How to ditch the cheese

[Mysteriouscurle]

Just that. Been veggie for years. Flirted with veganism for a few years now. Feel that veganism is the right thing to do. Have tried loads of vegan cheeses and dont like any of them. Ive even tried making my own but that was a disaster is there a decent vegan cheese out there?

I made one it was an online recipe and it was a cream type cheese , it was lovely! Plenty of flavour is the key! I hate coconut and palm fat so you can see how difficult it is for me to buy one!

I don't mind soya though. The one I made was with soaked almonds, bit tricky if you're allergic to nuts!

Care to share your recipe?

The only vegan cheese that I have tried that was OKish was from a company in the north east. It was made from cashew nuts. All the supermarket vegan cheeses are inedible IMO, but I am a massive cheese lover.

I like violife cheese slices which make a half decent toastie. Violife cream cheese is good on pizza- melts into a creamy liquid, but you won't find that stretchy melty texture you get with cow's milk cheese. I think it is easier to just give up cheese than it is to try and replicate it or replace it.

I'm not vegan but I quite like violife cheese. The one that's meant to be cheddar.

Violife = vile-life.

Sorry, but it has a really nasty lingering background taste.

I do think it is a matter of what you are used to. I haven't eaten dairy for 27 years and I know that the vegan cheeses in no way resemble cow's milk cheese, but to me that is ok because I am not really comparing the two. My child who is a life long vegan once accidently took a sip of cows milk and thought it was disgusting because they are used to the taste of plant milk.

I am happy to eat all other vegan foods, but the fake cheese is a real sticking point. I just don't like the taste. The coconut based ones are horrible and have a sickly aftertaste, and all the others except for the aforementioned cashew based ones taste of vanilla to me.

I can eat and enjoy vegan quorn and soya based protein, but vegan cheese needs more work. And I still haven't found a milk that makes tea taste nice.

I like oat milk and rice milk, but not in tea. I don't like soya milk at all.

absisspartacus The recipe is on the "Minamalist Baker" site. It suggests cashews but they give me arthritisy pains so I used almonds very successfully.

Lonicera If you look at the ingredients of the soya milk, the tastiest (most like normal milk) are the ones with over 6% soya beans. I admit I don't use it in tea ( i love it in cappuccino though, the baristas like it because it fluffs up more than cows' milk due to having no fat).

As Lonicera says, the handcrafted "nut cheeses" are the only edible ones in my experience! They are very expensive but worth it for a treat. Think we tried one of these, not sure which
www.nutcrafter.co.uk/
www.tynechease.com/

Otherwise, just go cold turkey - you won't miss it (so much) after a while. Doesn't cheese trigger the release of some kind of opiate?

Or - wait until they start making cheese out of this stuff!
www.perfectdayfoods.com/

That's lettuce isn't it? That does help sleep They say that cheese shouldn't be eaten just before bed because of nightmares.

I think it is best to go completely cold turkey with cheese. Otherwise you compare everything to what you've been used to and they'll all taste vile.
Vegan cheese is got so much better over the last year or so. Most taste better melted IMO and the new Tesco and Sainsbury's ones are much better than the old soya ones (in terms of taste and melt ability!).

The handcrafted ones from nuts are lovely but they tend to need to be ordered online and are expensive.

Zizzi do vegan pizzas with proper melty stretchy fake mozerella which is actually edible. I wonder if it's their own recipe or bought in?

The only way I can cope is to take 'vegan holidays' every few months where I have real cheese/chocolate/whatever for one day but I know this breaks vegan laws and makes me a very bad person. It's the only thing that will keep me on track and wow does dairy taste delicious after a few months!

I had cheese after being vegan for a few months (quite a while ago now) and it made me so unwell! I couldn't have vegan 'holidays' for that reason as much as anything else.

Oddfish did you know that you can get vegan 'milk' chocolate? it 's much nicer than the normal dairy milk choc. It's by Moofree and is a bit sweet but delicious!

Large Sainsbos do it and some HF shops.

Zizzi use Mozzarisella which you can buy from some health food shops or online. I've tried making pizza with it but it's just not the same as the Zizzi one. I don't know what their secret is!

I haven't tried Moofree yet ppeat thanks, I would like to be a 'true' vegan so will give it a try

Thanks all. I'll give some of these a try.

Try Nutritional Yeast instead of parmesan. Almost passable especially if you blitz some walnuts up and combine them both. You get a savoury crumbly texture!

Yes paper the recipe I used had Nutritional yeast in it (it was cream cheese like! , walnuts would improve it !). Like Boursin.

It's tricky for me iheart because I don't eat coconut, cashews or palm oil. Which pretty much makes shop bought cheeses (and a lot of other things!) a no no for me!