This vegan pizza toast is basically just cheesy toasty bread with tomatoes, mushrooms, and basil. Just a few steps to warm, crunchy, and cheesy toast of your dreams.
It takes some effort to make pizza crust and you might not have store bought crust lying around often. But then you crave pizza and then sourdough saves the day as usual. I really don’t thank her enough.
This pizza toast isn’t exactly like pizza, but it’s cheesy bread topped with the things I like on my pizza, so it’s a cool fun meal in its own way. I skipped the sauce on this because I really wanted my vegan mozzarella to melt into the crunchy bread, which it did. But you could totally spread some sauce on the bread before adding the cheese. And you could totally use whatever cheese you want, but if you feel like taking an extra few minutes and happen to have some leftover rice, I highly recommend this homemade vegan mozzarella.
How to Make Vegan Mozzarella
I know it’s a basic move to make cheese from cashews these days, but it’s definitely delicious and the texture is perfect. Plus it gets all melty and stretchy when you warm it up like you do for this toast.
To make this cheese, you’re just going to blend the ingredients until smooth. Here are the key ingredients:
1. Cashews. Soak them overnight or do a quick soak. I usually do a quick soak in hot water for 30 minutes. When I say hot, I mean medium heat on the stove. You could also soak in boiling water for at least 15 minutes.
2. Arrowroot starch or tapioca starch. I’ve heard tapioca starch is better for this, so I’d use that if you have it. If not, arrowroot starch is what I had and it worked perfectly too! This is what adds to the stretchiness factor of the cheese, so it is absolutely mandatory.
3. Nutritional yeast and liquid smoke for the flavor. Nutritional yeast brings the nice umami flavor we desire from cheese and liquid smoke adds a teeny bit of smokiness, so it’s smoked vegan mozzarella. Liquid smoke is optional. You could also add smoked paprika and garlic powder.
4. Leftover rice. This seems kinda weird, but it works! It also adds to the stretchiness and helps thicken this cheese up a bit. But I’m sure this recipe will still work if you don’t have any leftover rice. Just add perhaps another tablespoon of arrowroot or tapioca starch and add a little water at a time.
If using immediately: heat in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally until it’s thick, which usually takes 5-8 minutes. Remember that you want to be able to easily spread the cheese on your bread, so don’t make it too thick.
If using later: for the purposes of making this pizza toast, I refrigerated my cheese overnight and it was more solid when I used it the next day. Refrigerating for a few hours should also be fine. When the pizza toast goes in the oven, the heat makes the cheese more “cheesy.”
Pizza Toast with Vegan Mozzarella
Ingredients
- 6 slices of sourdough or your favorite bread
- 10-12 cherry tomatoes, halved
- 3 medium bella mushrooms, sliced
- fresh basil to garnish
- any other toppings of choice
Vegan Mozzarella
- ½ cup cashews
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 3 tbsp arrowroot starch *or tapioca starch
- ⅓ cup leftover white rice
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 1 cup warm water
optional
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ¼ tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp liquid smoke
Instructions
- For the vegan mozzarella: soak cashews overnight or quick-soak them in hot water on the stove for 30 minutes (see note). Then blend all ingredients until perfectly smooth.If using immediately: Thicken on the stove in a small saucepan over medium heat. This should take 5-8 minutes, but make sure not to thicken it too much since you want it to be easily spreadable. It will heat again in the oven with the toast.If you have some time: Refrigerate for 2+ hours or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- Spread cheese on the bread. Add mushrooms, tomatoes, basil, or toppings of your choice. Place bread on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes!
Notes
For more fun toast, check out…
Miso Mushroom Toasts with Parsley Pesto
So glad you liked it!! Thanks Jess 🙂
I tried making this and it was so good!! Even better, it was so simple and easy to make, which is great for an inexperienced cook like me 🙂 Anisha has the best recipes!