Using a dairy free milk alternative for making a white sauce?

[hobbity]

My DH is having to go dairy free and I'm really missing things using a white sauce like Lasagna and Pasta Bake. I'd like to use a milk substitute like rice, wheat, soya, almond or other milk to make the sauce with. Has anyone got any experience of how well they cook and what they taste like especially as I'll have to use margarine rather than butter too.

My best friend suggested using Infant Formula, but I can't quite get my head around that !

soya milk is the best to use as it acts quite like milk and tastes similar. Soya milk tastes different in tea and when uncooked, but when cooked into other foods is very similar. Rice milk can be a bit odd when cooking and has an overwhelming sweet flavour.

Most margerines have some form of milk proteins in. Pure (brand name) margerine is dairy free. You can get it in soya, olive oil or sunflower oil.

I've made parsley sauce dairy free and the flavour is fine.

Great thanks! I didn't know that about margarine, I've always assumed it was all dairy free

So many things have dairy in that you wouldn't expect. It's worth checking the label of everything you buy for a while until you get the hang of it.

It's easier now that most foods have an allergen warning on them so will state if it has milk/wheat/eggs/gluten/nuts in (I think they're the only ones) under the ingrediants list.

definately agree that the sunflower one tastes best. And you can get them from most big supermarkets.

For other stuff you can also get Alpro soya cream which is good in cooking (but I find it a lot harder to get hold of).

Most supermarkets are now stocking swedish glace ice cream stuff (dairy free - hexagonal black tub) which tastes lovely. Though usually only the vanilla (the chocolate is the best ).

Dairy free marg and soya milk are fine for cooking in just about any recipe.

I've never found an edible dairy free cheese though. I got some dairy free parmesan that tastes like yeasty salt. And the pure cheese slices were just the most vile thing I had ever tasted.

Yorkshire puddings work well with soya milk but when they go cold they can go rock hard (and nothing softens them).

Beware of crisps - walkers salt and vinegar even contain milk. That really pisses me off

Alpro (soya milk) makes a fine white sauce, great custard & rice pudding too

I agree pure sunflower is the only dairy free margarine I could find, I really hated the taste though (had to convert to peanut butter toast whilst we were vegan)

I use oil as the fat base for my sauces btw.

The chocolate ice cream sounds good, just have to keep the children away from it too!

A lot of the dairy free stuff is a lot lower fat than the dairy equivilent. Which is an excuse in my mind for scoffing more ice cream

can he have goats products?

My friend is cowsmilk free and i use goats butter in cooking and cant tell any difference at all

half Oatly milk and half Oatly cream are better consistency wise, I think for white sauces.

ilove what does the oatly stuff taste like? I don't like soya milk on cereal and stuff and am really going off rice milk.

Also where do you get it to (if I remember you're in bristol aren't you?)

We use the Tesco own soya milk (64p per litre). I use the sweetened type because DC prefer it on their cereals. I also use this for savoury sauces and it tastes good. Swedish glace (dairy free ice cream) also comes in Neopolitan!

Mainly use Oatly for cooking as DS is dairy allergic. The taste is fairly neutral.

Get Oatly milk Sainsbury's and Waitrose (not Tescos ) and Oatly cream at Waitrose or Better Food Co in St Werburgh's.

thanks Ilove

I use oat milk (which I can get just fine in Tesco, but not in Asda) for making sauces, and it makes very good pancakes and yorkie batter too.

If you do use soya milk, then make sure you get an unsweetened version for sauces, as the sweetened one is really quite vile for this imo.

Oh and vitalite is dairy free too if you can't get Pure.

Where do you get your neapolitan swedish glace from doubleexpresso? I used to be able to get it from one of the local Tesco's, but they've stopped stocking it and I can't find it anywhere else.

Thanks everyone, especially the tip about not using the sweetened version