Whats The Difference Between Vegan Plant
Vegan Cheese Describes a range of cheeses that are solely made from plant-based products and do not use any animal by-products in the production process. To be considered strictly Vegan Cheese, the product should be certified by one of the many international vegan certification agencies such as Vegan Australia, PETA, LAV , Vegetarian Society and Vegan Action .
Plant-Based Cheese As with vegan cheese, Plant-based cheeses are solely made from plant or natural products and no animal by-products are used in the processes of production. These products will also be dairy-free, and by definition lactose-free.
Dairy-free Cheese Dairy applies to milk and to any part of milk that may be used in the cheese-making process. Dairy-free products, therefore, do not contain the milk proteins casein or whey which are all natural components of milk. Cheeses labelled dairy-free are likely to be plant-based and vegan, but further investigation of the label will be required to be sure.
Chickpea Flour Cheddar Cheese By Powerhungry
Another affordable and healthy vegan cheese recipe on todays list, this concoction by PowerHungry is chickpea flour-based, which means its also high in plant protein! Youll be surprised to find out how versatile this simple, pantry-friendly, beginner-level recipe isits ideal for sandwiches, snacking, shredding, and so much more.
More Delicious Vegan Cheese Recipes
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
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Kite Hill Cream Cheese
Last on the list is a delightful plant-based cream cheese. Kite Hill uses almond milk as the base of their velvety smooth cream cheese that is the perfect vegan substitute. This cream cheese is great for spreading, dipping, and everything else youd call on regular cream cheese for.
In addition to their plain version, they have flavors like pumpkin pie, chive, and garden veggie. All are made with the same almond milk base with real, whole foods added to create the different flavors things like onions, peppers, herbs, and seeds.
Kite Hill is extremely passionate about vegan eating and plant-based living. Their cream cheeses are sublime, but it goes much farther than that. They have a huge selection of healthy, plant-based foods that can help you craft an entire lifestyle. Things like yogurts, butters, pasta, other spreads, dips, and kid-friendly snacks are all available.
This Vegan Cheese Tasted Just Like Homei Was Overcome With Pure Joy I Finally Made It
My search for healthy substitutes to quench my longing for cheese sent me on a journey.
I think I tried almost any recipe from every corner of the internet.
Slowly but surely I was able to reproduce almost any cheese I loved from home
Velvety-smooth flavorful Cream cheese
Tangy and crumbly Feta Cheese
Melty stretchy Mozzarella cheese that just looks like the real thing
All made out of nuts and simple ingredients found in every home kitchen.When I served them to my beloved family & friends they quickly fell in love with these flavors too
I had to make more so they could share these wonderful flavors with their loved ones.
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Bonus Recommendation: Download Food Monster App For Amazing Plant
We highly recommend downloading the Food Monster App with over 15,000 delicious recipes it is the largest meatless, vegan and allergy-friendly recipe resource to help you get healthy! its a brilliant food app and a great resource for anyone looking to cut out or reduce allergens like meat, dairy, soy, gluten, eggs, grains, and more! You can also make meal plans, add bookmarks, read feature stories, and browse recipes across hundreds of categories like diet, cuisine, meal type, occasion, ingredient, popular, seasonal, and so much more!
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Italian Valentines Dinner Menu:
Bellini:
Start out with a bellini . It doesnt need to be peach season to make these, thanks to frozen peaches that are plentiful in stores! Just thaw your peaches at room temperature prior to making!
Starter Salad:
A starter salad with leaf lettuce mixed with romaine, some shredded purple cabbage for extra crunch, shredded carrots, diced cucumbers, halved grape tomatoes and olives and topped with balsamic vinagrette and a sprinkle of our plant-based parmesan cheese .
Spaghetti:
Follow this with a satisfying bowl of spaghetti, topped with our . To make it even more healthy, serve it over a bed of spinach! Though not whole food plant based, you can top with a couple of the Beyond Meat Meatballs for an authentic Lady and the Tramp experience. Then, sprinkle with a touch of our parmesan cheese for that authentic Italian flavor!
