Creamy Mushroom Sauce with Cashews
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This creamy mushroom sauce is pure magic! It’s a lightened-up dairy-free sauce with earthy mushrooms and creamy cashews, perfect for pasta, potatoes, and more. It’s quick and easy to make, and it’s ready in 25 minutes!
While the mushrooms in this sauce won’t make you feel funny, it does taste quite magical. It’s a dairy-free mushroom sauce that tastes like it has whipping cream, but it doesn’t. It’s so rich, creamy, and delicious that you may not even know the difference!
It’s an easy vegan sauce that’s perfect for quick and easy weeknight meals. Toss it with pasta, pour it over mashed potatoes, or add in some chunks of tempeh and serve it over brown rice for a completely vegan meal.
To make it, simply brown some mushrooms in a pan with olive oil then transfer some to your blender along with the soaked cashews, garlic, salt, pepper, and water. Blend it all until smooth and creamy. Add the sauce back to the pan with the remaining mushrooms and warm it over the stove. That’s it!
One thing to keep in mind is that the cashews need to soak either overnight or using our quick-soak method. You’ll also need a good blender for that extra smooth texture.
Magic mushroom sauce ingredients
You only need a few simple ingredients and most of them you’re likely to have on hand. Here’s what you need to make this mushroom sauce:
- Cashews – look for raw un-roasted and unsalted cashews for this recipe. They need to be soaked either overnight, or using our quick-soak method (see below).
- Olive oil – for sautéing the mushrooms. You can also use a vegan butter alternative if you prefer.
- Mushrooms – we use a mix of cremini mushrooms but you can use button mushrooms or a mix of your favorites.
- Garlic – because garlic and mushrooms belong together, and because garlic adds lots of flavor to the earthy mushrooms.
- Sea salt + pepper – for seasoning, to taste.
The cashew quick-soak method
Don’t worry if you didn’t plan ahead and soak your cashews overnight. This easy quick-soak method is here to save the day!
Here’s how to quick-soak cashews in just two simple steps:
- Place cashews in a heat-safe bowl or dish.
- Cover them with boiling water for at least 1 hour. That’s it! Now they will be soft enough to blend into a creamy sauce.
Ideas for serving this mushroom sauce
There are so many delicious ways to enjoy this cashew mushroom sauce. Here are some simple ideas to get you started:
- Use it in a casserole. It’s the sauce we use to make our vegan green bean casserole, and it tastes great in tuna noodle casserole, or baked pasta dishes, too.
- Pair it with potatoes. Serve it with mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, or any other kind of potatoes you can think of.
- Make a grain bowl. Serve it with some tempeh or cooked chicken chunks and spinach over brown rice for a complete meal.
- Toss it with pasta. Fusilli, spaghetti, penne, you name it. Use gluten-free pasta if needed, or veggie noodles for a lighter meal.
- Turn it into soup. In our cashew cream of mushroom soup, we add vegetable or chicken broth to thin it and some thyme and black pepper for flavor. In just 20 minutes, you can wrap your hands around a mug of this not-from-a-can mushroom soup.
Creamy Mushroom Sauce with Cashews
Ingredients
- 1 cup cashews (soaked)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 ½ lb crimini or button mushrooms (sliced)
- 1 large garlic clove (minced)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Add the olive oil to a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are brown, about 15 minutes.1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 ½ lb crimini or button mushrooms
- Add the soaked cashews, garlic, sea salt, pepper, 1 ½ cups of water and a scoop of the cooked mushrooms to a food processor or blender and blend on high until smooth.1 cup cashews, 1 large garlic clove, 1 teaspoon sea salt, ¼ teaspoon pepper
- Pour the sauce into the pan with the rest of the mushrooms. Bring the sauce to a boil then remove it from the heat.
Notes
Nutrition
We have thoroughly tested this recipe for accuracy. However, individual results may vary. See our full recipe disclosure here.
Hello ! Thanks for this very good recipe 🙂 : it’s both good when eating it, and good for me.
This turned out perfectly! Delicious! I might try different versions of it in the future (like herbs and garlic) but as is, this was terrific. My whole family loved it.
I want to preface this comment by saying: I never follow recipes. Ever. I use them as inspiration and then make my own recipe.
I’ve been making this recipe without alteration since 2017. My kids and I are respectively dairy free and plant based due to allergies and this makes holidays in my food centric family really difficult.
