Alisa Fleming ~ Just a few simple tweaks from the Meltable Muenster and voila(!), a Meltable Mozzarella appears! Like the muenster, this vegan cheese alternative recipe is a sampling from the cookbook, Artisan Vegan Cheese by Miyoko Schinner.
Miyoko offers two recipes for mozzarella in Artisan Vegan Cheese, one made from cashews, and this one, which is made from non-dairy yogurt. Which to choose? For Caprese Salad, she recommends the Fresh Mozzarella recipe made from cashews, as it is rich and delicious with tomatoes and basil. However, for meltability, this vegan cheese alternative recipe is the one to go with. Use it to make killer calzones and lasagna, and to impress guests at a dairy-free pizza party!
As mentioned prior, Miyoko uses some unusual ingredients in her cheesy recipes, but she also promises that her recipes are better than the norm. I’ve included links in the recipe to help you locate the lesser known ingredients, all of which are sold online and should also be available in some natural food stores. I’m sure that many of you cheese-aholics will find this recipe worth the ingredient hunt, and so easy to make once you have everything on hand.
- 1 cup plain, unsweetened nondairy yogurt (there is a homemade version in Artisan Vegan Cheese or store-bought options are available from Whole Soy & Co or Wildwood)
- ½ cup water
- ⅓ cup canola oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 6 tablespoons tapioca flour/starch
- 1 tablespoon carrageenan powder
- 1⁄2 teaspoon xanthan gum, optional
- 8 cups ice water
- Put the yogurt, water, oil, and 1 teaspoon of the salt in a blender.
- Process until smooth and creamy, occasionally stopping to scrape down the blender jar and move the mixture toward the blades.
- Transfer to a clean glass bowl or container, cover, and let rest at room temperature for 8 to 24 hours, until mildly sharp in flavor.
- Transfer to a heavy medium saucepan and whisk in the tapioca flour and carrageenan. For a stretchier consistency, whisk in the optional xanthan gum.
- Cook over medium heat, stirring almost constantly with the whisk, until very smooth, thick, gooey, and glossy, 3 to 5 minutes.
- To make a brine, put the ice water and remaining teaspoon of salt in a large bowl and stir until the salt dissolves.
- Form the cheese into balls using a small ice-cream scoop, dropping them into the brine as you go. They will harden almost instantly.
- Cover and refrigerate, keeping the cheese stored in the brine.
69 Comments
I have been making Miyoko’s cheddar cheese from her book Artisan vegan cheese now for almost 2 years and my husband who loved brie loves this new cheese especially on his home made rye bread and home made tempeh. I recently made the sun dried tomato basil cream cheese and it was out of this world! Next time will add some chopped black olives and maybe some chopped oregano! Now for the non dairy yogurt. I order the non dairy culture form Cultures for Health and have made my second batch. First batch was organic soy milk 4 cups, 1 culture packet, and 1 T. chia seeds mixed in water until softened, then added to milk/culture mix. Incubated in picnic cooler set at 108 degrees for 12 hours. Nice and tangy but lots of liquid that I used to feed my plants. Will be making another batch soon and see how it sets up.
betsy shipley
Hi Alisa,
I would like to import some soy – free dairy – free cheese to my country Mauritius ,but cant find any exporters from nearby countries like south Africa ,mailed one named Violife but they responded twice but till now no concrete reply ,if you can please help
Thanks
Regards
Shalinee
Mobile : 230 5 7591971
Is it necessary to use the brine to form the cheese? Would you be able to just put it in, say, a glass bowl? Thanks!
The ice water bath is necessary to stop the cooking and harden the cheese. If you mean is brine necessary for storage, Miyoko says she stores in olve oil or vinaigrette or brine, but over time it deteriorates in brine if it sits for a long time (I don’t know how long she meant).
Oh, I forgot to add in that I completely left out carrageenan (I didn’t even add a substitute)and was still happy with the results. This was the first recipe I found that was also nut free.
Fantastic!
I love love love this recipe! Being allergic to dairy and eggs, I found it a great loss to not be able to eat pizza. When I found this recipe, I was slightly discouraged about the ingredient of dairy free yogurt (which almost always contains locust bean gum-another one of my allergies) so I decided to substitute it with silken tofu. As I said before, I was soooo happy with the results! I put it on my homemade pizza and I couldn’t even tell that it was vegan cheese. I would definitely recommend trying this recipe out!
