Best vegan cheese brands: 8 checked, 1 to skip

Our pick for most kitchens is Violife’s Just Like Mozzarella Shreds, certified by the Vegan Society and free of nuts, soy and gluten. For a cheese board, take Treeline’s aged cashew cheese. Skip any cheddar that sells itself on lactose and rennet: Cabot’s has 0 g of lactose and no animal rennet, and it is made from milk.

Cabot’s own FAQ is a run of true statements. Its cheddar contains 0 g of lactose per serving, because most of the lactose leaves with the whey and the rest breaks down as the cheese ages. The enzyme that sets the curd is microbial, and Cabot says it is approved for vegetarians. Each line answers a real worry. Add them up and you have a block of dairy cheddar, which the same FAQ describes being made by separating milk into curds and whey. Lactose-free is a sugar claim, and no animal rennet is an enzyme claim. Neither says anything about the milk, and our guide to checking ingredients for animal products covers the casein and whey that turn up in the same aisle.

The seven below contain no milk by their makers’ own accounts. What they contain instead is mostly starch, oil and nuts, and that shows up on the nutrition panel.

Which vegan cheese for which job

Cheese	Made from	Protein per serving	Price on the maker’s site	Skip it if
Violife Just Like Mozzarella Shreds	Coconut oil and starches	0 g per 1/4 cup	Not listed	You want protein from your cheese
Treeline Classic Aged Artisanal Cashew Cheese	Cashews	4 g per 2 tbsp	$7.99, 4 oz	Anyone at the table has a tree nut allergy
Miyoko’s Classic Cashew Milk Mozzarella	Cultured cashew milk, coconut oil	Under 1 g per oz	$8.99, 8 oz	You need a nut-free pizza
Follow Your Heart Smoked Gouda Style Slices	Starch, coconut and sunflower oil	0 g per slice	Not listed	You want the label to tell you about allergens
Daiya Cheddar Shreds	Oat cream blend, starches, coconut oil	Not on the page we read	Not listed	A bag lasts you longer than a week once open
Babybel Plant-Based	Starch, fava bean protein, coconut oil	1 g per piece	Not listed	Someone you feed has a milk allergy
Rebel Cheese Cave-Aged Classic Brie	Cashews, fava bean protein	Not on the page we read	$21, 5.6 oz	You are buying one cheese and can’t wait for a box
Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar	Milk	7 g per 28 g	$4.09, 8 oz	Always, if you are buying vegan

The eight cheeses, label by label

Prices are what each maker’s US site showed when we read it in November 2026, and several makers sell through stores only and list no price. Shelf prices vary by store and move often. Nothing here says how a cheese tastes or melts in your oven; where a maker makes a claim about melting, it is the maker’s claim.

Violife Just Like Mozzarella Shreds

This is the bag to buy for pizza night, and the reason is the allergen list more than the cheese. Violife says the shreds are free from dairy, soy, gluten, lactose and nuts, certified by the Vegan Society, Non-GMO Project Verified and kosher. Of the maker pages we read, Violife’s is the only one that lists nuts among the things its cheese is free from, and three of the seven vegan cheeses here are built on cashews.

The ingredients are water, coconut oil, modified tapioca and potato starch, potato starch, sea salt, glucose and calcium phosphate, among others, and the list includes lentil protein. The nutrition panel then gives protein as 0 g per 1/4 cup serving. Both can be true: the federal rule lets a label round any amount under half a gram down to zero. That same serving carries 6 g of saturated fat, 30% of the Daily Value, plus 130 mg of calcium and 0.7 mcg of vitamin B12.

Buy it for melting on bread. Skip it if your cheese is doing the job of a protein in the meal, because on this label it isn’t.

Treeline Classic Aged Artisanal Cashew Cheese

For a cheese board, this is our pick. The ingredient list is six items long: cashews, filtered water, smoked sea salt, lactic acid, sea salt and cultures. Treeline says it uses no palm or coconut oil, and the panel shows 4 g of protein and 2 g of saturated fat per 2 tbsp serving. That is the highest protein figure of the vegan cheeses here that publish one.

