How To Make PIPEABLE Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting (Finally!)
You’ll only need 3 ingredients for the most perfect vegan cream cheese frosting that’s not runny and actually holds! Perfect for cakes, cupcakes, and more!
Vegan cream cheese frosting is the way to elevate a cake or cupcake recipe from good to amazing. It’s what makes a red velvet cake a red velvet cake (or red velvet cupcakes too!), and a carrot cake a carrot cake!
Though I love my vegan vanilla buttercream and vegan chocolate frosting, this vegan cream cheese frosting is just incredible.
It’s actually the base for my vegan peanut butter frosting and vegan strawberry frosting as well!
This cream cheese frosting honestly goes on just about any cake, cupcake, cookie, or even brownie recipe (my vegan chocolate peppermint brownies with vegan white chocolate cream cheese frosting is *on another level*).
I also have a ton of recipes in my vegan cookbook you can use it with too!
However, if you’ve ever tried vegan cream cheese frosting before (or even traditional cream cheese frosting), then you know the struggle- cream cheese frosting can be downright finicky. It’s at times not as stable as traditional buttercream, which makes it harder to stack cakes or frost cupcakes.
You’ll no longer have that problem with this recipe 😉
Why this vegan cream cheese frosting recipe works:
- Perfect consistency for stacking cakes: This dairy free cream cheese frosting is the perfect for cake recipes- don’t worry, it’s not runny at all!
- Silky smooth and lush: This frosting is spreadable, spoonable, and creamy!
- Deliciously tangy: This frosting is not too sweet (just what we want), but also not like eating a block of cream cheese from the container. It’s perfectly tangy without using any lemon juice, and I’m going to give you my favorite vegan cream cheese recommendations down below to help!
- Easy to make: Because we’ve simplified this cream cheese frosting recipe, it’s really simple and easy to make. Actually, just as seamless as making any other frosting!
- Versatile for any recipe! Like I mentioned before, you can really use this cream cheese frosting on just about anything. Vegan cakes, cookies, brownies, cheesecakes, or even eating it by the spoonful (you know we all do it!)!
Ingredients for the most perfect dairy free cream cheese frosting:
- Vegan cream cheese: The main ingredient! I recommend using my homemade 3-ingredient vegan cream cheese. It’s INCREDIBLE, and so easy to make. Store bought, I like Tofutti vegan cream cheese or Kite Hill vegan cream cheese. Both of these cream cheeses are perfectly thick and “sturdy,” which makes them great for a frosting. Miyoko’s cream cheese is also good, but at times, I notice it can split. You cannot reverse split frosting, which is super frustrating, so that’s why I look for other cream cheeses!
- Vegan butter: I recommend using Miyoko’s vegan butter, salted, but if you use unsalted, add in a pinch of sea salt for flavor. Earth Balance is also a good option for nut-free, but please only use the earth balance buttery sticks and not the tub. Stick away from vegan margarine and coconut oil- these both won’t really work here!
- Powdered sugar: I recommend using a powdered sugar like Florida Crystals- they’re certified organic and certified vegan, which is hard to come by. Make sure to sift the powdered sugar before adding it into the frosting. This will help prevent you from over whipping the frosting because you won’t be trying to get out the clumps of powdered sugar!
- Vanilla extract: This is optional, but a delicious flavor additive!
A note about cream cheese: Like with traditional cream cheese frosting, with vegan cream cheese frosting, you really want to make sure you’re not using a spreadable cream cheese. The firmer the cream cheese, the less likely your dairy-free cream cheese frosting will be runny!
A note about vegan butter: Make sure that you’re using room temperature vegan butter as well! This does not mean melted butter. Allow the butter to come to room temperature for about an hour or two.
How to make thick and spreadable vegan cream cheese frosting:
The full recipe is found down below in the recipe card! However, we’re going to go over the basics here.
If you’ve made frosting before, then you’re in luck- and if you haven’t, don’t worry! It’s still super easy.
I personally recommend a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, but I’ve also made this frosting with a large bowl and a hand mixer. Both work! Just make sure that your bowl is cool before beginning, like when making vegan whipped cream. I recommend placing it into the fridge or freezer for a few minutes.
You’ll start by creaming together the vegan cream cheese and vegan butter. Remember, the butter is at room temperature, while the cream cheese is still cool.