I really want to try this and support the author by purchasing her book.
One question, if you don’t mind, can I use plain coconut milk yogurt for this recipe?
Thanks a lot!
Hi Alamar, plain yogurt could change it slightly since the plain dairy-free versions do have sweetener added. Functionally, it should still work.
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Can this be frozen to make it last longer?
I’m not sure – this might be a trickier freezer recipe.
Hi, I was wondering if you can sub coconut, grapeseed or olive oil in this recipe? Thanks, Cocoa
Yes, any oil should work fine – I would go with grapeseed in this case.
I accidentally got sweetened soy yogurt (Nancy’s brand plain). Can I still use that in this recipe? Or will it grow unwanted bacteria in the culturing process because of the sugar?
As long as your equipment / utensils are very clean, you shouldn’t have “unwanted” bacteria, but the taste could be quite off.
Does it taste like mozzarella
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Hi,
I tried the “Better Buffalo Mozzarella” recipe and loved it.
So when I came across this recipe, I was really excited about making it stretchier in texture.
Yet for some reason, after adding the xanthan gum, the flavor got starchy (I was aiming for just stretchy).
It wasn’t close to edible so I had to throw away the entire batch.
Is there any way of reaching the desired stretchy quality, without ruining the consistency and flavor?
You shouldn’t have thrown it away! You have to keep stirring it until its really glossy, if you don’t wait for the gloss it will be starchy. I’m sure if you had waited a few more minutes it would have been perfect! Try again!
Carageenan is toxic! The other stuff looks good though.
You can use agar or your choice of “gelatins” in place of the carageenan. The author just feels that this ingredient works best. You can see her comment explaining her take on the ingredient on this post – http://www.godairyfree.org/recipes/sharp-cheddar-vegan-cheese-alternative
Carrageenan was found to be just as bad for me as lactose when in reasonably large quantities. When I stopped using products with carrageenan most of my issues with lactose free labeled products went away. So people should be careful using it. I worked with one products’ scientists to figure out the carrageenan was causing me to have severe reactions that were almost identical to lactose intolerance.
This looked exciting to make but then I saw it has carageenan which is a possible carcinogen. Is this a necessary ingredient?
See this page on thickeners and “gelatins” (includes vegan options) – http://www.foodsubs.com/ThickenGelatins.html
This looks amazing! Thank you so much for the recipe…we will be making it soon.
Hi Alisa,
I have only been able to find O’Soy locally and it is usually strawberry or peach flavored. I will have to do some more searching for a plain yogurt with out milk protein. Thanks for the info 🙂
O’Soy is an evil one 🙂 That is not actually a dairy-free yogurt, they do use milk protein. But, that is literally the only brand I’ve seen on the market that appears to be non-dairy, but isn’t. Look for the words “dairy-free” and “vegan” when searching for yogurt or make your own!
I made this just before xmas and it really is incredibly melty. I even made it with my homemade cashew yogurt with no problems except for my lack of upper arm strength. My only thought was that 2 tsp of salt was not enough. It seemed to me it should have been more. Still it turned out amazingly well.
Good to know, thanks for the feedback Laurel!
I was so excited when I saw this and then I realized it was made with yogurt. My daughter is allergic to milk proteins so I am always on the look out for any kind of cheese like creations that would be safe for her. Even non-dairy yogurt has active milk protein in it 🙁
Rebecca, what dairy-free yogurt have you found with milk in it? This is very bizarre. WholeSoy, So Delicious, Silk, and others all make completely dairy-free yogurt, no milk protein. See the yogurt reviews on this site for more options.
Ah man! non-dairy yogurt does have milk in it 🙁 I haven’t look yet but will be. Need cheese in this house hold……so I can pull out more recipes 🙂 My baby boy has milk allergy n I been dairy free for 8 month now since nursing him. Got my home dairy free now which my oldest son (7) got use to it 🙂
Tammy, it sounds like you purchased lactose-free yogurt. Look for dairy-free yogurt which does not have dairy.