Creamy Dressings, Hold the Cream

Last year, the test kitchen published a vegan cookbook (Vegan for Everybody), so for a while there was a lot of dairy- and egg-free food around here. It’s not a diet I’ve ever subscribed to, but watching (and tasting) the development process gave me a healthy respect for how flavorful and satisfying vegan cooking can be. In fact, it prompted me to retool a recipe category that typically relies heavily on dairy and eggs: creamy dressings and dips.

Vegan recipe authors tout all sorts of supposedly stealthy dairy alternatives, such as beans, tofu, avocado, and coconut milk. But if you ask me, most of them don’t live up to their promise. I tried dressings with avocado, which was conveniently bland but visually obvious. Tofu and coconut milk worked aesthetically, but their flavors were too dominant. And beans tasted starchy.

But then I learned about nut cream, which is used as a starting point for vegan cheeses and creamy sauces. To make it, you simply soak