Vegan Gaajar Halwa | Vegan Carrot Pudding | Gluten & Dairy Free

Vegan Carrot Pudding/ Gajar Halwa🥕

Ingredients:

Method:

Cashew cream –

Soak one cup of cashews in 2 1/2 cups of water. Cover and let soak overnight (or 6-8 hours) for best results.
After soaking them overnight, rinse the cashews and transfer them to a blender. Add 1/2 cup of water and blend until a smooth cashew paste is formed. You may need a little bit more water depending on your blender and the cashews. In that case add, one tablespoon water at a time.
I like to leave my cashew cream unflavoured so that I can modify and use it as needed for a sweet or savoury dish.
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.
This will make about 2-21/2 cups of cashew cream. Simple reduce the ingredient quantities by half to make one cup of cashew cream if you so wish.

Carrot Pudding/ Gajar Halwa –

Grate the carrots by hand or in a food processor.
Heat a large skillet or kadhai to medium high heat and add the coconut oil.
Once the coconut oil is hot add the grated carrots. Sauté well.
Then add the coconut sugar and jaggery and mix well with the carrots & beets.
After the sugar and jaggery are well combined add the coconut milk and mix well. The carrots and the beet will give out a lot of water as they cook but don’t worry because it will reduce as all the ingredients come together. Keep sautéing until most of the water content reduces.
Finally add the cashew cream and the freshly ground cardamom powder and mix well. Keep stirring the mixture until it is no longer watery.
You can eat the halwa/ pudding hot, at room temperature or cold from the refrigerator. It tastes delicious at any temperature!! I personally enjoy it after it’s been refrigerated. You can also garnish the halwa with some chopped almonds if you like.

** Notes:

If you don’t wish to use a blend of the coconut sugar and jaggery, then you can easily use all coconut sugar or all jaggery and it will still taste perfectly delicious.