Knowledge Base › Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Other than prep speed are there other considerations on soaking cashews in hot water or cold water or even boiling them for 15 minutes to soften?

Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Recorded

This event was on September 30, 2025

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

View Event Details

Question

Mary Margevicius

Other than prep speed are there other considerations on soaking cashews in hot water or cold water or even boiling them for 15 minutes to soften?

Answer

So, uh, a lot of times, like I used to be, I used to work at a raw restaurant where it was all raw foods. So, um, that would be another consideration to actually not cook above a certain temperature. We would never go above 120 degrees or 140. It's been a while. Um, so we would soak our cashews overnight to be able to get them nice and pliable. So they would basically squish between your fingers. Um, but if you're not doing a raw dish, you can also just cook them in hot water. In fact, I usually just boil them, not just soak them in hot water, but I'll boil them just for 15 minutes to be able to make that happen and become very pliable. And then you soak them in a cold water to cool them down, then you can blend them up to be able to make a creme like a crema or cream out of them. But really the biggest thing between just soaking them in cold water versus putting them in hot water, um, is timing. It's how quick it happens. If you don't have eight hours to soak them, you can always just boil them instead, unless you're looking to do a raw dish, hope that helps.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.