. Are the probiotics adding flavour and/or texture? Can it be made without?
Hi Angie, I am glad that you liked my recipe! Probiotics are optional, I used them to add beneficial bacteria, so feel free to go ahead without them.
We’ve tried nutritional yeast a few times in recipes and never felt good afterwards. Actually, out of all the foods we’ve eaten, even those we’re apparently allergic to, we’ve never had such a strong and negative reaction than when we’ve eaten this. So we did some research and found that even though it’s technically paleo, it’s so highly processed and so hard on digestion, really when you’re looking at modern paleo, it’s not low-inflammation like the goal with paleo today should really be. It’s not really a ‘real food’ anymore. Fine for people with happy tummy’s and in small amounts we guess, but even then, it’s something to be cautious of. Instead we came up with a totally dairy and nut-free ‘cheese’ recipe without the yeast in it, and it’s really healing on the gut as well as tasty.
Just wanted to share our experience with this ingredient in case it helps others 🙂
Thanks for bringing up this point. In fact, nutritional yeast is allowed on the autoimmune protocol as it is grown on sugar molasses and gluten-free. It
isseems to be harmless for most people with multiple sensitivities, including myself. However there is a small percentage of people who can still react to it, everyone is different.For the readers’ sake I would like to add that it is wise not to include nutritional yeast during elimination phase of the AIP, as it is often processed in facilities that also treat nuts and soy.
I would also like your recipe please.
Would you mind please sharing your cheese recipe as I have MTHFR & can’t have nutritional yeast either as it contains folic acid 🙂
I have MTHFR mutation too and avoid folic acid. But nutritional yeast does not naturally have folic acid. You can buy non-fortified versions of nutritional yeast that are fine for you and dont have added folic acid.
is this recipe available to the public? I also have a concern with the nutritional yeast.
Looks amazing! Can you substitute the tumeric for somyhing else? Thanks for sharing this! I can’t wait to try it!
Hi Crissy, thank you for dropping by 😉 No need to substitute, you can simply omit the turmeric.
How long can I store this in the fridge for? I can’t wait to make this today!
Hi Judith, this cheese stores very well in the fridge, the longest I kept it for is one week. You can also store it in the freezer if you plan to keep it longer. One of the coolest ways to keep it is to pour the batter into ice-cubes and store in the freezer until you need it (though be careful when grating it).
Can the nutritional yeast be omitted? It makes me very ill.
Hi Lori,
Thanks to your comment I dived into research and discovered that people with MTHFR (stands for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase) genetic mutation have to avoid synthetic form of folate, known as folic acid. It looks like a very common mutation and it explains why many people react to the nutritional yeast. The good news is that there is a non-fortified brand available on the market now and I’ve updated my link accordingly. I look forward to trying one myself!
Maria, this recipe looks amazing! I would love it if you wanted to share this or any other AIP festive recipe in my AIP Christmas 🎄 Recipe Party at http://littlebitesofbeauty.com/aip-christmas-recipe-party/
Hope to see you there!!
Ambra
Absolutely delish. Thank you so very much. Love it!
You are very welcome, Marrika! I am glad you liked it 😉
This tastes only like coconut butter.
Have you used refined coconut oil? In my experience it tastes like coconut only if virgin coconut oil is used.
Great recipes!, especially the dairy free cheese recipes!, Trying to go dairy free.