The other day, I stumbled across The Vegan Zombie website’s video on how to make cheeze sticks and was excited to try their method. Since Daiya is available most commonly in shredded form, transforming it into a solid shape by melting it is asking for trouble—it can stick to the bottom of the pan, seize up or do other weird things. TVZ bypassed these potential issues by using a double boiler to melt the cheeze, then refrigerated it so it could be sliced into sticks for breading and frying … genius!
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DEEP FRIED DAIYA CHEEZE STICKS
- Yield: 12 cheeze sticks
Ingredients
- 2 packages of Daiya cheeze, mozzarella style
- 1/2 TB onion powder
- 1/2 TB garlic powder
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 1/4 cup white rice flour
- 1 1/2 tsp Ener-G, whisked with 5 TB water in a small bowl
- vegetable or canola oil
Instructions
- Heat a small amount of water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Place a round glass pyrex bowl into the saucepan, so the lip of the pyrex fits snugly over the lip of the saucepan. Once you see the water boiling below the pyrex dish, add in one package of the Daiya, and stir occasionally with a wooden spoon.
- After about 5-7 minutes, the Daiya will melt and form a squishy ball. Toss in the half of the onion and garlic powders, stir again and transfer to a small square or rectangular glass pyrex dish. Repeat these steps with the next package, smoothing the top of the melted Daiya as much as possible. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.
- When you are ready to fry, combine the cornstarch and white rice flour in a large bowl. Place that, along with the bowl of the Ener-G mixture, near your stovetop. Slice the cheeze into strips (I made 6 big strips and cut them all in half).
- Heat plenty of oil in a small saucepan over medium high heat. You can tell when the oil is ready by inserting a wooden spoon into it—if bubbles form around the spoon, your oil is ready.
- Working in batches, dunk the cheeze sticks into the Ener-G mixture, then coat in the cornstarch mixture. Immediately drop them into the oil slowly, about 2-3 pieces at a time. Fry for about one minute, then transfer to a paper towel to drain.
- Serve immediately with marinara sauce.
- These also freeze and recrisp very well when refried. Just be careful when dropping them into the oil in case any ice crystals have formed. Only fry one or two at a time to ensure the temperature of your fry oil doesn’t plummet.
Lauren (PB&G) says
Oh my! Every once in a while I still seriously crave cheese sticks. Arby's with marinara sauce to be exact. With your recipe I can have cheese sticks again!
So glad I found your blog!
Joanna says
If only there was any vegan cheese available in any shop somewhere around I would do it. Now I can only enjoy your photo and imagine the taste and texture or melted cheese.
Kip says
oooh man. I still have some bags of Daiya I smuggled back from the US. I may have to give this a go!
Juanita says
Deep fried cheese…the part of me that likes fondu just smiled 🙂
Junia says
wow! a vegan version of mozzarella sticks!! nice recipe!
Tiffany says
So cool! Great recipe!
O'Melly says
Looks DELICOUS!