Inside Scoop: You’re going to love these refreshing, and simply delicious, dairy-free, raw lemon cheesecake squares.

This recipe was submitted by Karen Gilman, Registered Holistic Nutritionist™ helping families whose children are vegetarian.

Oh hay!

Just in case you are just tuning into our style of ‘health’, well, we believe that restriction can contribute to perpetual diet cycling and a feeling that you’re never really satisfied. So you need to satisfy! Things like cake, cookies, cheesecake and chocolate can absolutely have a place in a healthy diet. Just check out how you can Curb Your Overeating By Honouring Your Hunger to learn more about intuitive eating, a method we truly adore.

But by the same token, it doesn’t mean that these delicious goodies can’t be re-created in a much healthier style. For example, you can easily swap white flour for almond flour, and white sugar for cane sugar or maple syrup. These are just some simple health swaps that help re-create classics in a little more nutrient dense way.

Voila! You’re healthy, and definitely refreshing, Raw Lemon Cheesecake Squares are here, and they will make a raw cheesecake lover out of even the biggest cheesecake fans! This raw lemon cheesecake is made with whole food based ingredients like nuts, dates, cashews, fresh lemon and maple syrup. A simple delicious treat that you are going to LOVE during the summer months (it’s really an all season treat, but especially nice in the summer).

Raw Lemon Cheesecake A Healthy Cheesecake Swap

This raw lemon cheesecake recipe not only contains ingredients that are better for you than the classic cheesecake (that contains loads of sugar and dairy), but it’s really easy to put together. All you need is a food processor or a high-speed blender and you can prep this dish in about 10 minutes.

Here are just some amazing benefits of this raw lemon cheesecake:

• Loaded with healthy fats
• Low in added sugars
• No refined sugars
• Naturally sweetened with whole dates
• Contains antioxidants from lemons and limonene from the rind
• Deliciousness

And it creates a fair amount of squares, so you can always have a sweet snack on hand! Our favourite way to enjoy this raw lemon cheesecake is with some delicious dairy-free whipped cream.

As you can tell we’re all about enjoying life with balance, having real cheesecake, or a healthier version of cheesecake when we feel like it, and without guilt, but we definitely prefer the nutrient dense version of our goodies. However, we know that knowing how to make healthy swaps isn’t always the easiest (TBH we’ve had some recipe disasters throughout our whole process) so that’s why we created a Healthy Swap Fridge List for all your cooking experiments. You can download your Healthy Swap List here:

You might be looking for some more delicious healthy sweet treat ideas, you’re definitely going to want to check out these Chocolate Hazelnut Bliss Balls, and these Salted Chocolate Nut Butter Cups.

Have you tested a vegan cheesecake yet? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And, if you happen to whip up this delicious Raw Lemon Cheesecake, don’t forget to use the hashtag #naughtynutrition.

Karen Gilman

Karen Gilman is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist™ and mom to two teenage girls, one vegetarian, one not. For her, preparing vegetarian meals for the past 30 years coupled with the Diploma in Natural Nutrition from the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, has provided her with the insight and tools to provide help to families whose children are vegetarian.

As a mom, she knows the struggles with getting everyone to eat well. She loves cooking healthy meals and treats from scratch for her family. Sometimes they eat them, sometimes they don’t. As a Registered Holistic Nutritionist it is her role to support dietary and lifestyle changes your family can embrace.

You can learn more about Karen's nutrition practice at http://www.nutrilicious.ca. Or check out her Facebook page here.