3-Ingredient Vegan Cream Cheese – For baking and cooking!
Make your own vegan cream cheese using just 3 ingredients, and NO cashews NOR soy milk. It’s delicious, easy, and perfect for savory recipes, frostings, cheesecakes, and more!
Table of contents
- The perfect vegan cream cheese for both sweet and savory recipes- FINALLY!
- Ingredients Overview + Substitutions:
- Step by Step How To Make Vegan Cream Cheese:
- Ways to Use this Vegan Cream Cheese:
- Can I use this vegan cream cheese for cheesecakes?
- Can I use this vegan cream cheese in frosting?
- Flavor variations for savory vegan cream cheese:
- How to store homemade vegan cream cheese:
The perfect vegan cream cheese for both sweet and savory recipes- FINALLY!
The wait is finally over. If you’ve been looking for a HOMEMADE vegan cream cheese recipe that’s not only perfect for spreading, but also for cooking and baking, then you’re in the right place.
Introducing, the ultimate 3-ingredient non-dairy cream cheese- that’s made WITHOUT cashews without tofu (and no soy!!), and even without coconut cream, nutritional yeast, xanthan gum, and the like!
What we have is just an ultra creamy, smooth, perfectly tangy and spreadable vegan cream cheese that thickens and adds flavor to savory dishes while also being perfect for sweet bakes, like vegan cream cheese frosting and even vegan cheesecake! And any recipe in my cookbook that calls for cream cheese 🙂
And the absolute best part? Like my vegan mascarpone and vegan ricotta, this vegan cream cheese is just so easy and fool proof, and the texture is unbelievably creamy and spreadable.
We’re using the traditional method of making cream cheese, but swapping in our non-dairy and plant-based subs.
So you can forget your store bought vegan cream cheese brands, like Tofutti, Kite Hill, and the like. Just use this recipe instead!! It’s the absolute best vegan cream cheese around- and you’re about to see why!
Ingredients Overview + Substitutions:
Like I mentioned above, you only need 3 simple ingredients to make this homemade vegan cream cheese. None of which require any cashews nor tofu!
- Pea milk: I recommend using unsweetened pea milk. You can swap in soy milk or almond milk here. I’ve tried this recipe personally with the store bought almond milk and homemade almond milk, and could not get it to curdle like the soy milk, but others have said it works. Please just stick to pea milk here if you can. It’s really lovely!
- Lemon juice: You can use white vinegar or apple cider vinegar instead of lemon juice if preferred!
- Vegan butter or Avocado oil shortening: Not just avocado oil, but avocado oil shortening. I use Chosen Foods, and it is INCREDIBLE. So simple, and really helps the cream cheese taste like cream cheese. If you’re using vegan butter, I recommend using either Miyoko’s or Om Sweet Dairy Free vegan butter here. I prefer to use salted vegan butter, so with the Om Sweet Dairy free, you’ll need to add in salt. Other options include using coconut oil, Plant Crock, or Miyoko’s oat butter. See the recipe card down below where I go over more tips!
Step by Step How To Make Vegan Cream Cheese:
The below steps are an overview with photos for how to make this lovely and creamy dairy-free cream cheese! Please note that all measurements are listed in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Ways to Use this Vegan Cream Cheese:
The best part about this vegan cream cheese is that you can use it for any application that you would use normal cream cheese- that’s right, there are no restrictions when it comes to this homemade vegan cream cheese recipe.
- Spread on bagels: especially if they’re homemade, like these bagels! Or make the cinnamon sugar cream cheese variation below and spread it on my cinnamon raisin bagels 🙂
- As a dip for fruit and crackers: I love this with crackers and using the chive or garlic and herb cream cheese variation.
- In pasta sauces: Like my vegan creamy pumpkin pasta! Or any savory dish that would call for cream cheese 🙂
- Stirred into soups: I loveeee a few tablespoons in my vegan white bean soup!
- In baking: Use this in any of my frosting recipes for a portion of the vegan butter, or in cheesecakes!
Can I use this vegan cream cheese for cheesecakes?
Absolutely!! This unbelievably creamy vegan cream cheese is perfect for homemade vegan cheesecakes. You might consider adding in an extra tablespoon of vinegar for a super tangy cheesecake, but this cream cheese will set beautifully in your homemade cheesecake.
