A good vegan cream cheese can be hard to find. I’ve found that a lot of the store bought vegan cream cheese has something a bit off in taste, texture, or sometimes both. Today I’d like to share a few tofu cream cheese recipes we’ve developed over the past couple of months. Making your cream cheese at home is super simple, and more affordable than most store bought cream cheese.
If you don’t want to make your own cream cheese, and prefer to buy it at the supermarket that’s perfectly okay. Our favorite store bought vegan cream cheese’s are Tofutti, Trader Joe’s, and Follow Your Heart. We prefer the soy and tofu based cream cheese. It has the best texture and taste out of all of the products we’ve tried. Follow Your Heart is great, but they’re changing their cream cheese recipe to become soy-free. We haven’t had their new recipe yet, so I can’t speak to it’s quality, but we love every Follow Your Heart product we’ve had so I’m optimistic.
We haven’t tried a lot of nut based cream cheese due to allergies in the family, but we have had Kite Hill’s almond based cream cheese. It’s great, but I still find myself preferring the texture of soy based cream cheese products.
If you’re up for making your own cream cheese we’ve been hard at work developing a recipe that can be easily adapted to add different flavors. We’ve made a basic plain cream cheese, a strawberry, and a garlic and chive. All you’ll need to get started are a few basic ingredients you can find at most supermarkets, and a blender or food processor.
Tofu Cream Cheese
You will need a high speed blender or food processor for this recipe. A high speed blender works best.
Ingredients
- 6 oz extra-firm Mori-Nu silken tofu (half a package)
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
Directions
- Add 6 oz of extra-firm silken tofu to a blender or food processor. Place other half of tofu in a container to save in the fridge or freezer.
- Melt coconut oil, and add into the blender or food processor.
- Add all other ingredients.
- Blend on high until all ingredients are well integrated, and the mixture is smooth texture.
- Move to a reusable container, and store in the fridge for up to a week. Chill for at least an hour before using to allow the coconut oil to set.
Vegetable oil can be used in lieu of coconut oil, if you prefer the taste, but this will give the cream cheese a much thinner consistency.
Our Garlic Chive Cream Cheese recipe is very similar to the original plain recipe. It only calls for a few additional ingredients. This makes a great schmear for a plain bagel, or one that you’re topping with other ingredients.
Garlic Chive Tofu Cream Cheese
You will need a high speed blender or food processor for this recipe. A high speed blender works best.
Ingredients
- 6 oz extra-firm Mori-Nu silken tofu (half a package)
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tbsp chopped chives
- 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- small pinch of onion powder
Directions
- Add 6 oz of extra-firm silken tofu to a blender or food processor. Place other half of tofu in a container to save in the fridge or freezer.
- Melt coconut oil, and add into the blender or food processor.
- Add all other ingredients with the exception of the chives.
- Blend on high until all ingredients are well integrated, and the mixture is smooth texture.
- Move to a reusable container, and stir in finely chopped chives.
- Store in the fridge for up to a week. Chill for at least an hour before using to allow the coconut oil to set.
Vegetable oil can be used in lieu of coconut oil, if you prefer the taste, but this will give the cream cheese a much thinner consistency.
The recipe for strawberry cream cheese requires a few substitutions as well as additions. Be sure to pay close attention to the recipe below if you’re trying to make a fruit flavored cream cheese. We recommend using apple cider vinegar for this one, and adding less salt. You’ll probably want to use a natural sweetener like maple syrup or agave. We developed this recipe with strawberries, but you can use other fruit if you’d prefer. If you come up with a great flavor combination let us know in the comments.
Strawberry Tofu Cream Cheese
You will need a high speed blender or food processor for this recipe. A high speed blender works best.
Ingredients
- 6 oz extra-firm Mori-Nu silken tofu (half a package)
- 1/4 cup fresh strawberries
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- dash of sea salt
Directions
- Add 6 oz of extra-firm silken tofu to a blender or food processor. Place other half of tofu in a container to save in the fridge or freezer.
- Melt coconut oil, and add into the blender or food processor.
- Add all other ingredients.
- Blend on high until all ingredients are well integrated, and the mixture is smooth texture.
- Move to a reusable container, and store in the fridge for up to a week. Chill for at least an hour before using to allow the coconut oil to set.
Vegetable oil can be used in lieu of coconut oil, if you prefer the taste, but this will give the cream cheese a much thinner consistency.
I’ll have to give this a try. I haven’t found a vegan cream cheese that doesn’t have an off flavor, and we too have nut allergies in our family.
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We have the same problem with nut allergies. It can be difficult to find good nut-free non-dairy options, so we started making a lot of our own. We hope to post some allergy friendly milk and cheese recipes at some point.
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