Dairy-Free Grilled Cheese Sandwiches are Easy to Make from Scratch

Many years ago, holistic nutritionist and cookbook author jae steele shared her favorite recipe for dairy-free grilled cheese sandwiches with us. It’s a naturally vegan, nut-free, and plant-based recipe that comes together in minutes, uses basic ingredients, and doesn’t require any store-bought cheese alternatives! The “cheese” is simple, but homemade.

Dairy-Free Grilled Cheese Sandwiches are Easy to Make from Scratch

Like many cheesy recipes, this one uses nutritional yeast. It’s an inactive yeast that’s often fortified with B vitamins, and has the umami vibe of cheddar. It is often sold in natural food stores, but you can easily buy it online. It’s shelf-stable, and stores well in the pantry for a very long time. It’s also very lightweight, so a pound of nutritional yeast is a lot.

If you want a fortified nutritional yeast, Anthony’s, Kal, and Bob’s Red Mill are good, affordable brands. Red Star is also a brand that we’ve enjoyed, but it isn’t as readily available as it used to be.

Special Diet Notes: Vegan Grilled Cheese

By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, egg-free, peanut-free, nut-free, soy-free, vegan, plant-based, and vegetarian.

If you need gluten-free, dairy-free grilled cheese sandwiches, use my Grilled Cheeze Sandwiches recipe in the 2nd edition of Go Dairy Free: The Guide and Cookbook.

Adapted from jae steele

Dairy-Free Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

4.50 from 2 votes

Jae likes to serve these sandwiches with ketchup and pickles, but we think they are great with dairy-free tomato soup!

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Servings: 4 sandwiches

Course: Entree

Cuisine: American

Calories:

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x?

• ½ cup water plus additional if needed
• ⅓ cup nutritional yeast flakes
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 garlic clove crushed or grated
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon mustard powder
• Fresh ground black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Dairy-free buttery spread can sub oil or mayonnaise
• 8 slices whole grain bread

Method

 

1. In a small pan or skillet, whisk together the water, nutritional yeast, flour, garlic, salt, mustard, and pepper.
2. Place the pan over low heat, and whisk constantly, like you are making gravy.
3. Once the mixture gets pasty, whisk in the oil. Turn off the heat and whisk in a little more water if the mixture is too dry.
4. Spread the buttery spread on one side of each slice of bread (or use mayonnaise or brush with olive oil).
5. Take four of the slices, and slather the non-buttered side with the dairy-free "cheese." Top with the other four slices of bread, buttered side out. You should have four dairy-free grilled cheese sandwiches that are buttered on the outsides.
6. Pan fry the sandwiches in a skillet until golden brown on each side.
7. Slice the sandwiches in half and serve.

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