Vegan Parmesan Cheese and Shaved Parmesan Salad Topper

Vegan Parmesan Cheese

Vegan Shaved Parmesan Cheese Salad Topper 

     A few days ago I bought a book, The Clean in 14 Detox by Melissa Costello. I'm not planning on doing the cleanse right away but so many of her recipes looked wonderful to me. Ones that I would really enjoy eating everyday. They are easy to prepare and for the most part use ingredients found at most grocery stores. I made one of the dinner recipes already (Coconut Basil Stir Fry) which Randy & I both loved! I needed to go to the store today to get some nutritional yeast as I was wanting to try another recipe in her book, Portobello Stacker with Chipotle Cashew Cheese. Usually there is a recipe or two in a cookbook that catches my eye but with this book I wanted to try all her recipes! She also wrote The Karma Chow Ultimate Cookbook which I may have to buy :-) Okay, there is my book plug. Back to going to the store...right next to the nutritional yeast was a container of Vegan Parmesan. I looked at the ingredients, which there were only four- almond meal, nutritional yeast, onion powder and salt. This intrigued me but not enough to spend the money on it.

     When I got home I did an internet search on vegan parmesan recipes and found a lot that were made from various nuts and some with sesame seeds. Most had a ratio of half nut or seed and half nutritional yeast. Then I came across this recipe for Vegan Shaved Parmesan Cheese Salad Topper. This really got my curiosity going so I had to give it a try. I didn't follow her recipe exactly for the ingredients but I did use the cooking process for making the salad topper. I was really happy with today's results and looking forward to having a salad for dinner!

     Here is the combination I used for vegan parmesan. Of course this is not an exact replica of parmesan cheese but it did make a really nice cheese flavored powder that can be used as a topping to sprinkle on a lot of different dishes, salads, and really great on popcorn! The added salt and onion powder gave it that salty parmesan taste. Many variations of this can be made with additional add-ins, like lemon zest, dried herbs, hemp seed or chia seed. Lots to be creative with here!

Vegan Parmesan 
dairy-nut-gluten free
makes about 1/2 cup

2 T. raw sesame seeds
2 T. raw sunflower seeds
2 T. raw pepita (pumpkin) seeds
2 T. flaxseed meal (optional)
2 T. nutritional yeast
2 T. lemon juice or water
1/8 t. onion powder (optional)
dash of salt

Place the sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and pepita's in a coffee grinder. Grind until it makes a fine grind. Transfer to a small bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and whisk together. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.


I used this parmesan cheese mix and continued to make the salad topper recipe. First I added 1 T. of lemon juice and 1 T. of water. This was enough to form a dough.

 I used a piece of parchment paper the size of a small baking sheet, folded it in half, then put the dough in between. Then I rolled the dough out very thin. I have a rolling pin that has various end pieces that helps to roll out things evenly. I used the smallest size which was 1/16".

Next I cut off half of the parchment paper, placed the rolled dough on the baking pan and baked in the oven at 250°F for about one hour. Then I removed the parchment paper, broke the cheese into large pieces and baked another 10 minutes. This was almost too much time as the cheese started to brown quickly. So keep an eye on it towards the end.

Store in the refrigerator in an air tight container for up to 2 weeks.