Try using it in this classic vegan cheesecake, vegan cannoli cheesecake, and vegan blueberry Basque cheesecake!
Can I use this vegan cream cheese in frosting?
Short answer: YES, YES, a million times YES! I just recently used it in my vegan cream cheese frosting for my vegan funfetti cupcakes, and oh my goodness. I was shocked. My vegan cream cheese frosting has never tasted so good before (and I thought it was really delicious before!).
Use this homemade vegan cream cheese freely in your favorite vegan frosting recipes! It’s really lovely in my vegan blueberry frosting as well, and for vegan cream cheese frosted cinnamon rolls!
Flavor variations for savory vegan cream cheese:
For these flavor variations, simply add them in along with the vegan butter in the food processing step of the recipe.
- Garlic & Herb: 1 tsp garlic powder + 1/2 tsp each of freshly chopped or dried parsley, basil, rosemary, thyme + sea salt and pepper to taste
- Cinnamon Sugar: 1 tbsp granulated sugar + 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- Pumpkin Spice: 2 tsp pumpkin spice + 1 tbsp pumpkin puree + 1 tbsp granulated sugar, brown sugar, or coconut sugar
- Lemon & Dill: 1 tbsp lemon juice (in addition to the recipe) + 1/2 tsp dried lemon peel + 1 tbsp freshly chopped dill + sea salt and pepper to taste
- Chive: 1/2 tsp onion powder + 1 tbsp chopped chives + 1 tbsp olive oil + sea salt and pepper to taste
- Sun dried tomato: 2 tbsp chopped and drained sun-dried tomatoes + 1/2 tsp garlic powder + 1 tbsp freshly chopped basil + sea salt and pepper to taste
- Roasted red pepper: 1/4 cup chopped roasted red peppers + 1 tsp dried Italian seasoning + 1/2 tsp garlic powder + sea salt and pepper to taste
- Strawberry: 1 cup dried strawberries (blended into a powder) + 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
How to store homemade vegan cream cheese:
After you make your vegan cream cheese, I recommend storing in a glass container with a sealable lid. Then keep the cream cheese in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Alternatively, you can freeze this cream cheese for up to 1 month in the freezer.
I cannot wait for you to try this vegan cream cheese!! It’s truly life changing. Finally, a cream cheese we bakers can use in all of our recipes and enjoy simply spread on a bagel!
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!
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3-Ingredient Vegan Cream Cheese – For baking and cooking!
- Prep Time: 2
- Chilling Time: 180
- Cook Time: 7
- Total Time: 3 hours 9 minutes
- Yield: 1 1/2 cups (360 g) 1x
- Category: Spreads
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Make your own vegan cream cheese using just 3 ingredients, and NO cashews nor soy milk. It’s delicious, easy, and perfect for savory recipes, frostings, cheesecakes, and more!
Ingredients
- 4 cups (920 mL) unsweetened pea milk*
- 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp (75 mL) lemon juice*, divided
- 1/3 cup (76 g) avocado oil shortening or salted vegan butter*, melted and cooled
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
Instructions
- Heat: In a large saucepan, add in the pea milk and 1/3 cup (67 g) of the lemon juice. Stir to combine. Then place the saucepan on medium high heat, and let the pea milk mixture heat and boil until the curdles have bubbled to the top and puffed up (see photos). This will take about 5-7 minutes.
- While the pea milk is heating: Grab a large bowl and place a sieve over the top of it. Place your cheesecloth in the sieve (see blog post photos). Make sure you have enough cheesecloth to twist the ends together and squeeze the cream cheese mixture liquid out.
- Strain: Once the pea milk mixture has boiled, remove the saucepan from heat, and pour the mixture into your cheesecloth lined sieve over the bowl. Allow the liquid to drain from the clumps of pea milk, and let the mixture cool off for 10 minutes before squeezing out more liquid. The pea milk curds will be really hot, so allow it to cool first for 10 minutes before straining anymore.
- Squeeze the remaining liquid from the cheese curds: Once the mixture is cool enough to handle, clump the top of the cheesecloth together with the curds inside and gently squeeze any remaining liquid from the curds into the bowl. Remove the cheesecloth from the bowl. You’ll see that the curds inside should almost resemble a cottage cheese appearance, but a little drier.