Toasted whole grain bread:
Serve with a lightly toasted slice of whole grain bread, drizzled with some balsamic vinegar.
Poached Pears:
Finish off with some pears poached in red wine for a light but still sweet dessert. What a fine meal this is!
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How To Use Vegan Mozzarella:
- Grilled Cheese Spoon the cheese between two slices of buttered bread and grill for a fantastic grilled cheese.
- Pizza Spoon dollops of cheese on top of pizza crust along with other toppings of choice and cook as you normally would. You can also try to spread it all over the pizza .
- Lasagna Spoon the cheese all over the top of the lasagna in the last 20 minutes of baking in the oven. Bake uncovered with the cheese, and broil if desired to brown in spots.
- Anywhere else youd like! Dip chips into it, make quesadillas, in enchiladas, etc.
Easy Vegan Ricotta Cheese 2 Ways By Lazy Cat Kitchen
If youre not vegan yet, try giving the cows a break, and giving this vegan cheese recipe a go instead! Designed for the newbies in the world of homemade vegan cheese, all youll need to make this plant-based ricotta is a blender that will do most of the work for you, as well as some soaked cashews, plant milk/water, salt, and either lemon juice or a vegan probiotic capsule to give the cheese its typical tangy, funky taste. Well get into cultured vegan cheeses a little later in this article, but this is a great place to start!
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What Is A Plant
A plant-based cheese substitute is really any product that you can use in place of cheese. It could be as simple as placing avocado on your sandwich instead of cream cheese, or sprinkling a plant-based seasoning or nutritional yeast on your pasta to replace parmesan, or it can be as complex as producing your own vegan or plant-based cheese.
One alternative, which you will come across in many recipes, is nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast is a non-living yeast which starts out the same as brewers or bakers yeast. It can be described as having a slightly salty and cheesy taste and it makes an excellent substitute for parmesan cheese. In addition, it contains no animal or dairy products, no wheat, starch, soy or corn, has low salt and contains no artificial colours or flavours, which makes it an ideal substitute for those with sensitivities as well as for those just wanting a plant-based cheese substitute.
As well as having an excellent cheesy taste though, nutritional yeast also harbours an impressive list of minerals and vitamins. It is high in B vitamins, and often Vitamin B12 is added to it, as this is not naturally present. It is also high in protein , and it is a complete protein which means it can add to your daily protein requirements. It also contains magnesium, copper and manganese and is high in dietary fibre. Nutritional Yeast is available at most major supermarket chains in Australia, but can also be obtained from health food stores, or online.
Where To Buy Vegan Cheese
Its very easy to find vegan cheese in grocery stores these days. Just look in the refrigerated section where the vegan and vegetarian meat alternatives are. Whole Foods Market and other organic grocery stores often even have a bigger variety of vegan cheese than regular grocery stores.
Popular brands in the U.S. and Canada are Daiya, Follow Your Heart, Chao Cheese by Field Roast, and Toffuti. I can also recommend Kite Hill cheese, which is made of cultured almond milk. Trader Joes also has an amazing vegan cream cheese.
If you cant find the plant-based cheese alternatives in the store, you could check out the brands store finder online or even have them delivered to you.
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Did The Grateable Vegan Cheese Work
HECK YES IT DID! Ive absolutely slayed this one no brag! HEres how I killed those three challenges I set myself.
Firm and Grateable: This one was tricky. I used a bunch of different things in recipe trials to help make sure the cheese sets firm and grateable. But almost always, they meant that the cheese wouldnt melt properly. Finally I tried an ingredient called kappa carrageenan which is a thickening agent made from red seaweed. It worked beautifully. It sets up nicely when cool but melts and stretches when heated just like dairy cheese. I buy kappa carrageenan online. Its useful for loads of stuff, so its worth having for other vegan cooking!
