Are There Any Cheeses That Are Dairy Free

What Do I Need To Make My Own Vegan Cheese

Whatever your skill level and however well your kitchen is equipped, theres a vegan cheese recipe out there for you.

However, we minimally recommend that anyone interested in a healthy plant-strong diet has the following in their kitchen.

Essential Kitchen Tools:

• A food processor and/or a high-powered blender for grinding nuts and seeds and blending the creamiest cheeses and cheesy sauces.
• A strainer and cheesecloth for draining your vegan cheese
• Nutritional yeast, which is a deactivated yeast with a nutty and cheesy flavor
• Miso paste, which can make your cheese taste more cheesy
• Salt and lemon, for saltiness and tartness, respectively

Needless to say, choosing dairy-free is easier today than it ever has been before. No longer does it require sacrifice. Enjoy the adventure, friends!

How To Read Food Labels

By law, food products containing any of the nine major food allergens are required to have plain-language labels to help people avoid them. Milk is one of those allergens, but it’s still a good idea to read the label and ingredients list carefully.

• Products labeled “dairy-free”:The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate this term, so these products could still contain casein milk derivatives like casein or whey.
• Products labeled “nondairy”:FDA regulations technically allow these products to contain a very small percentage of milk by weight in the form of casein.

Learn How To Cook Plant

Reducing your meat intake and eating more plant-based foods is known to help with chronic inflammation, heart health, mental wellbeing, fitness goals, nutritional needs, allergies, gut health, and more! Unfortunately, dairy consumption also has been linked to many health problems, including acne, hormonal imbalance, cancer, prostate cancer, and has many side effects.

For those interested in eating more plant-based, we highly recommend purchasing one of our many plant-based cookbooks or downloading the Food Monster App which has thousands of delicious recipes making it the largest vegan recipe resource to help reduce your environmental footprint, save animals and get healthy! And, while you are at it, we encourage you to also learn about the environmental and health benefits of a plant-based diet.

Here are some resources to get you started:

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What Is Lactose Intolerance

Lactose intolerance is a result of your body’s inability to properly digest or absorb lactose, a natural sugar found in milk and milk products. In some cases, you body does not produce enough lactase, which is needed to break down lactose, causing your colon to produce gas, leading to bloating. Lactose intolerance can also result from poor lactose absorption, which can cause bloating, pain and gas.

Lactose Intolerant Cheese Conclusion

We hope you found these tips helpful and that they will help you make better choices when it comes to your diet.

Overall, just please know there are many naturally lactose free cheeses. So if you were wondering about whether they lactose-free cheese yes, they do make lactose-free cheese!!

If you have any other questions about lactose intolerance or the types of food best for those who are intolerant, please let us know!

Finally, please remember its lactose with an e at the end, not lactos free cheese!

About the Author

Hey, I’m Jared and I’m a writer by heart. I call myself a Food-Conscious Journaling Coach, which is means I help foodies end emotional eating for a healthy, peaceful, and normal relationship with food. Just so happening journaling is both my heart and career!

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Dairy Free Cream Cheese:

Again, for store bought options, Tofutti wins for taste. Im not arguing that these are the healthiest non-dairy alternatives you can find, Im simply speaking for flavor. Tofutti cream cheese, to my tongue, tastes nearly identical to dairy cream cheese. Follow Your Heart is again my second-place pick. You can also make your own delicious cream cheese with The Non-Dairy Evolution Cookbook, or try an online recipe: heres one for an easy cashew-based cream cheese.

Are Vegan And Dairy

You might be wondering, is a vegan diet a dairy-free diet? Though they do have similarities, they’re not quite the same.

• A vegan dieteliminates any product that’s made from an animal. This includes dairy, meat, eggs, and fish.
• A dairy-free diet excludes all or most dairy products. This includes milk and any foods made with milk.

One way to think of it is that while all vegan food is dairy-free, not all dairy-free food is vegan.

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The Worst Cheese For Lactose Intolerance

Unfortunately lactose intolerant individuals will need to avoid cheese products that are high in lactose.

These include cream cheese, cottage cheese, and ricotta cheese.

Notice a pattern?

Cheese with the highest lactose include cheese spreads, soft cheeses like Camembert, cottage cheese and mozzarella.

All of these have more than 17 percent lactose per serving size, which is way too much for most lactose intolerant people to handle!

So lactose intolerant individuals should avoid these cheeses.

While its hard to pinpoint the worst cheese for lactose intolerant people, the best answer to that question is cream cheese.

Cream cheese contains about the same lactose as other high lactose cheeses like mozzarella, however, cream cheese is more commonly bought and used.

Therefore in our opinion, cream cheese the worst cheese for lactose intolerant people.

Please remember too that dairy products produced from cream, such as ice cream, cream cheese, custard, or butter, should also be avoided.

The Differences Between Lactose

ferrantraite/Getty Images

You will often see the terms lactose-free and dairy-free on various products and foods. While they may sound the same, they do not mean the same thing. Lactose-free foods are dairy products where the lactose has been removed, whereas dairy-free means there is no dairy at all the food is made from plants or nuts instead.

