Cheese sauce you say? Hang on, you are a vegan aren’t you? Well yes I am… BUT occasionally, I’ll use a dairy free cheese, as my cheese ration, just so I can make some recipes. This week I bought some dairy free cheese and vegan sausage for my cheese and meat instead of extra split peas, lentils and nuts…
Cheese sauce
- 1 tablespoon of flour (2 dessert spoons in US and Canada)
- 2 oz grated cheese
- A little dry mustard
- Teacup of milk (I use a dairy free alternative like Hemp milk)
- Pinch of salt and pepper
- teaspoon of margarine or butter
Method
- Blend flour and mustard with a little milk until smooth, add rest of milk
- Bring to the boil adding a teaspoon of margarine or butter as the milk becomes warm, and gently cook, stirring constantly, for a minute until the sauce thickens
- Add grated cheese and seasoning and stir over a gentle heat until fully melted
Serves 2-4
The 1940's Experiment 
I just noticed that your recent recipes don’t show up on the “100 Wartime Recipes” page– it ends with Quick Vegetable Soup, but you’ve posted quite a few recipes since then.
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Hi Melissa- yes I need to update that page don’t I!! 😉 I’m up to having cooked 77 recipes or something now 🙂 C xxxxx
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Pingback: Cheese, tomato and potato loaf/pie – No 77 « The 1940's Experiment
Hi Carolyn. I remember reading that you were looking for Ministry of Food vegan diet ration information (wow, that’s a mouthful) a while ago, and it came to mind again today when I was flicking through online editions of old “The Vegan” newsletters. In edition no.4 (published in June 1945) there is correspondence between Donald Watson and the Ministry of Food regarding vegan specific rations. It looks like vegans weren’t actually granted anything in place of the animal-based items on the vegetarian diet, despite requests they be granted additional fats and additional Points (for tinned beans and dried lentils). I’m not sure if your research already led you to this information, but just in case it hadn’t, I thought I’d share.
I’m a longtime reader, and brand new commenter. Your journey is such an inspiration. Thank you so much for sharing it, as well as all the delightful recipes!
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Thanks so much!!!!
Can you believe that you were able to help me out more than the Vegan society!!!
I see that vegans could get the vegetarian ration but that wouldn’t have been much help because they would have got extra cheese however I am pretty sure they could have bartered their cheese or meat with someone for lentils or split peas etc
That’s as far as my research went..I spent hours searching on the internet and when the vegan society couldn’t help I gave up!!
Thanks for sharing that with me xxxxxxxx
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I’m glad I could help! I actually stumbled upon a really cool article by the founder of Plamil you might enjoy – http://www.candidhominid.com/p/out-of-dust-of-war.html which is just an interesting article, but particularly so because he talks about being vegan in wartime. Glad I could share!
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OOO you stole my moms’ cheese sauce!! lol And mine. This is the one my mother used for EVERYTHING. and of course now me. I am 66 so it has been in use for a looonnng time. A good basic recipe.
Great site.
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i made this in the microwave turned out great i did not put mustard in
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My mum was a WW2 canteen cook in a munitions factory. The recipe they used (and I do too) for cheese sauce is this – always use a balloon whisk.
Whisk 1 tea cup of plain flour into a pint of water in a jug till all the lumps are incorporated then pour into a pan. whisk constantly on a medium to high heat till thick and smooth, add more hot water to thin if it’s too thick. Remove from the heat and beat in 1 tea cup of milk powder and whisk to a smooth sauce add as much cheese as you have or to taste and whisk till smooth
Now you can season with salt and/or mustard. I like to add finely chopped fried onions and/or finely chopped fried bacon. Good for parsley sauce or any other savoury sauce you care to try it out on.
It’s also a good basic recipe for sweet sauces, obviously no salt but you can sweeten and flavour as you please by adding things such as coffee powder, cocoa powder, drinking chocolate, vanilla extract, malt, etc.
It’s a good basic recipe for just about any sauce because you don’t use liquid milk in the recipe you don’t have the problem of lactid acid burning on the pan if it gets too hot.
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What a fantastic story/ww2 recipe. Thank you for sharing this xxxx C
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