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.