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Gluten-Free Vegan Baked Cheetos

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Look, no one claimed that I was sane. I think I just proved this point by taking a stab at recreated a gluten-free vegan baked version of Cheetos. And what a delight I had doing so. Am I weirdo for giggling whilst piping out a Cheetos dough onto a baking sheet? 

Gluten-Free Vegan Baked Cheetos

Do they taste exactly the same? As close as they can. Instead of a orange cheesy layer of processed chemicals, these baked Cheetos are coated with a layer of nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, garlic and onion powders with a sprinkle of salt. If you have had a taste of nutritional yeast, it has a great cheese-like flavor so it’s important that you use it and not substitute it out for any other ingredient. It does such a great job flavoring out my Homemade Baked Doritos recipe, I knew that it would do just fine with these Cheetos. I also took the general ingredients base from my Cheez-Its recipe and adapted it from there.

Gluten-Free Vegan Baked Cheetos

Do they have the same texture and bite as the original version. Well…no. Are they crunchy? They sure are! But are they airy like their original counterparts? No. These are a little more dense and crunchier but let’s be honest. They were delightfully good regardless. If anything it was just so much fun trying to recreate them.  

Gluten-Free Vegan Baked Cheetos

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Gluten-Free Vegan Baked Cheetos

Homemade Baked Cheetos

★★★★ 3.3 from 3 reviews
  • Author: Cara Reed
  • Prep Time: 10 mins
  • Cook Time: 15 mins
  • Total Time: 25 mins
  • Yield: 60 1x
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Ingredients

Dry Ingredients:

  • 1/4 c. superfine brown rice flour
  • 1/4 c. sorghum flour
  • 1/4 c. potato starch (or use arrowroot, tapioca or corn starch–what you have)
  • 3/4 c. corn meal
  • 3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
  • 3/4 tsp. xanthan gum
  • 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt

Wet Ingredients:

  • 3 Tbsp. vegan butter
  • 1/2 c. ice cold water (please note you will not be using all of it)

Cheezy Coating:

  • 3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast, blended to small granules
  • 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp. onion powder
  • 1/4 tsp. sea salt

Instructions

  1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Cut the vegan butter in with the back of a fork until crumbly in the flour mix. Add the ice water by the tablespoon just until a nice dough ball is formed.
  2. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  3. Pipe the dough into 2″ strings on the baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool slightly. Repeat with the remainder of the dough.
  4. Pour 2 Tbsp. olive oil into a shallow bowl and coat each Cheetos piece. Throw into a large plastic baggie and dump the cheezy coating. Seal and shake until completely coated.
  5. Place back onto the baking sheet and cook for an additional 5 minutes.
  6. Enjoy.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1 Cheeto
  • Calories: 10
  • Sodium: 20mg
  • Fat: 0.1g
  • Carbohydrates: 2g
  • Protein: 0.5g

 

Have something to say? I cannot wait hear from you! I so enjoy reading all of your comments and I try my best to respond to each and every one. Have you made any of my recipes? I would love to see a picture of it on Instagram!

Also, please note that Vegan MoFo begins Setember 1st so you will be hearing more from me this coming month. I’d say that I’m leaving my theme as a surprise but then again, if you have been following me for a while it’s no surprise really as to what theme I am choosing. To be continued and stay tuned…(cue spooky music)

 

namastasty

 

 P.S. Congrats to Amy Derton for winning the cookbook giveaway!

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

    • The nutritional yeast gives that cheesy flavor to it so I don’t think it would be wise to make it without. However, I get it. I am not a big fan of nutritional yeast either 😛

      Reply

  3. On your vegan cheetos, I don’t have a problem with gluten, I have a problem with dairy….cheese. Could I just use regular flour to make my cheetos?

    Thanks

    Reply

  4. Why? I can’t understand why anyone would make this and be happy about feeding to their kids. The ingredients are still toxic and inflammatory.

    corn (all, even organic) is GMO – it’s also best food if you want to feed viruses in your body
    nutritional yeast – MSG – msg is terrible and eats away at your brain

    When one feeds their body anything but fruits and vegetables your stomach has to go in combat mode to deal with it. Viruses and bacteria feed off processed foods, not your body. Think, better yet, critical thinking will save your health.

    namaste = buzz word bingo

    ★

    Reply

      • I think not using nutritional yeast would’ve wise because who needs that flavor when there is a myriad of possible flavor options use paprika or something else rosrmerry literally anything and getting creative can be fun and pay off. The other guy got triggered that’s forsure lmfao they were probvl scathing that response while eating Cheetos. I looked and couldn’t find my recipes for this goal thank u so much for sharing I will interchange ingredients I don’t agree with much like any other time I follow a recipe I will let you kno how it goes thanks again

