vegan beer & cheddar bread bowl dip

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Heat a pan over medium heat with vegetable oil. Ensure your potato, carrot, onion, and celery are all chopped to roughly the same size and not too large, as you want them to cook evenly in the pan. Add potato and carrot and sauté for 5 minutes. Then add onion and celery and continue to cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want some color and caramelization to develop on the vegetables. Lower the heat slightly if the onion starts to burn.

Add garlic and 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt and ground black pepper. Cook for another 5 minutes. Add the beer and allow it to simmer for 5 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed.

Drain and rinse the cashews from the soaking water and add to a high-powered blender. Then add the sautéed vegetable and beer mixture along with 1 teaspoon of sea salt, and the chili powder, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, jalapeños, nondairy milk and nutritional yeast. Blend on high until very smooth. You should not need to add any more liquid, but be sure to stop the blender and shake the contents once or twice to get it moving and blending consistently until smooth.

For the bread bowl, cut into the top of the loaf diagonally and around the circumference. Remove any excess bread with your hands to create a good bowl-like shape, but be careful not to tear through the crust of the loaf. 

Tear all the excess bread with your hands into bite size pieces and arrange them on a large baking sheet with the hollowed out bread bowl. Toast this in the oven for approximately 10 to 12 minutes so it’s crusty and warm, but not excessively hard.

The cheddar dip should still be warm from blending the cooked vegetables and beer, but if it’s had too much time to cool down you should warm it up in a sauce pan before adding it to the bread bowl. It will also heat up a little bit while under the broiler, but not enough if it’s too cold or you made it ahead of time and refrigerated it.

Pour the dip into the bowl and top with vegan cheddar style shreds, if desired. Place under the broiler for approximately 5 minutes until the cheese is melted and slightly golden around the edges of the bread bowl. 

Top with chopped green onion or chives and the coconut fakin’ bacon for even more indulgence!