Before changing to a vegan diet a couple of years ago, I had never heard of Nutritional Yeast but now it is one of my favourite pantry staples. Nutritional yeast has a savoury, cheesy flavour, gluten and sugar free, vegan, low in fat and salt and full of some pretty important vitamins and high in protein. It is relatively inexpensive as a little can go a long way and it is available in some supermarkets as well as health food stores.
My view of eating a vegan diet is that I still want to eat the dishes I have always loved and I don’t want a lifetime of weird looking food or grated vegetable salads so nutritional yeast has allowed me to still be able to make some of my favourite dishes without compromising on flavour. At this stage, I mainly use nutritional yeast most places that I would have used Parmesan cheese in the past. Recipes like basil pesto, risotto, béchamel sauce and many pasta dishes don’t have to miss out on that yummy cheesy flavour that you would have previously gotten from a Parmesan or similar cheese.
The other day I was having a toasted sandwich with roasted sweet potato, grilled zucchini, oven roasted tomatoes and mushrooms, and basil pesto and I added a sprinkle of nutritional yeast on top of the veggies for that yummy little cheesy hit. I haven’t tried it on popcorn yet but apparently you can add some nutritional yeast to some olive oil and toss some popcorn through it for cheesy popcorn. (I will be adding my Mediterranean veggie sandwich and some popcorn recipes on the blog in the future)
Back to what nutritional yeast actually is… It is a deactivated yeast so it isn’t the same as the yeast you would use in baking bread and it won’t froth up when added to liquid like baking yeast does. For anyone who has problems with candida (thrush), apparently nutritional yeast does not have any adverse effects on that so you are safe to eat it to your hearts content! It is high in vitamin B12 and some other B vitamins but this can vary from brand to brand so read the nutrition panel if you want to go for the one which is best for you. There is heaps of information about the nutritional values of nutritional yeast on the internet if you would like to learn more.
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