Melty and Stretchy: As above, this was a tricky one to balance with the whole firm and grateable vibe. The solution was a mix of tapioca starch and psyllium husk powder. Tapioca starch helps make the cheese super stretchy like mozzarella when melted, while the psyllium husk powder adds fibre to the recipe making the cheese deliciously stringy! I find all of these ingredients either at health food stores or my local Asian supermarket.
Creamy and Tangy: The creaminess comes from a blend of soaked cashews and coconut oil. The tang comes from rice vinegar and vegan lactic acid powder. If you cant get hold of lactic acid powder, dont worry I get that this is a specialist ingredient. Use double the rice vinegar instead.
Prolamin Technology: Making Stretchy And Bubbly Cheese
Motif is also improving the texture of plant-based cheese with a protein called prolamin. Prolamin technology uses a natural corn protein to give plant-based cheese qualities like melt, stretch, and bubbling in a way that is similar to animal-derived dairy.
“I think the gap between the performance of dairy-based cheese and plant-based cheese is large. We are developing technologies that are going to close that gap significantly and hope to bring those to market very soon,” says McIntyre.
Prolamin technology allows you to create stretchy, plant-based cheese with a variety of applications, such as melting on a pizza, taco, or cheeseburger. These are applications that are often missing from other plant-based dairy products.
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Follow Your Heart Shredded Cheese
Shredded cheese is another important part of the cheese world. Yes, you can shred a block or a slice of cheese but sometimes its just easier to buy it already shredded! This is especially true for anyone with a busy schedule and/or a large family. Its also true that not every type of plant-based cheese lends itself well to shredding, so getting a plant-based product thats already properly shredded is the perfect solution.
Follow Your Heart has a fantastic selection of shredded cheeses, including cheddar and mozzarella which are both available in regular shredding and finely shredded. They also have an Italian blend and a fiesta blend for when you want to add a little more spice to your dish!
These cheeses are made with a base of either coconut oil or organic palm fruit oil and potato and corn starches. Other ingredients like rice flour, vegetable glycerin, and bamboo fiber are added for taste, texture, and nutrition.
This cheese also contains 80-90 calories per serving which is on the low side for cheese, making it a great fit for many diets.
Vegan Pepper Jack Cheese
A perfectly rich, creamy, and spicy vegan pepper jack cheese. A simple cheese recipe that’s easy to whip up in about 10 minutes. Slice it up and serve it on crackers or add it to a vegan cheeseboard. Melt it over corn chips to make unbelievable vegan loaded nachos, use it in quesadillas, or for a spicy vegan grilled cheese.
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Vegan Cheese Sauce Recipes
Everything just taste better with cheese, and that’s why these healthy vegan cheese recipes are so amazing no one will ever realize they are dairy-free and oil-free! Click on each of the photos, recipe titles, or ‘Get the Recipe’ buttons to see full recipes with ingredients, measurements, instructions, and a print button.
Total TimeYield
Tips For Making This Recipe
- Soaking cashews or not. I have a Vitamix blender and so dont take the time to soak my cashews. That thing is powerful and everything that goes into it comes out creamy. However, if your blender isnt jet engine speed, soaking the cashews in warm water for at least 30-minutes will help this recipe come out more creamy.
- Potatoes to use. You really can use almost any variety of potato. I love to use russets, red potatoes, or even sweet potatoes. Just make sure they are cooked until soft.
- Save that broth. One of the steps of this recipe is to boil the potatoes, onions, and carrots on the stove. Remember to save some of that broth for adding to the blender.
- Tweaking to your taste preference. Most likely this cheese sauce will come out amazing as soon as you dip that spoon into the blender to give it a taste. However, if it needs a little tweaking, first try adding a little more salt or nutritional yeast, as those two ingredients can make a big difference, in my opinion.
*Original publish date February 02, 2015.
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Garlic Herb Vegan Cheese
This recipe is perfect for when youre feeling a little extra fancy! Done correctly, it creates a soft, creamy, firm but spreadable block of nutrient-dense, flavorful cheese. Cashews are the base and other ingredients include garlic, lemon, sea salt, and olive oil.