Then add in the powdered sugar, and mix just until smooth!
The number one tip for preventing your layer cake from slipping with vegan cream cheese frosting:
That is, aside from making sure that your cakes are ABSOLUTELY cool and that there’s no warmth whatsoever in them!
Don’t add any dairy-free milk to help incorporate the powdered sugar! Unlike our other dairy free vegan frosting recipes, we’re skipping the dairy free milk all together here.
This is because adding any more liquid to this mixture, and you’ll definitely have runny frosting. Skip the dairy free milk, and allow the powdered sugar to incorporate into the frosting naturally.
Final tips for preventing runny cream cheese frosting:
- Make sure to use a cold stand mixer bowl or cold large mixing bowl!
- Keep the cream cheese cold- you really don’t need room temperature for the vegan cream cheese! Just the butter.
- Sift the powdered sugar
- If you’re really struggling with the thickness: Add just 1 to 2 tablespoons of cornstarch! Start with 1, and then seen how it improves.
Can this vegan frosting recipe be piped?
As I mentioned earlier, not only is this dairy free cream cheese frosting perfect for cakes, but it’s even better on cupcakes (because of course, you’re getting way more frosting!). However, cream cheese frosting can be tricky to pipe.
This is because our hands are warm, and as we’re holding the piping bag, we’re heating the frosting, which makes it melty.
This vegan cream cheese frosting can absolutely be piped onto cupcakes, but you’ll need to make sure you’re holding the piping bag correctly! Use any piping tip that you’d like, and grab a piping bag. Fill it about 1/2 way up then twist the top. Now, hold the piping bag from the twisted portion, and apply pressure there to squeeze out the frosting.
This will ensure that your hands are barely touching the bag with the frosting in it!
Want a fun twist?
Swap out the homemade cream cheese for this vegan mascarpone instead!
What recipes to pair this cream cheese frosting with:
Vegan Red Velvet Cake (or vegan red velvet cupcakes!)
Amazingly Moist Vegan Pumpkin Cupcakes (and vegan pumpkin cake and pumpkin roll cake!)
Easy Vegan Carrot Cake (or carrot cake bars!)
Vegan Cinnamon Rolls (or try it on these gluten free vegan cinnamon rolls too!)
I cannot wait to hear what you think of this frosting! It’s quite popular across all of my vegan dessert recipes on the blog, so enjoy 🙂 If you make it, I’d absolutely love to see it on Instagram or Pinterest! Be sure to also leave a review down below so that other readers know how it went!
Happy frosting making!
Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!
If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!
PrintHow To Make PIPEABLE Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting (Finally!)
- Prep Time: 5
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 16 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: No Bake
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
You’ll only need 3 ingredients for the most perfect vegan cream cheese frosting that’s not runny and actually holds! Perfect for cakes, cupcakes, and more!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (8 ounces) vegan cream cheese, cold
- 1 cup (226 g) vegan butter, room temperature
- 4 cups (540 g) powdered sugar, sifted
- Optional: 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Chill the bowl for 5 minutes in the fridge or freezer before beginning. Make sure all ingredients are prepped.
- Add vegan butter and vegan cream cheese to a large bowl of a stand mixer with whisk attachment, or a large bowl with a hand mixer. Cream together until combined.
- Then add in 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time, continuing the beat the mixture until it’s a thick frosting.
- Here, you can add in vanilla and continue to beat until desired texture.
- Frost your cake immediately, or pipe onto cupcakes!
Notes
See blog post for all tips and tricks!
this worked really well!! at first i was a little hesitant bc vegan butter is oftentimes so much softer than the normal one but the amount of powdered sugar really balanced it out
Oh I’m so happy to hear it! Curious what recipe did you use it for?! Thanks so much for the review! Enjoy 🙂
Just wondering how much frosting this recipe makes? I am making a 9inch, 3 layer cake and plan to pipe some flowers on top.
Hi Brittany! This recipe will make about 8 cups, enough to frost an 8″ three layer cake. for a 9″ three layer with flowers, depending on how many flowers you’re going to pipe (some people go all out!) I would maybe double the recipe. If it’s only a few flowers for a simple decoration, I think increasing the recipe to 1.5x will do it!
Does the cream cheese need to be room temperature too? Or only te butter?