Understanding these labels is important for people with a milk allergy . Lactose-free products are made for people with lactose intolerance but they are usually not suitable for people who have milk allergies or who are on a vegan or dairy-free diet.

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Winner: Violife Le Rond Camembert Flavour

At room temperature, this vegan camembert has a remarkably similar taste to the regular kind. It has a slightly salty but mild, tangy flavour with a characteristic sour odour thats weaker than the dairy variety but still present. Its quite a solid, creamy cheese and lacks a typical wax, which may distract non-vegans. When melted, it stayed quite liquid for longer than regular camembert, but the flavour is strong and it has a nice runny rather than sticky texture.

Available from:Sainsburys

Enjoy Dairy On The Side

Instead of eating or drinking dairy products by themselves, try having them with food that doesn’t contain lactose. For some people, combining dairy with other food may reduce or even get rid of their usual symptoms. So don’t just drink a glass of milk in the morning. Pour it over cereal or have a piece of toast on the side.

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Winner: Green Vie Greek Style Block With Oregano And Olive Oil

There is a classic brininess and soft texture to this vegan feta and it easily crumbles, which impressed us. Its salty but perhaps milder than a regular feta and when it firsts hits the tongue, the acidity is a bit intense but that quickly fades to replicate a very good dairy feta. The olive oil and oregano flavour is lovely and does a good job at covering any potential synthetic taste.

How Will I Live Without Cheese

At the time I dumped it on everythingpasta with loads of parmesan, pizza loaded with mozz. There was cheese in my go-to burritos, sandwiches, quesadillas, you name it. Whatever I was eating, it was hardly a complete meal without cheese. This was going to be hard.

And let me tell you, at the time , there werent a zillion vegan cheese options like there are today. In fact, there werent any in my college town of Cleveland, Ohio. So I went without.

Painful? Surprisingly, not really! I thought it was going to be a huge challenge, a sacrifice I was making for the animals. But truth be told, I quickly acclimated to equally delicious alternatives.

My go-to? Avocado with salt. Cheese is essentially just fat and salt, so salted avocado did the trick in my burritos, sandwiches, and beyond. And in place of parmesan one my pasta I would add olive oil, salt, garlic powder, and nutritional yeast , a combo I still often turn to today. Or Ill just use marinara sauce instead!

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Best Shredded Cheese: Violife

Replicating shredded cheese can be tricky without dairy, largely because many of the original vegan shredded cheese replacements stubbornly refused to melt. The shreds from Violife, available in cheddar, Colby Jack, and Mexican-style flavors, look almost startlingly like real cheese once theyve been underneath the oven broiler or stirred into a sauce, melting smoothly and boasting a solid, cheesy flavor. Its also pretty great for snacking out of the bag at midnight when an insatiable cheese craving strikes.

Make Better Cheese Choices

With lactose intolerance, you can still eat cheese, but choose carefully. Hard, aged cheeses like Swiss, parmesan, and cheddars are lower in lactose. Other low-lactose cheese options include cottage cheese or feta cheese made from goat or sheeps milk. Certain types of cheeses especially soft or creamy ones like ricottta and cream cheese are higher in lactose. If you want to avoid dairy completely, try lactose-free and dairy-free cheeses.

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Best Garnish Cheese: Bragg Nutritional Yeast

Though there are plenty of vegan Parmesan alternatives on the market now, none will be able to replace the funky simplicity of nutritional yeast. Known as nooch by its acolytes, nutritional yeast is a type of deactivated yeast thats been used for years as a vegan cheese substitute. Sold by brands like Bragg, its endlessly versatile, capable of being whipped into a vegan queso or sprinkled over popcorn. You also dont have to store it in your refrigerator, it takes forever to expire, and can be purchased much more cheaply than many other vegan cheese options.

How Does Vegan Cheese Taste

Whatever you want it to taste like!

While vegan cheese has sort of a bad rap as being bland and bad at melting, we can assure you that for the most part, its anything but.

Vegans and vegetarians around the world have veganized pretty much every cheese you can imagine, from savoury cheddars to sharp parmesans, salty fetas to decadent bries and camemberts.

If youre more of a DIY foodie or just someone who loves experimenting in the kitchen, then youll be excited to learn that you can whip up all kinds of vegan cheeses from scratch in your own kitchen. We recommend trying this vegan cheese recipe and picking up a copy of a vegan cheesemaking cookbook . You can also check out our vegan cheese board on Pinterest for inspiration.

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Best For A Cheese Board

• Miyokos Artisan Cheese Hands down, this is the best cheese I have ever haddairy or not. With about a dozen varieties, your cheese plate will wow guests with varieties like Herbs de Provence, Double Cream Chive, and French Style Winter Truffle.
• Vtopian Artisan CheeseThe artisan cheeses from this Portland store take cheese to a whole new level. Delight your taste buds with inspired offerings like Port Cheddar, Caramelized Onion, and Peppercorn Brie.
• VromageThe cheeses from this Los Angeles shop also ship online so you can enjoy gourmet selections like Brie and Manchego even if you arent a local Angelino.

