Vegan Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese

Macaroni and cheese is a classic! Most people love it and it’s found on most restaurant menus. Whether you like boxed mac and cheese or home cooked from scratch, it always hits!

Now that we have a wide variety of vegan boxed mac and cheese including the ever popular Kraft brand mac and cheese, thanks to the Notco company cheeses, having your favorite snack from childhood is easily accessible to everyone including vegans.

Sometimes I like to change up my mac and cheese by adding different flavors and proteins. I thought the addition of buffalo chicken would be good. I like the texture of Butler soy curls so I decided to use them for the chicken substitute.

It’s super easy to flavor them like buffalo chicken because a lot of buffalo wing sauces are accidentally vegan. I chose to use the Primal Kitchen brand buffalo sauce but the Frank’s Red Hot wings sauce is accidentally vegan because the butter in the sauce is artificial butter flavoring.

You could just follow the recipe for the buffalo soy curl chicken and add it to your favorite boxed macaroni and cheese. If you do choose to make the macaroni and cheese yourself from scratch, you can really use any vegan cheese you want but I recently made one using the Notco/Kraft American style slices and I think it’s my favorite way to do it so far. At least it is when my tastebuds are nostalgic for childhood. I haven’t yet tried the Notco/Kraft cheddar or provolone flavor slices yet but I’m sure they would also make great mac and cheese.

Recipe Ingredients:

• 1 8oz package of macaroni

• 1/4 cup of oil

• 1/4 cup of flour

• 2 Cups of unsweetened plant milk

• 1/4 Cup of nutritional yeast

• 1 teaspoon of onion powder

• 1 teaspoon of garlic powder

• salt and pepper to taste

• 8 slices of vegan cheese or 1 1/2 cups of shreds

• 1/2 cup of buffalo sauce [most are accidentally vegan]

• 1/4 cup water

• vegan chicken [you can use any vegan chicken you have access to]

  I used Butler soy curls as my chicken. I placed 1/2 of an 8oz package of dry soy curls into a bowl with enough water to completely submerge them. The water was flavored with imitation chicken bullion. You could use any broth you like. It takes about 15 minutes to completely hydrate the soy curls. Once they are hydrated, drain the excess water or broth and squeeze the soy curls out a bit. You want them to be able to absorb the buffalo sauce.

  Mix the buffalo sauce and water in with the soy curls or whatever vegan chicken you’ve chosen. If it seems dry add more sauce and water mixture. Allow the vegan chicken to sit there in the bowl while you cook the macaroni according to the package directions.

  When the macaroni is done set it aside. Cut the pieces into bite size pieces if necessary and saute them and the sauce in a pan on medium low heat. You want to gently cook it until the sauce is absorbed and the pieces begin to brown.

  while you cooking the vegan chicken pieces you can be making the cheese sauce.

  Heat up the oil in a pot and whisk in the flour. Give that a minute to cook and then add the plant milk. Whisk it as it cooks for a minute. If it gets too thick add more milk or other liquid and cook that in for a minute. Add the spices, nutritional yeast and vegan cheese. Keep whisking and cooking it until the cheese has completely melted into a sauce.

  In a large bowl mix the macaroni and the cheese sauce together. Add in the buffalo chicken pieces. If you were able to get vegan blue cheese crumbles sprinkle them on top and it’s ready to serve!

  Some vegan cheeses are smellier than others so if you find that you don’t like the smell change up the brand of cheese you’re using. I have found that the brand Violife is liked by most people weather they are vegan or not. I would recommend using that one if you’re planning to bring this to a pot luck or something like that.

  It works great for meal prep because it can be frozen and it reheats well in the microwave.