I have taken over the food making for holiday meals (it only takes one year of watching a Thanksgiving you can’t eat from behind your peanut butter sandwich.) and this sauce makes a green bean casserole that is not only “acceptable” but raved over. I hate canned cream of mushroom soup (even cooked into stuff) I will eat this with a spoon.
As long as I am cooking holiday meals this recipe will be a part of our family traditions, and my kids love to help me cook, so maybe they’ll keep making it when I retire in fifty some years.
Thanks for something amazing,
Kate
That makes me so happy to hear! Thanks, Kate!
Just a quick update since I made the recipe for Thanksgiving this past weekend. I made the full recipe and was surprised how much sauce it made – over 3 cups! It was verrry thick once it sat in the fridge for a few hours. But the great thing is that it’s easy to thin with a little water if needed. I sauteed the garlic with the mushrooms rather than adding them raw into the blender. I would advise using white mushrooms as the brown ones I used made the sauce quite gray. I love Herbs de Provence seasoning so I added a teaspoon (dried) or so to the mushrooms as they cooked. The result was excellent!! Creamy and delicious. I used the sauce to fold into my wild rice casserole and everyone loved it. Forget Cream of Mushroom soup (full of chemicals and sodium!) from now on – this sauce will be my go-to. Thanks, Kristin.
You’re so welcome, Julie!
Kristin, I like to make a few dishes in advance of Thanksgiving (in Canada this weekend.) How long does this keep in the fridge once it’s made? I don’t suppose it freezes well? Thanks!!
Happy almost Thanksgiving! While I’ve never frozen it before, one reader said that she tried it and it turned very watery afterward. But the sauce will last for at least 5 days in the fridge so you can make it well in advance. 🙂
Thank you so much!! I suspected freezing might result in watery sauce or separation. But I’ll make it today or tomorrow if it’ll keep well until Sunday. I’m putting it in a wild rice casserole “stuffing” to go with our turkey. Really looking forward to trying it. I’ve honestly loved every recipe I’ve tried from your site.
I prepared this sauce. I followed the directions carefully but the result was not good.
Wow! it looks so creamy and delicious. Thumbs up for this recipe. I will probably try this at home soon. It looks really good on pasta. Big thanks for sharing this stunning recipes.
This recipe looks amazing and I can’t wait to make this! I was just wondering, could this be used to make an instant mushroom risotto? ( to be mixed with cooked rice) I’m from India so Arborio rice is not something easily available.
I know this is not something purists of Italian cooking would be okay with, but I don’t have much of an option!
I think mixing it with rice would be delicious!
Some of the comments mentioned this recipe being bland and I’m trying to limit my salt intake so I substituted vegetable stock (unsalted) for of water, omitted the salt, and added 2 tbsp nutritional yeast. The results are FANTASTIC. 11/10 highly recommended.
That is so wonderful to hear! Thanks, Breanne!
Is there a reason to use water instead of unsalted veggie stock?
Veggie stock would work too. I don’t usually keep any on hand and the sauce is still very flavorful even when made with water.
I’m in love! Thanks for such a simple yet satisfying recipe. I feel much less guilty making sauce with a cup of cashews over a cup of heavy whipping cream! This will definitely be a made often in my house from now on!
That’s so wonderful to hear! Hooray!!
Very good, I soaked porcini mushrooms in boiling water and used this instead of plain water, I also added the soaked mushrooms to the blender to add flavour. It needs to be seasoned well with salt and black pepper, and I’d add even more porcini mushrooms next time to make it more flavourful… I love the flavour of mushrooms. Serving with a seitan steak, yummy.
Great call on the porcini mushrooms!
The taste was absolutely delicious, I followed the recipe to a T. But mine turned out a grainy paste of a sauce more than a creamy sauce. On the Pinterest page and I see pictures and the sauce looks as creamy as cream of mushroom soup. Just curious if you have any suggestions or answers as to why mine didn’t turn out so creamy?
It sounds like it may be because of your food processor. Some work great and are able to blend the cashews into cream, but others aren’t as powerful and can leave the sauce a little grainy. The best thing to do it to add a little additional water to help the sauce blend a little better. If it’s really grainy, you can try straining it through a fine-mesh sieve to remove any of the grainy bits. I hope that helps!
Can’t wait to try this out. How long do you think it would keep stored airtight in the fridge?
At least 4-5 days. 🙂
I found this to be bland.
Did you salt the sauce?
This is amazing and so simple. I used mushroom broth instead of water and cut back the salt. I used the sauce to make a gluten and dairy free tuna casserole. Thanks for sharing this recipe!!
You are so welcome!