Jennifer Garner Reveals Her Go-to Dairy-Free Cheese Sauce That Adds Both Flavor and Nutrition to Her Meals

Hollywood star Jennifer Garner is not just a foodie but also loves plant-based delicacies! Her love for food and cooking is quite evident as she often reveals several delectable vegan recipes to her fans on social media. On an episode of her self-produced #PretendCookingShow on Instagram (@jennifer.garner) in 2019, Garner demonstrated a step-by-step recipe for her go-to nutritious cheese sauce- and it's completely plant-based. Turns out, the secret vegan ingredient was Cashews! Cashews are a rich addition to food and can be consumed in various ways– be it, whole, ground into cashew butter, or even in dairy products. 

In the post’s caption, the 52-year-old actor explained that her favorite condiment was a creation of cookbook author and food mogul, Melissa Clark of NYT Cooking. She said it “is a little something I’ve used to make a 'Blah' meal 'Ooh la la' for years.” Garner vouched for the delicious cashew sauce that, she said, was “kind of spicy, garlicky, healthy-ish.” Unable to contain her delight, she quipped, “It’s just good.” As the cooking video unravels, Garner gets to work taking a cup of roasted and salted cashews and popping them into the grinder. She further explained that her go-to sauce goes with almost anything. "You can put it on the chicken, or just dip it in later. Or you can put it on veggies, I find that it’s good on everything,” she said. 

The next moment fans see the 30 Going on 30 star chopping off a green, leafy ingredient she calls parsley. However, a moment later she corrected herself saying the vegetable was cilantro. “It’s been brought to my attention that this is cilantro, not parsley,” Garner added. Then, she adds a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce before peeling plenty of garlic cloves. “This seems like an aggressive amount of garlic," she pondered. Following the step was her jalapeno prep. She decided to leave the seeds inside based on the recipe suggesting that leaving the seeds out or in, was fine. However, a fleeting graphic on her video revealed that Garner was “probably going to take some out” before her sauce was done. 

For the final and best part, she poured the preparation into a bowl and tasted it with a cracker. "Voila! Now that is dinner. I’m just going to grab a spoon and finish it,” Garner declared. While it could be a questionable choice for dinner, the sauce is completely vegan and a convincing homemade condiment, given the star’s dislike of processed foods. She opened up about her no-go meals that also apply to her three children in an episode of Lipstick on the Rim podcast in November 2024. "We didn't have processed food at all. Not because my mom thought of it that way. It was expensive. So we had only what she could make," Garner recalled. 

Nevertheless, that habit has turned out for the better of her and her family’s health as she refrains from purchasing any of those processed foods even today.  As a substitute for that, Garner whips burritos and butter noodles for her kids while catering to her age-old habit. She also expressed concerns about the adulteration in baby food nowadays. "Kids deserve better. It really matters what you put in a child's body,” the actor stated. Garner is a co-founder of the baby food company, Once Upon a Farm alongside Ari Raz and founder Cassandra Curtis. 

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