The final result is perfect for your cheese board and it spreads beautifully on crackers. It contains small amounts of potassium, fiber, calcium, iron, vitamin C, vitamin A, and even protein. It wont deliver your entire daily intake of anything, but it contributes without also posing health risks and operating under questionable ethics, which is more than dairy cheese can say!
These recipes are just the start theres a whole world of vegan cheese out there for you to discover if youre willing to put in the extra time and effort for homemade.
Best Vegan Cheese Recipes
Plant-based & naturally fermented
A creamy, sharp and strong cheese made from cashews!
It tastes just like a real camembert!
Smoky, buttery and full of complex flavors.
Tangy and packed with probiotics!
It’s stinky, super creamy, and completely vegan!
Vegan camembert coated with black ash and agedfor 2 weeks!
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Amazing Vegan Cheese Recipes
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.
Everything just tastes better with cheese, and thats why these healthy Vegan Cheese Recipes are so amazing no one will ever realize they are dairy-free and oil-free!
When I first switched over to a healthy plant-based lifestyle years ago, one thing that I really missed was CHEESE. Cheese for pizza, tacos, baked potatoes, lasagna, and so much more.
Though there are a few packaged vegan kinds of cheese available, all of them are loaded with artery-clogging saturated fat, and that is something my family tries to avoid.
Thats why over the years, I have come up with these 8 healthy vegan cheese recipes for Cheddar No-Cheese Sauce, Tofu Ricotta, Cashew Mozzarella, Sweet Potato Cheese Sauce, and Nacho Cheese Sauce. Believe me, youre going to LOVE them! Theres even a Sliceable Cheese version.
Cultured Cashew & Sunflower Seed Cheese By Seitan Beats Your Meat
One of the popular fermentation starters not mentioned above is rejuvelac a fermented drink made from sprouted grains, that you can buy or make at home . Its the secret ingredient that will transform blended nuts and seeds into a thick, spreadable, and tangy cheese thats perfect for impressing vegan cheese skeptics. Use it as a delicious cream cheese-type spread or even a dip!
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Spicy Vegan Cheese Sauce
Source: Spicy Vegan Cheese Sauce
How can we use thee? Let us count the ways. Kibby Millers Spicy Vegan Cheese Sauce is perfect over veggies, as a dip, mixed with pasta, on nachos, on kale chips, in wraps and on sandwiches. In fact, we cant think of a place it wouldnt be delicious. The possibilities are endless.
Important Ingredients In Vegan Cheese
Likely most of these will be familiar to you and readily available at your local grocery or natural foods store.
Plant-based milk: For the recipes here, most unsweetened, unflavored plant-based milks such as almond milk and coconut milk will work.
Nutritional yeast: This flaky, shelf-stable yellow powder isn’t live yeast, but deactivated yeast used as a flavor booster and nutritional supplement . Adding it to recipes is a shortcut to an umami cheesy flavor. Nooch is great, but its possible to overdo it, especially in vegan cheeses mimicking milder dairy cheese, like ricotta. Eventually, youll learn the right level for you.
Nuts: Soaked and pureed nuts lend a creaminess to vegan cheese. Cashews are a go-to, but you can also use blanched almonds, pine nuts, and Brazil nuts.
Tapioca starch: This fine white starch lends that elusive melty quality to vegan cheeses. Dont substitute cornstarch or arrowroot they dont have the same properties. Look for tapioca flour among specialty flours or shelved in the gluten-free section at the grocery store.
Refined coconut oil: Because its solid at room temperature, refined coconut oil is a useful ingredient when you need to add fat and richness to vegan cheeses you want to be sliceable. Dont use unrefined coconut oil, which tastes too much of coconut very out of place in cheese.
Spices: Dairy cheese does not typically have mustard, garlic, or onion powder but a little bit in a batch of vegan cheese adds a depth of flavor.
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