How to choose a vegan cheese
The base ingredient tells you most of what you need to know. Coconut oil and starch cheeses melt but taste mild. Cashew and almond cheeses taste great but melt into a sauce. Tofu based slices sit in between. Decide what the cheese needs to do, then pick the base that does it.
For melting: coconut oil shreds and slices
Daiya, Violife, So Delicious and Follow Your Heart build their shreds and slices on coconut oil and tapioca or potato starch. They go glossy and soft in the oven and give a modest stretch, which is what you want on pizza, in quesadillas and on burgers. They brown less than dairy, so finish under the broiler. Chao Creamery's tofu based slices are the best melters for grilled cheese. We ranked them all in our vegan cheese melt test.
For flavor: cultured nut cheeses
Miyoko's, Kite Hill and Treeline culture cashew or almond milk with live cultures and, for some products, age it. The result has the tang and depth of dairy cheese. Use them for cheese boards, cream cheese, ricotta in lasagna and anywhere the cheese is eaten cold or stirred into a sauce. They cost more and most contain tree nuts.
For grating: hard parmesan styles
Violife Just Like Parmesan Wedge grates finely and holds up on hot pasta. Follow Your Heart's Parmesan Shreds are the shortcut. For a pantry version, blitz cashews, nutritional yeast and salt in a food processor.
Nut-free and allergy friendly options
Violife, Daiya, Follow Your Heart, Chao, So Delicious, Good Planet and Babybel Plant-Based are all free from tree nuts, and most are also soy-free and gluten-free. Kite Hill (almond) and Miyoko's and Treeline (cashew) are not. Daiya's cream cheese is the safe pick for nut allergies; see our vegan cream cheese test for how it compares with the cultured brands.
Our quick picks
- Best for pizza: Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds, the most reliable melt in the supermarket.
- Best for grilled cheese: Chao Creamery Creamy Original Slices, real stretch and a mild tofu tang.
- Best cheddar block: Violife Epic Mature Cheddar, sharp enough to slice for sandwiches. Read our full Violife review.
- Best cream cheese: Kite Hill Cream Cheese Style Spread, cultured and tangy on a bagel.
- Best for a cheese board: Treeline Classic French-Style Soft Cheese and Miyoko's cultured wheels.
Not sure which style replaces the cheese in your recipe? Our vegan cheese substitute guide maps every common dairy cheese to its best plant-based swap.
