People often say to me, “I could never be vegan. I love cheese too much.” I get that, because when I was a new vegan, my husband referred to me as a recovering cheese-aholic.

It was true. I had a history of eating cheese as much as three times a day. That may sound like a lot, but I’ll bet it’s not uncommon.

I melted cheese into scrambled eggs for breakfast, added it to a salad for lunch, and could be found sprinkling it over pasta in the evening. But that’s a heavy dose of saturated fat, no matter how we slice it.

I officially stopped eating cheese five years ago. But my desire for cheese (especially melted) persisted for a very long time. Then, one day, I made this sauce. It became an instant favorite, and all of a sudden my cravings for dairy seemed to vanish into thin air. I can’t explain exactly how or why this delicious creamy sauce satisfied those lingering cravings, because it doesn’t taste like cheese, but I do know that it did, and as a happy vegan, that was a game changer.

You will find this is a very thin, flavorful, yet creamy sauce.  You might like to thicken it with a touch of flour or cornstarch, but I love it just like this.

Nowadays, I almost always keep this sauce on hand. Just for fun, I sometimes mix equal parts (without the peas) with a spicy marinara, creating what we have come to call a pink sauce. Either way, white or pink, it becomes a pretty big deal at our table, to this day, when vegans and non-vegans agree, and everyone reaches for seconds and thirds.