What are the best dairy free cheese alternatives? This is a question many people have and this was something I was wondering about when I first went dairy free (mostly I still eat butter) back in 2013. I love cheese and if I’m being honest, I will occasionally cheat but cheese doesn’t love me back so I’ve had to find dairy free cheese alternatives that still actually taste like cheese.
Fortunately more cheese alternatives have become available in the time since I first gave up cheese. When I first started you basically had only 1-2 choices. Now, there are a lot more options.
When deciding which dairy free cheese to use, there are a couple of things to think about. First, how are you using the cheese? For example, using cheese with eggs or with eggs and vegetables is different from putting it in soup, or making a sandwich or using it with refried beans and rice. Second, what flavor are you looking for? Third, do you care about the other ingredients? Most dairy free cheeses have nuts of some kinds and if you can’t have nuts or don’t want to eat too many nuts then you will need to choose a different cheese alternative.
When I first went dairy free I tried the Daiya brand and at the time it was the only kind I could find that was in a package and looked like cheese with dairy. Personally I’m not a big fan. Then I tried just using nutritional yeast instead of cheese. Believe it or not it actually tastes more like cheese than you would think. It works best in things like eggs or soup. It is also quite a bit cheaper than buying an actual dairy free cheese alternative.
You also can get dairy free parmesan both in a powdered form and a shredded cheese form from Trader Joe’s and Thrive Market. There may be others but those are the only two I am familiar with. They taste really good and are more like cheese than you would think.
Trader Joe’s also has an orange cashew based cheese that tastes a lot like cheddar. Then there is the Follow My Heart vegan cheese that comes in shreds, and slices and in a cheddar like version and a mozzarella and a smoked gouda version. Overall this is my favorite brand. I usually buy both the follow my heart and the Trader Joe’s brands every month. Trader Joe’s also sells a dairy free cream cheese that is pretty good and Kite Hill has one that is made primarily from almonds. I’ve also seen and tried a few times a cashew based one with some spices in it from Target.
In short, if you are needing to give up dairy based cheese, there are quite a few options out there. I recommend trying a few to see what you prefer.
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