Is there much to be said after I mentioned cheesecake? Personally, I’ve never met one that I don’t like. The cashews add a nutty flavor that only brings out the cake-battery-ness (yes, that’s a word – at least, in my dictionary) even more! This version of a cheesecake is completely diary-free (there’s a vegan option too!), so it tastes a bit different from your normal cream cheese based one, but it’s not lacking in the flavor department! If desired, you can omit the sprinkles – they just make it so dang purrrrtty. I couldn’t resist. Unless you can find sugar and grain free ones, the sprinkles are NOT paleo. Life’s all about balance!
This dessert would be perfect to make for a party or to introduce something paleo to your friends! It’s a sure hit with kiddos too – who can pass up sprinkles or something with cake batter in it’s name?!
You won’t miss the dairy at all with this creamy dessert! This cheesecake is one you won’t feel guilty about havings seconds…or thirds!
Print Recipe
Cake Batter Cheesecake with Sugar Cookie Crust (Dairy, Gluten, and Grain free)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together.
In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry crust ingredients.
Beat the egg white separately until stiff peaks form.
To the butter and sugar mixture, add the remaining wet ingredients for the crust, except the egg white.
Once everything is combined, gently fold in the egg white.
Form crust into a shallow pie or tart pan and bake for 15 min until golden brown.
Set aside to cool.
For the filling:
To a high powdered blender*: combine all of the filling ingredients. (start with 1/2 tsp of almond extract - you can always add more later!) The cashews should be very soft from soaking. This is key to a quick creamy consistency.
*I use a Vitamix 5300.
Blend everything for 3-5 minutes or until the mixture has become lighter in color and very creamy. You shouldn't feel any grit from the cashews. If you do, add a bit more coconut milk and blend for another minute or so.
Once the desired consistency is reached*, pour mixture into your cooled sugar cookie crust.
*if desired, you can add sprinkles to the mixture at this point.
Freeze cheesecake for 2-3 hours or overnight before serving.
Enjoy!
This is probably one of my favorite casseroles to make. Then again, anything buffalo chicken sounds great to me anytime! The original casserole is filled with TONS of cheese and milk. That was great and all, but it was so heavy. Delicious, but heavy. I knew I had to change the original up!
The eggs add a fluffiness to the casserole and also help to bind everything together, but if you’re sensitive to eggs, they are not entirely necessary. See the recipe note for a substitute. Honestly, besides the different texture from the spaghetti squash, it tastes like the original. It’s still rich, creamy, and cheesy – if you decide to sprinkle some on top!
So, next time you’re craving buffalo chicken wings, but don’t want all of the grease and carbs, give this hearty dish a try! It’ll surprise you!
Your spaghetti squash can easily be cooked in your microwave in about 15 minutes. Simply cut it in half, lengthwise, and put it face down on a microwave-safe dish. It may need more or less time, depending on the size you have. When it's ready, you'll be able to easily shred it with a fork. My preferred cooking method: 8 minutes High Pressure in my Instant Pot!
After cooking your squash, I drain out as much liquid from it as possible. You can use cheesecloth or a fine strainer.
As for your shredded chicken, cook that on your stovetop, in your Instant pot, or use leftover rotisserie chicken. If you're cooking boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, and you've never tried shredding chicken with a handheld or stand mixer, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND TRY IT!
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together milk, yogurt, buffalo sauce (more depending on how much heat you like), eggs, and seasonings.
To the liquid, add squash and chicken and combine.
Pour casserole mixture into a 13X9 baking dish and top with shredded cheese, if desired.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the edges start to brown.
Allow casserole to cool 5-10 minutes before serving.
Top with extra buffalo sauce, ranch dressing, and green onions!
Recipe Notes
*If you are not using eggs, you can substitute 3 tbsp of arrowroot powder to thicken up the sauce. Whisk the powder in with the milk and seasonings.
For starters, what is paleo? You may have heard it called the caveman diet or stone age diet. Basically, you eat what the cavemen ate during the Paleolithic era, i.e. meat, veggies, roots, fruits, and nuts…and avoid grains, legumes, sugar, processed oils, salt, alcohol, coffee, and dairy products. In a nutshell, cut out the processed food and live off the land!
Food has changed drastically through the years and it’s causing some problems, to say the least! People, myself included, often ask why are things so different now? What is up with all of these intolerances? It used to make no sense to me! I grew up on a farm and most meals that we ate where made from scratch. (Thanks, mom and dad! I never knew how beneficial that all was!) I never had digestive issues or thought they were that common. However, in recent years, I’ve had so many friends develop intolerances or gut problems, including my husband. WHY?
Jill from Naturally Savvy does a great job explaining how our food has changed through the years. In a nutshell, factory farming wasn’t a thing way back when. The animals raised by our ancestors were not consuming growth hormones, antibiotics, and genetically modified feed. They were raised outside and ate grass! I’ll spare the details of the awesome living conditions of most of the meat that this world eats today. However, I will say that the cheap ground beef you just bought at the grocery store is more unnatural than you can imagine and filled with chemicals…that you’re now about to consume. Look it up. Learn about how the kind of dairy you eat affects your skin, how it causes acne and those awesome gross stomach feels. It’ll blow your mind. WHO KNEW?! Fear not though, not all dairy is bad for you either. Remember, your grandparents ate it and they were just fine! What could have changed? THE PROCESSING. If you grab some of the un-tampered stuff, you’ll find that it is actually nourishing and good for you! Organic, grass-fed is the way to go! It may cost you a couple extra bucks, but your body will thank you down the road! Your health is an investment, NOT AN EXPENSE!