It can be cold or room temperature, but I find the texture is better cold!
Hey! Can’t wait to try this. Can you say what brand of vegan butter and vegan cream cheese you like to use? Thank you!
Hi Shar! Absolutely! I like to use Miyoko’s for the vegan butter and Tofutti for the vegan cream cheese- though soon I’ll be posting my homemade quick and easy vegan cream cheese that’s suitable for frostings as well!
I used Violife vegan cream cheese and Miyokos cultured butter (my absolute FAVORITE vegan butter!) and DID not add any vegan milk, but I needed a TON of corn starch to get it to thicken enough to frost a cake. It’s not a bad thing, just an FYI. It is a DELICIOUS dairy-free cream cheese frosting! Thank you for the recipe!
Cornstarch doesn’t have special thickening properties until it’s been heated. Next time you might be better off just adding more powdered sugar as too much dry cornstarch may affect the flavor.
How long will this keep in the fridge? I wanted to get jump start for Easter.
You can keep this in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week! 🙂
I want to make the cake a day ahead of time. Can I keep the frosted cake in a glass dome cake saver on the counter top over night? Or will the frosting melt?
I would recommend keeping the cake in the fridge overnight if it’s entirely frosted! Then before serving, remove the cake from the fridge about 20 minutes beforehand 🙂
This icing paired with your carrot cake went down as a HUGE hit for my non-vegan crowd!! I used Violife cream cheese and Miyoko’s butter and it held together the two-layer cake beautifully. It was easy to make and a hit so will be using this recipe from now on. Thank you!!!!
Ok seriously, this is THE best frosting! I used Tofutti cream cheese and Earth Balance butter and it was freaking amazing. My son requested a lemon blueberry cake for his birthday so I added some lemon zest to the frosting and it turned out super delicious. This will be my go-to recipe from now on. Thank you thank you!
This is so awesome!!! So glad you all loved it 🙂 Thanks so much for coming back to review!!
Hi! I made this and it tastes wonderful! I used violife cream cheese and earth balance butter sticks! It came together very easily! i was wondering if you have tested if it freezes well? Thank you!
So happy to hear it!! Thanks for the review 🙂 And yes it freezes wonderfully! It will last for about 3 months in the freezer. When you want to use it again, I transfer it to the fridge overnight, then let it come to room temperature on the counter!
Really easy and delicious too. I didn’t use the full amount of butter and it still worked out.
So happy to hear it 🙂 Thanks for the review!!
Is it possible to use a substitute for the vegan butter such as coconut oil? A lot of vegan butters have cashews which we can’t do. Thanks!
Hi Michelle! Yes, you can! Just make sure to really mix the coconut oil into the soy curds, as coconut oil is prone to separate on its own if not well mixed!
Made this recipe yest to use w/ the soft & chewy vegan sugar cookies! It’s sooooo good! I used Kroger Simple Truth Plant-Based Cream Cheese and Country Crock Plant Butter w/ Olive Oil and thought it worked really well!
AMAZING!! So happy to hear it, and thank you so much for including the brands you used, that’s SO helpful for other readers!! Enjoy, and thanks again 🙂
absolutely delicious!! Tastes better than dairy frosting! I made my own cashew cream cheese to make this frosting with and it turned out amazing!
This is delicious but this is the second time I am making it, however, I cannot get it to not split…! Not sure what I am doing wrong- I used Miyokos room temp butter and Violife cream cheese cold. At al loss. It still tastes great, though! Using it for the pumpkin roll today!
Thanks for the great recipes.
Wondering if you can frost the icing if I had more than I needed? Thank you and best frosting ever!!
Oh yes you can!! I freeze extras all the time 🙂 So happy you loved it!! Thanks so much for the review!
Every time I add icing sugar to vegan cream cheese it turns super runny. No amount of chilling helps. Why does this happen?
What’s the brand of vegan cream cheese you’re using?
Violife
Hmm sometimes Violife can be tricky, I’ve had a few others have issues with them. Are you able to try another brand, like Tofutti or Kite Hill?
Tofutti has a very different taste and not everyone in my family likes it. I don’t think we have Kite Hill here.
Hmm okay so for the violife, I would suggest definitely adding the cornstarch, because that will help it thicken!
