What are the best vegan cheeses?

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I'm not currently vegan or even vegetarian but I'm trying to really reduce the amount of animal products I eat and hopefully cut them out all together in time.

I've only tried one vegan cheese so far and that was the Violife shreds. It melted beautifully but tasted exactly as it smelled. Very sweet and coconutty. I felt as though I'd sprinkled sugar in my pasta. I want to try another but I really want to avoid another sweet cheese.
I'm not a cheese fanatic but enjoy it on a few things that I'm reluctant to give up. I'd like a nice cream cheese alternative for crackers and one for melting over pasta. Any recommendations would be appreciated. TIA

That should say melting on pasta or toast. Perhaps more of a mozzarella or cheddar type as I hate Parmesan but I'll try anything so long as it isn't sweet.

No idea but marking place 🧀

I have tried to go vegan twice and cheese is my only downfall

There are none but grated granted mozzarella sub in sainsbury's is vaguely palatable

Have a look on the nutcrafter creamery website. Expensive but worth it.

“Vaguely palatable”

Pretty much the best thing I could say about any of the vegan cheese I tried ! 😆

Violife ready grated. DS is dairy free I never used to buy ready grated cheddar but the blocks of vegan cheese don’t seem to perform as well as the ready grated. I think Tesco do a mock grated mozzarella which is ok. I’ve found the grated melt better than if you grate the blocks at home
There are also flavoured blocks such as jalapeño or chives and something from Sainsbury’s which are much better than the plain blocks that just taste weird.

Tbh the Violife plain block cheese is the only one I can tolerate. The Violife shreds are too sweet, I agree. I tried the Tesco mozzarella and it was disgusting, as was the Asda one.

Something that helps is also using nutritional yeast flakes at the same time as the cheese, as that is more savoury. And a pinch of salt.

Just seen you didn’t like the violife. So go for the flavoured blocks. All the cream cheeses taste a bit odd. If you can give up cheese for a few months then try the vegan ones and you’ll probably find they taste better.

Thank you all for the suggestions so far. I'll try the suggested blocks and other suggested cheeses. Especially if the blocks aren't quite so sweet. I'll look at the nut crafter website too. I'm happy to pay for the good stuff.

Do I have to go to a health food store to get nutritional yeast? I looked in Tesco and Sainsbury's the other day for a recipe I wanted to try but it was nowhere to be found.

Morrison's sell nutritional yeast, both the normal kind and the b12 fortified kind.

Thank you NannyR.

Oooh yeah I can imagine if you added nutritional yeast that would help the flavour

I love it it tastes amazing. Mine was from Holland and Barrett but I think most of the big super markets stock it now

Sainsbury's fake cheddar smells more like mature cheddar than violife, which is more your plastic type cheese.

DH loved cheese and recently turned vegan. Nutritional yeast is his new favourite thing. He bought it from Amazon because we couldn't find it in Sainsbury's. We have not found any decent vegan cheese.

Kinda Co cheese is great - they sell it on planet organic. Don't think they do a melty one but there's a nacho dip which is good hot with pasta?

The Nutcrafter looks great and it's a local business too.

I'll check out Sainsbury's and Kindaco too.

Ty all for the suggestions so far.

I applaud anyone reducing their reliance on animal products but I question eating highly processed unnatural 'foods'.

I'm not at all concerned about that, Talktoo.

I'm afraid I don't have a specific recipe to hand, but I've made "cream cheese" out of soaked cashew nuts (and a couple of other ingredients -no nutritional yeast or processed stuff) that lasted a week in the fridge and was surprisingly good! Have a look online for some recipes if you fancy a relatively simple experiment.

Thank you Gloominous, I'll do that. I was considering making my own cheese and cashew cream cheese sounds good.

Nope. Just nope. I didn't think I was a particular cheese fan until I had to go dairy-free and eat substandard cheese substitutes.

The only vegan cheese that tastes ok is Nush cream cheese (made from almond milk). And that's because cream cheese made from cow's milk doesn't have much flavour anyway so it's not too difficult to substitute.

But there is no palatable replacement for cheese with actual flavour such as cheddar, mozzarella or anything else. I mean, I'll eat vegan cheese on pizza because it's better than nothing, but it's not the fucking same.

I have no idea why anyone would willingly give up cheese, tbh. Good for you though. Just don't expect to find anything palatable to replace it with!

Sheese garlic and herb is nice. I like the texture of Koko cheddar but it tastes of coconut. I've had lovely cheesecake made with cashew cheese.

I've been trying various vegan cheeses for a while and my current favourite is Koko Dairy Free Cheddar. I got it from Waitrose but you can probably find elsewhere.

It doesn't melt (not sure how important that is for you) but the taste is pretty good compared to a lot of them. Nutty and full flavoured without being at all sweet.

Great with pickle in a sandwich or grated on pasta. Also behaves well as an ingredient (eg I used it in a cheese and breadcrumb stuffing for portobello mushrooms a few nights ago and it blended really well).

Can't really compare with cows milk cheese but as a vegan cheese it's pretty impressive

Not vegan but lactose intolerant so often i have lactose removed cheese.
The cathedral city lacto free is lovely. Its annoying its not vegan though

Cross post with Groundcontrol
I didn't notice a strong coconut flavour but maybe my tastebuds aren't very sensitive!