What’s The Best Cheese For People On A Lactose

There are a number of lactose-free cheese brands that are made by using the enzyme lactase to break down any lactose, however there are also a number of hard cheese varieties that naturally contain almost zero lactose.

According to the Australian Dietary Guidelines, people with lactose intolerance can generally eat cheese, as many types of cheese, specifically harder mature cheeses, are very low in lactose. These cheese types usually have a lower lactose content than softer cheese because lactose is lost when whey is removed and the maturation process also uses up lactose.

The following table lists various cheese types that contain negligible amounts of lactose.

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Can I Make Lower Fat Dairy

As mentioned in the recipe notes, you can use low-fat mayonnaise. I prefer real mayonnaise in this recipe for optimal taste and consistency. But if you are used to light mayo, then it might still taste perfect to you. Using light mayo will reduce the fat to about 6.2 grams per serving, and the calories to about 80 calories per serving. I have not tried yogurt in place of the mayo, so I cant guarantee taste if you opt to substitute an unsweetened, plain dairy-free yogurt. Brands can vary widely in taste, and will influence the flavor.

Vegan Cheese Products So Delicious You Won’t Know The Difference

Ask anyone who’s vegan or lactose intolerant what the hardest thing about giving up dairy is, and they’ll likely tell you, with no hesitationcheese. Because let’s be real, what’s a plate of penne, a pile of nachos, or a slice of brick oven pie without the cheese? Luckily for anyone who’s ditched the dairy for dietary or health reasons, vegan, non-dairy cheese has seriously stepped up their game in recent years.

Scan your local grocery store and you’ll likely find a wide array of optionsfrom mozzarella that’s made for melting, tangy chèvre, sharp cheddar, and creamy brie. Some products are made from nuts, while others are soy-based. A number of these dairy-free cheeses even pack some of the same nutritional perks of real cheese, like calcium and probiotics.

But not all vegan cheese is created equal, of course. Whereas some fall short of our ooey-gooey expectations, others have the potential to even win over non-vegans. Here are 13 vegan cheese options that rival the real thing. You’ll look at non-dairy cheese in a whole new way.

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What Is Vegan Cheese

Simply put, vegan cheese is any cheese that isnt sourced from a lactating animals milk, such as from a mother cow or momma goat.

Unlike lactose-free milk, which is still sourced from a cow but with lactose removed, vegan cheese can be made from nuts, seeds, vegetables, or other plant-based sources. However, vegan cheese will never be derived from an animal or their milk.

Is Cheese Or Milk Worse For People With Lactose Intolerance

This is a question that lactose intolerant people often ask.

Generally speaking milk contains more lactose than cheese.

Thus, on average milk is worse for lactose intolerance.

But why is milk worse for lactose intolerance? In other words, why does milk have more lactose than cheese?

Well, cheese is made from milk, lets remember. You first need milk to make cheese.

During the cheesemaking process, some of the lactase in the milk is broken down by bacteria, so the cheese ends up with less lactose in comparison with milk.

Cheese has lower lactose content than other dairy products since much of the lactose is removed during production.

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Why Are Many Vegan Cheeses Made Of Soy

Soy is an amazing base for vegan cheeses and often leads to a final product that tastes the most like dairy cheese.

It surprises many to learn that soybeans are the same as edamame, the green beans you may have had at a Japanese restaurant. These magical little beans have been a healthful and protein-rich staple in many cultures since ancient times.

Today we turn to soybeans to make soy milk, tofu , vegan meats, cheeses, and beyond.

And dont worry, for those who have been confused by rumors in the media, theres no reason to be afraid of soy. Unless youre allergic, of course!

Winner: Presidents Choice Lactose

Price: $5.89Product specialty: Lactose-freeFirst thoughts: The general consensus from the team was that, out of all five options, the Presidents Choice lactose-free old cheddar was the closest to actual cheese. Specifically, the scent and texture were much more cheese-like than the other products.Does it resemble regular cheese? A resounding yes! from all reviewers.What would it be good for? Nachos, grilled cheese, on crackers, in sandwiches pretty much wherever you use normal cheese.Would you buy it? Everyone said they would buy this product. Score out of 5: 5

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The Best Vegan Cheese Recipes

In the year 2022, vegan cheese is not only readily available but it has also never been more delicious. It wasnt even that long ago that meltable vegan cheese was an outlier! Store-bought vegan cheese has come a very, very long way over the past few decades.

Remember when vegan cheese wouldnt even stay melted for more than 20 seconds? Well, we do! Thankfully there are plenty of brands available today with totally meltable options. In this guide well feature recipes for homemade vegan cheese. Some call for nuts or seeds while others rely on tofu but all of them are easy, accessible, and delicious. Whether youre looking for something to spread on a sandwich or a unique vegan fromage to serve at a fancy dinner, weve got you covered.