Learn how to make the most delicious Cultured vegan butter A firm texture with a creamy buttery spread for slathering on toast and sticks of butter at home, you can use it to make a vegan pie crust, croissants, cookies, cakes, vegan buttercream and more. Best of all, it’s all so easy!
There are many vegan butters on the market now, but buying the better brands can feel like a bit of a splurge. Once I learned to make my own vegan butter, it was a splurge I could happily avoid. Plus, homemade vegan butter tastes so much better than the best brands on the market and has the healthiness of live cultures from my homemade vegan yogurt. A win-win.
In this post I’ll show you how to make a soft, buttery vegan butter spread on toast and, with a little tweaking, a hard vegan butter that you can make into sticks for baking.
Index
Why you will love this recipe
- It is buttery and delicious! Live cultures of butter make butter naturally buttery without adding apple cider vinegar or nutritional yeast (which are great ingredients but we’re not making any flavors here). The inspiration for this recipe is Miyoko’s European-style cultured vegan butter and I believe it’s just as good as the real thing.
- You can use it for serving on the table or for baking. If you like to put a pat of butter on your vegan waffles and vegan pancakes, you can’t do better than a cultured vegan butter spread. And you can bake to your heart’s content with vegan butter sticks. I use them to make my vegan pie crusts, vegan buttercream, breads, croissants…your imagination is the limit. You can even use it in dishes like this Vegan Butter Chicken or Vegan Sage Butter Gnocchi for an authentic flavor. You can buy a simple silicone mold (I bought this one from Amazon. It has tablespoon markings and works like a charm) to make sticks of butter that unmold easily.
- It’s very simple. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to make your own vegan homemade butter. You only need a few, readily available ingredients and some of them are probably already in your pantry. Once you have it on hand, it will take you five minutes or less to make the butter.
- May be gluten-free, nut-free and soy-free. See the FAQ below for more.
material
- the oil: you will need Refined coconut oil (not virgin coconut oil, which will taste like coconut) and another Neutral oilSuch as avocado oil, sunflower oil, grape seed oil or safflower oil.
- Cultured vegan yogurt. This ingredient is the key to that amazing buttery flavor. I use my homemade vegan cultured cashew yogurt (you can also use this instant pot recipe for vegan yogurt). If you are nut-free, use a nut-free vegan yogurt. Make sure it is plain and not flavored or sweetened yogurt.
- Liquid lecithin. I use soy lecithin, which is readily available online, but if you’re soy-free, you can use sunflower lecithin. You can make vegan butter without lecithin, of course it’s spreadable, but there are two good reasons to use it: For one, lecithin acts as an emulsifier, meaning that water-based ingredients (like yogurt or non-dairy milk) in your Butter will not separate from oil as they stand. It’s also good to use lecithin for vegan butter sticks because it hardens the butter and prevents it from melting too easily when handled, resulting in better baked goods.
How to make vegan butter
Place all ingredients for vegan butter in a blender – vegan yogurt, coconut oil, another neutral oil, salt and lecithin (use less lecithin for spreadable butter – see recipe card below for exact amounts).
Blend the ingredients on low speed for 15 seconds, then increase the speed and blend for another 30 seconds.
If you’re making a bowl of spreadable butter, you’ll want to serve from it.
When making the butter sticks, pour the mixture into silicone molds. Refrigerate the butter for 2-3 hours until completely set.
Tips for success
- Melt the coconut oil completely before using it – there should be no lumps.
- Adjust the amount of salt to your taste. I add ½ teaspoon of salt and that’s fine for me, but you can use less or more. Skip the salt to make unsalted butter sticks for baking.
- If you don’t have or don’t want to use lecithin, you can skip it, but remember that your oil and vegan yogurt may separate even after mixing them thoroughly. Also the stick of butter will soften us.
- Use silicone molds if you want to be able to roll out sticks of butter. You can use a regular container for spreadable butter, but be sure to use one that’s pretty enough to serve.
- This recipe makes about 24 tablespoons or three sticks of butter. You can easily double or triple the recipe.
Storage instructions
- Keep in fridge: Store the butter in the fridge for 2-3 weeks.
- freeze: For longer storage, freeze vegan butter for up to 4 months.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, and you can use any cultured yogurt you like, including nut-free yogurt, to make this recipe nut-free. Just make sure it’s not sweet or savory. I however recommend homemade cashew curd for the best taste.
Confirmed. This dairy-free butter contains 89 calories per tablespoon compared to about 100 calories per tablespoon of dairy-based butter. Dairy butter has about 30 milligrams of cholesterol per tablespoon, while the vegan version doesn’t because it’s a plant-based butter. This cultured vegan butter recipe contains healthy gut flora and no palm oil — a controversial ingredient found in some plant-based butters like Earth Balance. Also, no preservatives. That said, any fat is still fat. Although vegan butter is good for you, eat it in moderation.
You certainly can. In that case, replace the cultured vegan yogurt with an equal amount of full-fat soy milk and add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. You can also add a teaspoon of nutritional yeast for flavor.
You can use olive oil as your second oil, but remember that olive oil will add a bitter note to the butter. I would recommend using another neutral oil instead, such as grape seed oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil or avocado oil.
More homemade how-to recipes
If you like this homemade vegan butter recipe, be sure to check out more vegan recipes at Holy Cow Vegan!
Vegan butter
Learn how to make the most delicious cultured vegan butter at home, a soft, spreadable butter for slathering on toast and a stick of hard butter that you can use to make a vegan pie crust, croissants, vegan buttercream and more. Best of all, it’s all so easy!
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Recipe review
Serving: 24 table spoon
Calories: 89kcal
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instructions
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Place all the ingredients in the blender. Blend for 15 seconds on low speed, then 30 seconds on high speed.
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If the spreadable butter is poured into a bowl you want to serve from it. When the butter stick is ready, pour it into a silicone mold. Refrigerate the butter for 2-3 hours until completely set.
Recipe notes
- Melt the coconut oil completely before using it – there should be no lumps.
- Adjust the amount of salt to your taste. I add ½ teaspoon of salt and that’s fine for me, but you can use less or more. Skip the salt to make unsalted butter sticks for baking.
- If you don’t have or don’t want to use lecithin, you can skip it, but remember that your oil and vegan yogurt may separate even after mixing them thoroughly. Also the stick of butter will soften us.
- Use silicone molds if you want to be able to roll out sticks of butter. You can use a regular container for spreadable butter, but be sure to use one that’s pretty enough to serve.
Storage instructions
- Keep in fridge: Store the butter in the fridge for 2-3 weeks.
- freeze: For longer storage, refrigerate vegan butter for up to 4 months.
nutrition
Worship: 1table spoon | Calories: 89kcal | Sugars: 0.3g | Protein: 0.1g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Polyunsaturated Fats: 0.3g | Monounsaturated fats: 1g | Sodium: 49mg | Potassium: 6mg | Fiber: 0.02g | Sugar: 0.03g | Vitamin C: 0.02mg | Calcium: 0.4mg | Iron: 0.04mg
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