Why Does Vegan Cheese Taste Horrible

We're not going to lie, when we went vegan a few years ago, we thought that vegan cheese tasted horrible, at best, meh and we're sure you're in the same boat.

It was one of the hardest things to give up when we transitioned to veganism because we had dairy cheese in almost every meal we ate, without fail we would have it every day.

So thinking about giving it up was just another reason to avoid veganism and not take the leap.

Why would we want to give up on a huge part of our lives and food choice? We really believed we would be losing out, without realising the new world of vegan cheeses that awaited us.

That is until we found out about artisan vegan cheeses and realised the following three things when we went vegan.

Why Does Vegan Cheese Taste Horrible

There are three very simple answers to this question, why does vegan cheese taste horrible? 

Here are our three tips for finding delicious tasting vegan cheese.

You Need To Give It Time

Your taste buds are used to eating dairy cheese and haven't forgotten what that tasted like.

This is a really simple one, you've transitioned to veganism and on the Sunday have been eating dairy cheese, and on the Monday you've gone headfirst in to the world of vegan cheese and your taste buds just haven't had time to forget what dairy cheese was like.

Imagine then trying a vegan cheese from a supermarket that you may never like and you have a recipe for disaster.

You've probably thought you were eating food rations from the mid 20th century, "This can't be vegan cheese"!?

It took a while, literally months for our taste buds to forget what dairy cheese was like. With this in mind, you have to remember that you are going to be very lucky if you try your first vegan cheese, and it is a like for like swap for some of your favourite dairy cheeses.

So, why weren't we getting like for like when we made the transition to veganism?

This issue relates heavily to points two and three which we get in to a bit later on, how supermarkets have very little choice, and the mass produced vegan cheeses made of coconut oil are not really trying to taste like the cheese you had before you went vegan.

When Will Vegan Cheese Taste Great

The answer to this question is a matter of time. If you give your taste buds 2-3 months before you dive in to the world of vegan cheese, you will never experience the horrible tastes that you would other wise.

Some people do enjoy vegan cheeses immediately, but others, like us, were hoping for an animal friendly alternative that also tasted the same as dairy cheese.

It's about your perception, what you are used to and expectations.

By giving your taste buds and memory a bit of a gap, you can help with your expectations and beliefs as to what cheese should taste like.

It's a really simple fix, but one that just takes a bit of patience.

You Haven't Tasted That Many Vegan Cheeses

If you have given it a couple of months, it's time to look in to other ways you can find great tasting vegan cheese.

You might have just tried a handful of vegan cheeses and not found one you liked yet.

Supermarkets Have Only A Handful of Vegan Cheese Options

This is because supermarkets, even large stores only have a very small selection to choose from. At best you might find a supermarket or store with about 10 vegan cheeses.

To add to this, that most of the ingredients and way they prepare these cheeses will be similar to one another, so the choices you have, won't actually differ much from each other. 

If you've tried some vegan cheeses from supermarkets, they will have been made with coconut oil, and this is how you get those similar tastes.

When we went vegan, we were travelling and struggled to find vegan cheeses available in the countries we were in, this didn't help.

But when we returned home and were back with family and friends who were also vegan, they had vegan cheeses for us to try and we just did not enjoy them.

They were OK, but that was it, just OK. We wanted to salivate at the thought of vegan cheeses and look forward to them as part of a meal.

After trying a handful of vegan cheese options from supermarkets and health food stores, we struggled to find anything we really liked. This is because we were always looking at the same few vegan cheeses on offer.

Artisan Vegan Cheeses Are Much Tastier and Healthier Than Supermarket Vegan Cheeses

That is when we thought there had to be better options and we'd put in some actual time to researching and finding out who was making and selling them where we lived here in the UK.

After a few weeks of googling, groups, reddit, forums and online blog research, we saw there was a growing and vibrant industry right before our eyes, the artisan vegan cheese makers were everywhere, we just had to get their products in to our mouths!

Once we had tried a few more vegan cheeses, we started to really enjoy some of them, and knew we were on to some winners when we were repeatedly ordering them.

Surprisingly, the vast majority of vegan cheeses available in the world are made by artisans, with nearly two thirds of all vegan cheeses being made by small independent plant based cheese makers.

And it is with these artisans, who are continually learning and expanding on their crafts, will you find new favourite vegan cheeses.

Our absolute favourites and staples are from artisan vegan cheese makers. Some produce their vegan cheeses just down the road from us and sell in local health food stores, whilst others sell throughout Europe and through online vegan supermarket stores.

Others sell their vegan cheeses in batches and we have to put an order in well in advance, the wait is worth it!

The artisans will use a larger variety of ingredients, will very rarely use coconut oil, with most experimenting with bacterial cultures and even ageing their vegan cheeses.

You can find artisan vegan cheese makers local to you on our artisan category page.

Will Vegan Cheese Get Better

Ofcourse it will, just like anything, there are types of foods within a food category that you love and also hate. There are chocolates you prefer over others, even potatoes have a fantastic variety to them.

And it is similar with vegan cheese, once you start exploring this new food type, you will soon find vegan cheese that you love!

And to help you get started, head on over to the vegan cheese discovery tool where you can filter and sort vegan cheeses to your hearts content.