Vegan Feta – Lazy Cat Kitchen

It’s a little ironic that my husband and I became vegetarians while living in Greece, where feta cheese is added to practically everything. Surprisingly, we lived on it before we decided to try going plant-based. One of our favorite dishes we make is a simple pasta (recipe coming soon) with lots of feta cheese and we missed it a lot until I adjusted the tastebuds over time.

This simple almond-based vegan feta that I’ve been making in one form or another to satisfy our hunger pangs and having not had feta for so long works pretty well, I must say. It adds this intense salty and creamy element to the dish that we sometimes miss.

When I first started making it, vegan feta wasn’t available to us because we lived on a small Greek island in the middle of nowhere and even the concept of vegan feta was sacrilegious but these days there are companies that have quite successfully replicated feta’s taste and texture ( Greek company Violife is widely available) so you might not bother making your own.

While I sometimes use Violife’s Feta, I find it is better in some contexts than others (it doesn’t do well in hot applications at all). I’m also not hugely keen on the fact that it’s mainly made with coconut oil (which is exactly why it doesn’t do well when heated – it turns into an oily mess) so for this occasion, this whole food vegan feta is perfect.

More about ingredients

Flaked Almonds – I used blanched almonds to make this cheese and I wouldn’t recommend anything else. The reason I use flaked almonds over whole almonds is because it allows you to blend the mixture smoothly without adding extra moisture, which would compromise the texture of this vegan feta. I tried using almond flour – you don’t need a blender for this, you can just mix all the ingredients in a bowl – but the result was subpar so I wouldn’t recommend it.

lemon juice – Lemon juice gives this vegan feta its characteristic tanginess. I find that 2 tablespoons of lemon juice is ideal for this amount of nuts. You can use a probiotic tablet (like I did here) instead of lemon juice (plus plant milk to reduce moisture) and leave the cheese at room temperature for 1-3 days to mature (like I did here).

salt – I added a generous amount of salt to mimic the characteristic saltiness of dairy feta. Of course, you can adjust the amount to your personal taste.

garlic – Traditional dairy feta definitely does not use garlic, nutritional yeast or miso paste. Flavor is obtained by allowing a bacterial culture (mesophilic) to work its magic over time. This nut-based feta needs a little help – especially if you don’t use probiotic tablets to make it – so I’ve used small amounts of garlic, nutritional yeast and occasionally a little miso paste to inject more flavor. .

MISO paste – See the point I made above. I add a small amount of white miso paste – which is fermented soy paste – to help deepen the flavor. It makes the cheese look more yellow so don’t add it if you want the resulting product to look as realistic as possible.

Nutritional Scream – This main vegan spice has a deep cheesy flavor so it helps make this vegan feta cheesy.

Tapioca starch – Tapioca starch is a thickener, although I used to make this vegan feta without it (you can), I find that a little bit of it helps the texture after baking. In theory, other thickeners like cornflour (UK) / cornstarch (US) and arrowroot powder should have a similar effect, but I haven’t used any of them here so I can’t guarantee they’ll work exactly the same.

jelly – If you want a firmer feta, set it with a small amount of agar agar before baking. I recommend using agar agar powder on the flakes, which in my experience never completely dissolve.