- Blend: Add the pea milk curds to a food processor or high speed blender, along with the avocado oil shortening or melted vegan butter and remaining 1 tbsp of lemon juice and sea salt. Blend until creamy, about 1-2 minutes, scraping down the sides as needed. It should be super silky smooth. Taste the mixture to see if you need a touch more lemon juice or if it’s just right for your taste preference. See blog post for flavor variations!
- Chill: Scrape the mixture into a glass storage container and seal with the lid. Place the vegan cream cheese into the fridge to chill for at least 3 hours, but preferably overnight.
- Spread, blend, bake, and enjoy! When ready, your vegan cream cheese will be perfectly spreadable for bagels, toast, or to use in both sweet and savory recipes!
Notes
Flavor variations: See blog post for measurements on flavor variations!
Pea milk: I use Ripple unsweetened pea milk. This recipe will NOT work shelf stable soy milk nor almond milk. Others have tested this with almond milk, and it works, however, I have not had that result. Unlike vegan buttermilk, which works with almond milk, almond milk curdles, I’ve found, are too soft here. However, this will also work with soy milk. But for nut free and soy free, use pea milk.
Lemon juice: You can also swap in apple cider vinegar or white vinegar.
Avocado oil shortening: This is not just avocado oil that’s liquid, but avocado oil shortening– it’s still 100% avocado oil, but it’s thicker, like coconut oil and has a neutral flavor. I use Chosen Foods.
Vegan butter: I used salted vegan butter here- Miyoko’s specifically. Om Sweet Dairy free is another favorite vegan butter, but you’ll need to add a touch of salt to it, as it’s unsalted. For other vegan butter brands, you can use Plant Crock or Miyoko’s oat milk butter. I would not recommend using Violife or Earth Balance here, as your vegan cream cheese will taste too processed. You can use coconut oil, but keep in mind that you’ll really need to blend it with the pea milk curds in order for the coconut oil to integrate properly. For less of a coconut flavor, use triple refined. Another option is adding in vegan heavy cream or vegan coconut cream instead.
hi!!!.. 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞You think this would work with Sunflower Seed Milk?
I’m afraid it won’t work, as there isn’t enough protein! It needs to have at least 6 g of protein per 8 ounce serving.
Hi thanks for the recipe, this has unfortunately not worked for me, the curdles were tiny and soft and went through the cheesecloth with the water. I used a brand called mighty pea milk from the UK and used a medium/high heat for 7m on a gas hob, any advice? Many thanks
Hmm that’s so interesting, I’m so sorry this has happened! I’ve never had an issue with pea milk, but I do know that for some reason, shelf stable dairy free milk (either soy, almond, or pea) will NOT work here- do you know if it’s shelf stable/not kept in the refrigerated section?That might have been the issue!
No worries! You know what, it was in the refrigerated section but I just checked the carton and it actually is shelf stable or UHT as we call it in the UK. Thanks for your help 🙂
I used pea milk as suggested – flavor- and consistencywise, it turned out great! Strangely though, I only ended up with about 240g cream cheese, so I had to repeat the recipe to make enough for your pistachio cheesecake.
Hi!
Love your recipes
Will this work with Homemade Hemp Milk?
Thank you 🙂
Aw thank you!! I actually havent tested this with hemp milk, so I’m not sure it would work- I’m so sorry!
If I would not mind buying non dairy butter, I would also not mind buying non dairy cream cheese.
I think a proper recipe shouldn’t require you to buy some fancy butter. sorry.
I totally understand your perspective! I think we’ve come a long way with vegan butter, but vegan cream cheese still leaves much to be desired (also there aren’t as many great options for vegan cream cheese as there are for vegan butter). That’s why I recommend using vegan butter in here. But avocado oil shortening or coconut oil will also work here!
Where I’m from pea milk is not easy to get, so I did it with soy milk instead, and it curdled but not much, so the rest of the recipe was a disaster. Should I wait til de curdles are super big to get it off the stove? I don’t know if maybe I should have not followed the “when the curdles start to come up”… Can someone help?
