I like to make vegan mac and cheese without cashews for a few reasons. Cashews are very expensive, a lot of people are both vegan AND allergic to nuts so they can’t even have cashews, I feel cashews are a little on the sweet side, and also I just feel they’re really overused in vegan recipes. Even raw cashew pieces are pretty expensive, and I usually find raw sunflower seeds for less than a third of that. I also sometimes like to make my sauces with silken tofu as I do in this recipe. It lowers the fat content, it’s very easy to blend (great if you don’t have a high powered blender), it’s inexpensive, and it makes a recipe creamy without making it heavy.