Recently I have ventured into the fine art of non-dairy(vegan) cheese making. I was motivated by the high cost of vegan cream cheese... $6 for a small container. .this is more than 3 times the price of diary cream cheese. In my house it gets eaten so quickly that buying it at that price is not affordable.
Soy Vegan Cream Cheese
The first cream cheese recipe I tried is one that uses soy milk as the base. It was relatively easy to make, I heated the soy milk and added lemon juice to it so that it would curdle.(DO NOT Boil the soy milk) Once the curdles form I drained it through a cheese cloth and added it to a blender with some spices and salt and ended up with a nice creamy spread.
It tasted great but it did not have the richness of dairy cream cheese. It was incredibly creamy and smooth.. this was the smoothest of all of the cream cheeses that I have made. I love that it has soy in it and I feel that this spread would be a great base for things like a vegan mayo or vegan dips. I have made this several times. I love it as it does not weigh me down and spreads easily. I consider this to be a sort of guilt-free cream cheese. Here is a link to the recipe and video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kiPGq2HcKY
Cashew Vegan Cream Cheese
My next attempt was a recipe that called for cashews. There are a lot of cashew cream cheese recipes on the web. Some use probiotics and some do not. I wanted to try one that used a probiotic. I have a great probiotic powder that I often put in smoothies and I wanted to see if it would work. This is a very simple recipe.. I think it works best with soaked cashews.. I know you can boil them to soften but I like to boil as little as possible. I added about a 1/4 teaspoon of the probiotic to my creamed cashews.(I blended cashews in my blender) I put this in a bowl and covered it with a cloth and within a couple of days I had a nice creamy cashew cheese with a sour tang to it. This cheese had wonderful taste and richness but it was not as smooth as the soy cream cheese. It was very similar to the store bought vegan cream cheese.(I think the brand was Miyoko)
This is the recipe that I used. I did not add the nutritional yeast.
https://www.thecuriouschickpea.com/homemade-cultured-cashew-cream-cheese/
Other things I want to try.
I think Macadamian nuts would make a great cream cheese. Walnuts would make an interesting one as well. I do worry that something in the walnuts might prohibit the probiotic from growing. When I have made walnut milk there is very little leftover pulp. I find this very interesting. Cashew milk, I also have very little leftover pulp. When I have made almond milk I have a lot of pulp. I think this is due to the skin of the almonds. I am surprised that the walnuts had very little left over pulp.. as they have a brown skin too. maybe the skin of the walnut is thin enough that it dissolves in the nut milking process a little ?
In summary, if you are tired of paying a lot for non-dairy cream cheeses try making one of your own, it is really easy. You do not need to culture it, the sour taste could easily be achieved by a touch of vinegar or lemon juice. I am having a lot of fun making vegan cheeses. You will too. Non-dairy cheese making does not require much equipment.. and although a high speed blender is helpful.. I have used a Kitchen Aid blender for a lot of the recipes and been fine. Homemade vegan cheeses are so much easier to make than I expected and it does make giving up cheese a whole lot easier. I can honestly say that I do not miss dairy cheese anymore.
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