Were you using shelf-stable soy milk or refrigerated? This recipe will not work with shelf stable- whatever they put into the soy milk to make it shelf stable seems to inhibit the milk’s ability to curdle.
It did work!where I live there’s no refrigerated plantbased milk but the shelf one has only soy, water and salt. It seemed a fail because before putting it in the fridge to cool down, the texture was not looking creamy but then it cooled down for a night and then it was quite good. 🎂🎂👯
Thank you!
the next step would be your cannoli cheesecake.
hi! Is there a way to make this without oil?
Hi there! Unfortunately not :/ you need oil here for a firmer cream cheese.
So it’s going to work with soy milk or not? I’m a little confused with the information about that at the end…
It will work with soy milk, but not shelf-stable soy milk. I use pea milk to keep it soy free for those with allergies.
Life 👏🏼 changing 👏🏼 recipe 👏🏼 took me a couple tries, because the first time silly old me thought I should be whisking the mixture on the stove, which seems quite ridiculous in retrospect. But I found chilled soy works wonderfully, and I found using salted butter and only a tsp of lemon juice was just right for me. But it is so ridiculously easy to make, just mix and leave it on the stove to curdle, strain and blend! Vegan cream cheese is so expensive and this is so much tastier, creamier, and contains a lotess funny stuff in it! Made the most delicious cream cheese frosting, and it’s become my new favourite breakfast on freshly baked bread with a drizzle of maple! Works out so much cheaper, and makes baking cheesecakes and cream cheese frosting much more feasible! It’s wonderful to have delicious cream cheese become a house staple without breaking the bank, don’t think I could ever go back to store bought- it doesn’t nearly compare in flavour, every bake I use it in is soooo much nicer. Thank you so much britt!!
Thank for sharing your experience, I only use organic shelf stable soy milk and the ingredients are soy and water. I make my own yogurt on a weekly basis using this soy milk and the yogurt is great, I sometimes drain it to make Greek style yogurt. I was skeptical about using it for this recipe but thanks to you I’m going to try it.
Absolutely divine. I will never buy a tub if vegan cream cheese again… you are a wizard
This just made my day 🙂 THANK YOU!! Oh SO happy to hear it! Now wait until you try it in a cheesecake recipe!! It’s MAGIC!
Hello, this is just something I’m curious about, why wouldn’t shelf stable soy milk work in this recipe? Where I live, it’s little easier to come by than fresh soy milk
There’s something they include in the shelf stable variety that prevents the milk from curdling, so you can’t make the cream cheese from it!
How much cream cheese this recipe will yield?
Can you just use tofu for the recipe? How much?
So this recipe is definitely different in flavor and texture than just using tofu! Tofu is processed a bit more after this step to form it into tofu, so the results are much different. I’m stopping it at simply the boiling step so that we can transform it into true tofu. The recipe yields about 12 ounces of cream cheese!
what do you use the leftover milk?
I save it for smoothies or soups- it’s a pretty neutral flavor so it’s totally fine to add into either! For smoothies, obviously best once cold and for soups it can go in right after the process 🙂
I just found your channel on YouTube. I am so excited to cook with your recipes.
Can I use homemade pea milk
Hi Zaid!! Oh I can’t wait to hear what you make next!! And so this has been hit or miss- I think it depends on the method for making the pea milk, because there are a few different processes. If your pea milk can curdle with acid, then it definitely will work, but if it does more soft curdles, it probably won’t!
This is honestly genius, Britt. I tried it with Ripple and it was absolute perfection. I made the most exquisite Cheesecake and I honestly would have never guessed it’s not cheese if I had not baked it myself. However, I hate the ingredients in Ripple… I wonder if there’s a way we can make it work without having to buy that awful milk. Do you have any suggestions?
Hi – I’m excited to try this. Will it work with vegetable shortening (palm oil)?
thanks!
Yes it will! It won’t have as robust a flavor, but it will still work well 🙂
This is amazing!! It actually smells just like cream cheese once I turned on the food processor. Best vegan recipe I have ever found!
Made this with soya milk, as I haven’t been able to find pea milk. Mine turned out delicious, although too salty. But that is easily remedied! I then used the leftover whey and made ricotta. Thanks for saving us from terrible store bought vegan “cream cheese.”