I’m a firm believer in being able to read and pronounce the ingredients in the food you eat. If you can’t confidently say it out loud and explain what it is, do you think its safe to eat? I surely do NOT. We need to go back to caring about what we put into our bodies. I know life is crazy, and cooking at home is not convenient, but…like the saying goes, “FAILING TO PREPARE, IS PREPARING TO FAIL.” Meal prep sucks and chopping tons of veggies at one time gets old, but let me tell ya, it makes cooking dinner on a busy night, SO SIMPLE when you have everything ready to throw in a pan. There’s no guilt and your stomach isn’t yelling at you for what you just did to it. It’s actually thanking you!
It has never been easier to find healthy options, than it is today! You just have to look and maybe pay a little more. Shop smart, though…or put in the time and grow your own organic foods! Personally, you’re going to be spending money on yourself and your family anyways…it’s either going to be on good-for-you food that AIDS your well-being, or on medical bills trying to figure out what’s going on with your system and possibly never finding a solution!
All of this isn’t to say you can’t grab some food through a drive-thru window every now and then – I personally would rather go eat a big tub of ice cream than that…but to each his own. I’d also like to add – if you’ve been eating processed foods for the majority of your life (that probably includes some meals that you ate at home that were made with processed ingredients) it’s going to take some time to repair your gut. I’ll be adding another post of some of the supplements and “potions” I made my husband take while on his personal journey to a healthier gut. Combined with our paleo diet, these things really made a difference!
I hope you aren’t running away after I totally picked a part how you eat and cook. Cooking is fun and all, but sometimes…it just sucks and you DO NOT WANT TO DO IT. Also, those dang dishes…curse them! We are all real people. Health-nuts can be (usually are) annoying. Come on, those Whole Foods people are WEIRD. I used to think that. Haha! Now, walking through the health food aisles at my local grocery store or actually shopping at a Whole Foods (we don’t have one by us – SAD DAY!) is one of my favorite things to do! I’m still a down-home cooking type of girl. I have to be a lot more conscious of the ingredients that I cook with these days, but the meals don’t have to feel like health food!
My goal with everything that I make: I don’t want to be able to tell that I’m eating a healthy version of something…I just want to think, “Man, this hits the spot!”
I’m Taylor. I do my best to keep it REAL, I find myself frequently going off on a tangent (sorry !), I love me some Jesus, and I absolutely love eating good food! I’ll save all of the other super interesting details about myself for another post! 🙂
My husband would say that I’m obsessed with the perfect bite. He is always giving me a hard time about how everything I eat has to be SO GOOD or else I’m upset. Honestly… that’s the truth! I want all food to be DELICIOUS, COMFORT FOOD! What’s so wrong with that?! I love butter. I love gravy. I love cheese. I love gravy. I love butter. Did I mention that I love gravy? Growing up in my family, we each had our own gravy boat at the dinner table. NO JOKE. Gravy and butter are serious business in my household…along with homemade, comfort food. I don’t think anyone should have to give up flavor to eat better. Nope, it’s just not happening.
Anywhooo…(I get a little sidetracked when I go on a butter or gravy rant!) over the past couple years, my husband developed stomach issues that we thought were simply dairy-related…that meant no more cheesy soups, creamy casseroles, or chocolate chip cookies – or so we thought. He wasn’t much of an ice cream fan, so giving that up didn’t bother him at all – what the heck, bro? ICE CREAM IS LIFE. So, after some tears were shed, we started a semi-strict Paleo diet (we could never fully give up cheese though, let’s be real, people!) in January of 2017. After 8 months, and tons of researching by his crazy wife, we learned he has more of a leaky-gut problem than a dairy intolerance. So, me, the nutty, “gotta-solve-every-single-problem” wife that I am, changed things on him again! He was such a good sport about it all too! I hope our future children eat whatever I put in front of them like my Jon does! He was one of the lucky ones that saw an improvement within a couple weeks of strict dieting! Since January, I have learned a ton, cheated a lot, and converted so many favorite dishes into healthier versions! We are now on a journey to healthy guts while following a diet that is closest to paleo with some QUALITY dairy involved. It’s been great! We feel great and do not miss a thing!
These days, everything is overly-processed. Even the trendy, “healthy” options are filled with substitutes that are just not good for you. It’s a tough task to consciously eat better. I get it. Convenience is AWESOME and healthy options are not always easy to come by, particularly ones that TASTE GOOD and, again, aren’t overly-processed. It’s all about being mindful and preparing. In my opinion, healthy options do not have to be lacking, by any means. Let me just tell ya, there is nothing wrong with some meatloaf, made with grass-fed beef and a side of mashed plantains (the green ones taste just like potatoes!) all covered in…you guessed it – GRAVVYYYY! It’s all about the ingredients! You want your body to know what to do with the things that you are putting into it! You just gotta put in the time to learn about your options.
I’m beginning this blog by saying that I am NOT a recipe writer. I do not follow recipes and I rarely (and when I say rarely, I mean NEVER) write down my recipes. I just like to put together some tasty food. Just like my mom, I love to go into my kitchen and make a casserole out of completely random ingredients and have it turn out to be some dang-good comfort food! After years of being asked for my recipes, paleo or not, I decided it was time to consciously try to jot some things down and share them with all of you!
My goal is to provide you with the crowd-pleasing, simple recipes that I’m cooking every week at home. I’m hoping that this blog inspires you to make smarter food choices and to confidently get in that kitchen and make some good-for-you comfort food! Your gut will thank you!
Hey All!