The Four Main Vegan Cheese Ingredients Used to Make Tasty Plant Based Cheeses

most used main ingredients invegan cheese cashews

It is a common misconception that coconut oil is the be all and end all of vegan cheese, this just couldn't be any more wrong.

Yes, nearly all supermarket vegan cheeses are made with coconut oil, but these make up just a small fraction of all available vegan cheeses from around the world.

Table of contents

It is a common misconception that coconut oil is the be all and end all of vegan cheese, this just couldn't be any more wrong.

Yes, nearly all supermarket vegan cheeses are made with coconut oil, but these make up just a small fraction of all available vegan cheeses from around the world.

Below we break down and show the most common main ingredients used to make vegan cheese.

Each ingredient we talk about is the main ingredient used. This means that the vegan cheeses may use other ingredients and most will. We also don't mean that the ingredients used here are in all vegan cheeses that we share.

We tag each and every single vegan cheese with this information and they only get one tag, which means just one ingredient allocated to each individual vegan cheese, which is what that specific vegan cheese is mostly made up from.

As we get in to more detail in this article, you will see graphs and stats that represent vegan cheese in various ways, we get this information from the largest vegan cheese database on the internet, that we have built ourselves and you can check it out here.

What Are The Four Main Ingredients Used in Vegan Cheese

These ingredients are not used in all vegan cheese processes, but are the main ingredient used in each separate vegan cheese.

We like to call it the base of the cheese.

The graph below shows you the four most common main ingredients found in vegan cheese, and they are;

  • Almonds
  • Cashew
  • Coconut Oil
  • Soya

But out of these, which vegan cheeses are the most common? 

Well we all know that most of the supermarket options available are all derived from coconut oil, but below we can see that the other ingredients are used far more often to make other vegan cheeses.

Coconut Oil Is Not The Most Used Ingredient in Vegan Cheeses

With around 400 vegan cheeses, out of our database of 1500+ vegan cheeses, not even one third of the entire range of plant based cheeses available use coconut oil as their main ingredient.

There are a number of other ingredients used by vegan cheese makers not on the list, just because they are just not used as much, such as carrot, rice, cauliflower, other nuts, chickpeas and so on,

But adding these to the almond, cashew and soya vegan cheeses make up the remaining 1100+ vegan cheeses currently available to see in our database of cheese.

So the next time someone suggests vegan cheese is horrible and unhealthy because they are only made with coconut oil, you can share this with them.

Which Ingredient Is Used The Most to Make Vegan Cheese

This may or not be a surprise to you, but the vegan cheese main ingredient that is used in more vegan cheeses than any other is cashew nuts.

At the time of writing, nearly 800 vegan cheeses are made with cashew nuts as the main ingredient, you'll also find that most of these use very little ingredients beyond this and that they are healthy and contain zero processed ingredients, simple, wholefood ingredients and maybe a little bit of time to age.

In regards to health, many will also use probiotics which is great for gut health.

Above in the graph you can see the live cashew count so that you can see just how many vegan cheeses use cashew as the main ingredient from our database of vegan cheeses. As we add more vegan cheeses to the database, this will automatically update the graph as well.

788

cashew vegan cheeses

What Other Ingredients Are Used to Make Vegan Cheese

The third and fourth most common main ingredients found in vegan cheese are that of almonds and soya, with approx 100+ vegan cheeses of each, as shown in the graph above.

By using the discovery tool you can find all vegan cheeses made with almonds here.

And vegan cheeses made with soya here.

There you have it, the four most common main ingredients used in vegan cheese are cashew, coconut oil, almonds and soya.

 

Add new comment

Discover Other Vegan Cheeses

Thinking of going vegan but finding it hard to quit dairy cheese?

We have the biggest database of vegan cheeses anywhere online at our discovery app

Go check it out as we're sure you can find a new favorite or first vegan cheese that you love!