(Italian) Vegan Mac and cheese

Although this dish involves two ingredients very popular in Italy - pasta and cheese - it is not an Italian dish and it's not popular there. I'm not sure if it is or not popular in Brazil at all but I'm sure I've never eaten it there. So I've never eaten the non-vegan version of mac'n'cheese. But I do love both ingredients and I was delighted when, a few days ago, Matteo decided to make it for us in a day that I was really tired to cook.

Matteo - aka my husband - is not that type of person who likes to follow recipes. He can read them but he ends up doing everything in his own way. And it was the same with his mac'n'cheese dish. I would say it came out pretty good and reminded me the classic Italian "pasta al forno". So I'd say this is kind of an Italian recipe for the dish, a very easy one. You know, pasta should be always fast and easy!

Recipe

300 g pasta (penne or rigatoni are the best options)
grazed dairy-free cheese


For the sauce:
1 unsweetened plain soy yogurt
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup rice milk
1/3 cup soy cream (or rice cream)
2 tsp french mustard
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp soy sauce
salt
pepper
herbs (parsley or basil)

Preheat oven to 180°C. Put the pasta to cook while you prepare the sauce. Put the yogurt, the rice milk and the soy cream in the mixer and mix it until get a homogenous mix (a few seconds would be enough). Add the olive oil, french mustard and soy sauce and mix it again (another few seconds). Finally add the nutritional yeast, salt, pepper and herbs.

Mix half of the sauce with the cooked pasta and put it in a glass container. Add the rest of the sauce on top and the grazed dairy-free cheese (we used Redwood Soy free Cheezly cheddar style). Take the glass container to the oven for 30 minutes. Serve it hot.