![]() Once you taste this scrumptious spread, you’ll never go back to traditional cheese spreads. Cashew and Sun-Dried Tomato “Cheese” Spread If you haven’t added cashews to your diet beyond fancy mixed nuts or trail mix, here are three yummy recipes featuring cashews used in place of dairy products. Cashews taste great when paired with fresh basil in pesto recipes, layered as a cheese replacement in vegetable lasagna, and when combined with fresh fruits in ice cream making. Cashew’s mild, buttery flavor complements and blends well with other ingredients, instead of masking them. The starch in cashews makes it superior to other nuts and seeds as a thickening agent in water or milk-based soups, beverages, or desserts. Cashews contain more starch than other oily tree nuts, up to 10% of their weight. The second quality that makes the cashew especially versatile in preparing dairy-like foods is its high starch content. The cashew’s high-fat content makes it the perfect cheese, peanut butter, milk, and cream alternative. So what makes the cashew so creamy and the perfect dairy substitute? With an earlier maturity, higher yield, and increasing demand in the market, cashew has been one of the most preferred choices of farming to cultivators. Cashews are extremely versatile and have unlimited potential of recipe applications, including cheese spread, ice cream, nut butter, cashew milk, cashew cream, cheesecake, vegetable lasagna, and the list goes on! The tropical evergreen plant cashew (Anacardium occidentale), also known as Kaju plant or Kaju badam tree usually develops as high as 46 ft, while dwarf cashew grows up to 20 ft. In the tropical regions of the world, the cashew is used extensively and is served in a wide range of culinary dishes such as stir-fry, meat stews, soups, savory sauces, and milk-based desserts. This delicious nut is rich in vitamins and minerals: potassium, manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, protein, iron, copper, vitamins K, and B-6, dietary fiber and healthy fats. So, until you travel to a cashew orchard, there is the tasty cashew nut to enjoy. The exterior of the fruit, however, is very fragile and not able to withstand shipping. Wonder why you haven’t heard of the cashew apple before? The juice within the cashew apple is used locally when harvested, as a fruit drink. The cashew is encased in a crescent-shaped shell which grows from the bottom of the cashew apple on the tropical cashew tree. The apple is yellow and bell-shaped and slightly resembles a bell pepper. The cashew (seed) comes from the cashew apple. Although the cashew is considered a culinary nut, botanically it is actually a seed. What is strange about the cashew is how it grows. The top cashew producing countries today include Vietnam, Peru, India, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire. Cashews are derived from a tropical evergreen tree originally native to Brazil.
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