Made this with peppermint extract for the Peppermint Meltaway cookies (also Banana Diaries) and it was so delicious! I used Violife butter and Philadelphia dairy-free original cream cheese.
AMAZING!! So happy to hear this, thank you so much for the review 🙂 Enjoy!
This recipe is amazing! Even though I made some mistakes I could still use it and it was delicious. However, Id like to ask a few questions to better understand what didn’t go perfect:
1. Is the powdered sugar texture supposed to be slightly noticeable? I wouldn’t think so, so I’m wondering if I under-mixed the frosting or how I could fix it?. It also was super super sweet, maybe a little bit too sweet (which doesn’t match the recipe description) that’s why I’m thinking I might have done sth wrong.
Thank you in advance!!
This recipe turned out perfectly! I used your recipe for vegan cream cheese, which I made the day before. I made that twice (tested it the first time). Shared some of that with a vegan friend (rave reviews!). I made 1 1/2 times the frosting recipe to ice a three layer 9″ vegan GF red velvet cake with leftover icing. It’s magnificent looking and tasty! Thank you
So happy to hear this, omgsh!! Enjoy 🙂 Thanks so much for the review!
OMG thank you SO much for this recipe it was so helpful! I was iffy at first bc I’ve made frosting before with both butter and cream cheese and it turned out really runny no matter what I did but glad I decided to give this one a try because it turned out perfect and held up extremely well! Best tips ever for using cold and not room temperature cream cheese and pre chilling the bowl ahead of time; I used this recipe to make a strawberry cake for my sister’s birthday and I’m super happy with how it turned out and I didn’t have to worry about runny frosting! : )
How long can it be at room temp before it starts melting? Was going to make this for class cupcakes but they will be sitting out for a few hours at the school…
So once the frosting has been made, the powdered sugar does help it set and stay a bit, but I would try to keep the cupcakes in the fridge until they’re ready to serve! At most, you can leave them out for 2 hours, ish, depending on how warm the room is (in Florida where I am, it is quite warm, so it might be even less haha!). I hope that helps!
Can you Color the frosting?
Absolutely! I would recommend chilling the frosting though afterwards if you’re using a liquid gel frosting- that helps it to set better!
This recipe looks wonderful!! Do you think I could make this frosting a day ahead and leave it in the fridge overnight? Would it still pipe well the next day?
Hi Ishika! You can keep this in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week and it will still pipe beautifully! 🙂
O.M.G this is so delicious. I was eating it out the bowl. Thank you for sharing your recipes.
This was good, I think I need to get the right vegan butter and vegan cream cheese or maybe mix it a little bit more, wasn’t as thick as I hoped but it was pipeable. Did it on some pumpkin muffins with vegan brown butter!
Oh these are adorable!! Which brands did you use? Also make sure you’re using truly room temperature butter (which is 65F NOT 72 or warmer), which will result in a thicker frosting 🙂 That can help!
Help! I used tofutti cream cheese and miyokos butter but it turned into an oily mess shortly after frosting the cake! What did I do wrong!?
Oh no!! Okay so I’m wondering, did you let your butter become too soft? Did you melt it by chance? Because tofutti should work with Miyoko’s, I use that combo often!
Can I use Powdered Monkfruit???
I have not tried any zero-calorie powdered sweeteners here so I can’t say!
This will be my new go-to for cream cheese frosting! I doubled the recipe as I’m making a layer cake and pumpkin cupcakes. I used Earth Balance sticks, one tub of Tofutti cream cheese (it’s not my favorite because it does have an odd taste) and one container of Violife SOUR CREAM which tastes like dairy cream cheese to me! It turned out great! Plan on decorating the cake and cupcakes tomorrow, so I’m hoping it pipes as wonderful as it tastes!
That is amazing!! So so happy to hear this!! Thank you so much for the review 🙂 Enjoy!
This was my 95th ish attempt at a STABLE vegan cream cheese frosting, and I have just a couple extra tips that make this recipe THE ONE! First, definitely put the mixer bowl in the freezer for 5-10 mins before starting. I used cold tofutti cream cheese and room temp earth balance sticks. I used the whisk attachement to combine, and it looked awful and curdled and A LOT of water/ moisture ended up separating out of the cheese/ butter combo! So I tossed out the water and continued on with the recipe and it came out PERFECT. Stable and pipeable.