        C

        Reply

    • There is no MSG in nutritional yeast? Not sure what that lady is on about.. Haha! If the recipe isn’t for you, why bother with Critisizing? Make a recipe that is right for you and let everyone else do what they’d like 🙂 I will totally be trying this recipe, it looks amazing! The above person should read up a little more on corn, “corn-based sweeteners, starches and oils in processed foods are almost certainly manufactured from genetically engineered corn. In contrast only a small amount of GE sweet corn can be found on the U.S. market. Most sweet corn has not been genetically engineered.” http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2014/04/corn , you can also grow your own non-gmo corn, and get seeds from a few different websites like these for example; http://www.highmowingseeds.com/organic-non-gmo-corn.html or http://www.seedsavers.org/category/corn . You can also get some (hard to find) non-gmo corn meal like this brand, http://www.arrowheadmills.com/product/organic-yellow-corn-meal , thanks for the awesome recipe from a new vegan who had a cheetos additiction!

      ★★★★

      Reply

      • Ha, thank you for this comment! I didn’t even want to bother with the ignorance so I couldn’t even bring myself to respond. Thank you for such a thoughtful and thorough response! So much love, xo.

        Reply

  5. Hello Cara, I was really happy to find this recipe. I miss cheetos since I can no longer have gluten or dairy. I understand that you have lost parts of this recipe when the format was changed but could you add the missing ingredients in the comments? I really would love to try these.

    Thanks
    Marlène

    Reply

    • Once I can figure it out, I will definitely add it to the recipe however at this point, I have no access in finding the missing ingredients unfortunately. Sadly, the reformatting made me lose half of it 🙁

      Reply

  6. Idea for solving the liquid measurements mystery . . .
    Send out an email to those on your mailing list and see if anyone printed out or downloaded it to their laptop. Somebody somewhere must have done this!

    Reply

    • Unfortunately as I said in the previous comment, the recipe got erased when transitioning over to a new format. I’m so sad! I’m still trying to figure it out. Patience please 🙂 xo

      Reply

  9. Hello Cara,
    So I keep looking for the Butter and the Water measurements but they still wont show up! Could you email them to me please?
    Thanks!
    Parker

    Reply

    • You know what Parker, I’m having a real hard time trying to find a recovery file for this recipe. As I said, part of it didn’t convert over and because of that, I don’t have it saved anywhere else. Still working on it, thank you for your patience!

      Reply

  10. Am I crazy or do I not see the butter and water measurement? I read the recipe and comments a few times and I couldn locate these measurements and I also didn’t see the mixture amounts for the toppings? I love your site and all the recipes I’ve made so far. I have all the dry mixed so I’m just gonna give this a go and see what happens, I’ll check back here or in my email soon, thanks so much

    Reply

    • You are not crazy 🙂 It appears as if part of recipe was deleted when it was transferred from a different format, yikes! I will try to figure this out tomorrow…sorry about that! xo

      Reply

    • Thanks for the idea! I wonder what other grains would work as a replacement. I’m not used to substituting for corn meal . . . I just don’t make the recipe. However, I don’t consider that an option in this case!

      Reply

      • Yeah, I’m not really sure if there is a good sub for the corn meal just because it really gives a certain flavor/texture. Sorry! 🙁

        Reply

  22. Holy crap, you’re AMAZING!! Seriously. This is great service to both the vegan and gluten-free communities. Thank you for all that you do to ensure that we can still have our snacks!!!

    Reply

  23. Thanks for being so nice to me and Kar I had another blogger intentionally snub Kar and Me and its funny because The person who did this clearly has major issues within themselves.(sorry I love to diagnose people personalities) But we super duper love your personality bright, cheery and positive. Thanks and truthfully Kar will absolutely love this recipe except she’ll add lime and hot sauce. Bye Cara Sorry for the rant…:)

    Reply

  25. Ditto! (to the first comment) If you are insane then you are a mad mad genius. Cheetos!! Just great. I just bought some nutritional yeast finally, so I’m excited to try some more of your vegan cheesey recipes 🙂
    Yay!

    Reply

  26. Ditto! (to the first comment) If you are insane then you are a mad mad genius. Cheetos!! Just great. I just bought some nutritional yeast finally, so I’m excited to try some more of your vegan cheese recipes 🙂
    Yay!

    Reply

  27. You’re amazing Cara! I didn’t really discover cheetos and their chemically goodness until about half a year before I went vegan. I always thought it was a little tragedy of my life. Thanks for fixing that one!

    Reply

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