If you ask my husband, he will confirm that I am a “spaghetti with my parmesan” type of person. I love toppings. On everything. I also love gravy. But toppings. I like them when they’re generous and basically the main thing. Fried onions? Load ‘em on! Parmesan? I like pasta with my parmesan!

But of course, when you go plant based, or take part in Veganuary, parmesan is no longer an option - or is it? Well, maybe not parmesan in the traditional, stinky-feet smelling sense anyway. I do have a really tasty alternative, however.

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The following is a true story: I spent a Christmas only college campus one year with someone who sprinkled ground nuts on their pasta and I was really excited about that. It tasted delicious. Then, a few years later, my dad started putting ground flax seed on everything to up his fibre intake. He would grind his own flax seed and keep it in a little bag. I decided to subscribe to that as well. I figured as well that since I love nutritional yeast flakes on popcorn, that I could start doing that too. Then I saw some vegan parmesan recipes floating around and it had nuts and the yeast flakes in it. I added my ground flax and some onion powder and became a happy camper.

I hesitate to call this a vegan parmesan because it tastes nothing like the smelly cheese, but it sure tastes delicious. I can’t not have this on top of my spaghetti now. It’s also delicious on green beans, and even salad! Seriously, just go to town with it, because it’s so yummy!

There is no reason to think that just because you go on a plant based diet that you will have to give up so much. Instead, you gain so much because you get to experiment with flavours and foods that you would not have normally expected to!

Vegan Parm-Like Topping

what you need:

• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes

• 1/2 cup raw cashews

• 1 TBSP ground flax seed

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 1 tsp onion powder

what to do:

Add all ingredients to a food processor and mix until combined well.

Keep mixture in the fridge for about a month.

PRO TIP: Did you know that the tops of parmesan cheese containers fit perfectly onto a mason jar? If you have one, keep it to use for this stuff!

Do you love toppings too?