Vegan Cheese (5-Min Nut-Free Recipe)

There are many types of plant-based cheese recipes out there, most of them are made with blended nuts. I love cheese made with nuts, however, it often doesn’t really recreate that melty, stringy, cheesy texture of regular dairy cheese.

Our dairy-free cheese does just that. Think of it as melted vegan mozzarella, or as vegan Italian stracchino or crescenza. You can use it in recipes where you expect to have melted cheese, like on pizza, in sandwiches, or on oven-baked veggies.

Its texture is creamy and stringy at the same time, and you can melt it in the oven, with the broiler on, and it’ll bubble and brown just like regular cheese.

I think that this is the fastest, easiest, best, and closest-to-the-real deal homemade vegan cheese recipe.

However, this vegan cheese recipe is not suitable as a dip. For that, check out our variation chapter below, where we show you how to make a quick vegan cheese dip.

If you are looking for other amazing cheese recipes check out our vegan ricotta cheese, also made without nuts, our vegan parmesan made with almonds, and our vegan white sauce, which is technically not a cheese, but it’s still crazy creamy.

Instructions

In a pot or in a saucepan off of the heat, add soy milk, tapioca starch (or potato starch + corn starch), olive oil, nutritional yeast, and salt. Stir with a whisk till there are no lumps.

On your stovetop, on medium heat, warm up the liquid, while stirring continuously with a whisk. Keep stirring until the liquid becomes very thick and gluey.

Turn the heat off and keep stirring vigorously for another minute to cool it down slightly.

Now add the soy yogurt and the lemon juice and stir with the whisk. Stir gently at first, to incorporate the yogurt with the other ingredients. Once incorporated stir fast and vigorously for a minute or so, until the cheese becomes smooth, creamy, and stringy.

Your vegan cheese is ready and you can use it straight away, put it in a cheese mold to give it more of a cheese shape, or just store it in a bowl in the fridge, with a lid on.

The cheese will thicken in the fridge, that’s normal. It will melt again when you heat it up.

Serving Suggestions

You can use this plant-based cheese like regular cheese that you would usually melt, like mozzarella or other melty cheese.

Melt it on bread
That’s awesome for a quick starter, or even as an easy dinner. Spread the cheese on a slice of bread, then put it in the oven with the broiler on and wait a couple of minutes until it gets all melty and slightly charred. Serve with a pinch of salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

On pizza or flatbread
Did you see our flatbread pizza with this vegan melted cheese and tomatoes on top? It’s one of the best vegan recipes we’ve ever made. It’s so tasty and delicious. It melts perfectly and paired with tomatoes, basil, oregano, and olive oil is just delicious.

In an Italian Piadina
Piadina is an Italian flatbread similar to Mexican tortillas. It’s one of the most popular street foods in Italy, especially during spring and summer, and it’s usually filled with stracchino cheese and arugula. Our vegan cheese recipe is perfect for piadina with arugula. It’s definitely one of our favorite quick lunches.

• With thin Italian focaccia
  A delicacy from northern Italy in the region of Liguria, and the town of Recco. This is thin focaccia filled with stracchino, an Italian soft cheese. We made a vegan version of focaccia di Recco using our melted vegan cheese and it turned out absolutely incredible.

• In pasta bakes
  Want a cheesy yet dairy-free pasta bake? Combine this recipe with our vegan ricotta cheese and with our vegan parmesan cheese for max flavor, perfect texture, and a pasta bake that even the most committed cheese eaters will absolutely love.

• With oven-baked veggies
  Chopped and roasted cauliflower, oven-baked broccoli, oven-baked carrots, Brussels sprouts, and mixed veggies. You can add this cheese on top 5 minutes before they are done baking. It’ll melt and char slightly on top.

Vegan Cheese Dip (Vegan Queso)

As I mentioned before our vegan cheese recipe is not suitable for dipping. If you want a vegan cheese dip more similar to a vegan queso that you can use with nachos and tortilla chips, then you’ve got to use other ingredients as follows.

To make vegan queso that you can dip, boil 1 cup of raw cashews or raw, peeled almonds and 1 chopped carrot in water for 10 minutes. Drain them and add them to a high-speed blender. Don’t worry, you won’t taste the carrot. It’s just for color and texture.

Now add 1 cup of water, 1 clove of garlic cut in half lengthwise and without its core (garlic powder works too), 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice (or 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar), 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Optionally, to make your vegan queso dip more interesting, you can add 1 teaspoon of chili powder or black pepper, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika, and/or 1 teaspoon of hot sauce. Adjust the quantities of these ingredients based on your taste.

Blend at high speed until you get a smooth, silky, and creamy vegan cheese sauce. You might have to adjust the thickness by adding more liquid.

Taste, adjust for salt, lemon, and spices, and you are done. This way you’ll get a vegan cheese sauce that you can use not only with Mexican food but also with pasta and fries.