It is a 4 oz wheel at $7.99 on Treeline’s own store, which showed it out of stock online when we read it. The label says it contains tree nuts. Do not put it out for a guest with a tree nut allergy. Treeline pitches it for crackers and for grating over pasta or salad; for pizza and lasagna it sells a separate cashew mozzarella block, which it says melts.

Miyoko’s Classic Cashew Milk Mozzarella

Miyoko’s makes its fresh mozzarella from organic cultured cashew milk, organic coconut oil and tapioca starch, with agar and konjac, and the label says it contains cashews. Per 1 oz serving it lists 60 calories, 3.5 g of saturated fat and under 1 g of protein, and Miyoko’s lists the 8 oz package at $8.99. The site showed it as not available to buy online when we read it, so this is a shelf purchase.

It is the soft, fresh kind of mozzarella, the one you slice for a tomato salad, rather than a bag of shreds. The cashew base rules it out for the same guest Violife suits. If you want the cashew flavor on pizza, Miyoko’s also sells a pourable cashew milk mozzarella.

Follow Your Heart Smoked Gouda Style Slices

A pack of 10 slices, built on water, modified food starch, coconut oil and high oleic sunflower oil, with natural smoke flavors and potato protein further down the list. Like Violife’s shreds, it lists a protein ingredient and prints 0 g of protein on the panel, here per 20 g slice. Each slice carries 60 calories, 3.5 g of saturated fat and 140 mg of calcium.

Follow Your Heart’s page marks it vegan, dairy-free, soy-free and gluten-free. What the page we read did not have was an allergen statement or a word about shared equipment, so if you are buying for an allergy, the package in your hand is the thing to read. For a sandwich it is the most convenient format here.

Daiya Cheddar Shreds

Daiya builds its shreds on what it calls an oat cream blend: water, gluten-free oat flour, pea protein, cultures and enzymes, followed by tapioca starch, coconut oil, corn starch and safflower oil. Daiya’s FAQ says its products are dairy-free, and that for other allergens they may be made on shared lines, in a facility with them, or contain them. The page we read showed no nutrition figures.

The detail worth knowing is on the instructions: keep refrigerated, best within 7 days after opening, and the shreds may be frozen. A household that uses a bag a fortnight should freeze half of it the day it opens. If you were counting on a long fridge life, this is the wrong bag.

Babybel Plant-Based

The snack is certified vegan, Babybel says, and made from water, modified potato starch, fava bean protein, refined coconut oil and sunflower oil, with vitamin B12 added. Each 20 g piece has 35 calories, 1 g of fat and 1 g of protein, with 140 mg of calcium. Babybel says the current recipe has 1 g of fat against 3 g in the previous one.

Then there is the note the maker’s own page flags as important. The plant-based Babybel is made on equipment that also processes milk. For a vegan that is a manufacturing note. For a child with a milk allergy it is the reason to leave this in the store, however vegan the wrapper says it is.

Rebel Cheese Cave-Aged Classic Brie

The cheese board splurge, and an online order rather than a supermarket one. Rebel Cheese makes its brie from water, organic cashews, salt, fava bean protein, an enzyme and cultures, and says it is vegan and dairy-free and cave-aged for more than two weeks. A 5.6 oz round is $21.

It ships cold, in an insulated box with ice packs that Rebel says keep it at 40°F or below for 48 hours in transit. Once opened, eat it within 7 days, and don’t freeze it: Rebel says freezing may change the texture of its bries. Shipping is reduced on orders of $80 or more, which nudges you toward a box of several cheeses. Skip it if you want one brie for one evening without paying to chill a parcel.

Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar

Do not buy this one if you are buying vegan. It is on this list because its labels answer questions that sound close to a vegan’s. Cabot’s FAQ tells shoppers to look for the 0 grams of lactose icon on the pack, and its line about enzymes settles the rennet question. Neither touches the milk. Cabot’s FAQ says its cheddars contain 0 g of lactose per serving and are made with a microbial enzyme approved for vegetarians, and it describes the curd being separated from milk. The 8 oz block is $4.09 on Cabot’s store and carries 7 g of protein per 28 g serving. It is a cheese a lactose-intolerant vegetarian can eat, and a vegan can’t.

Why the protein line reads 0 g

Put the protein column of the table next to the cheddar. Cabot’s dairy block has 7 g in 28 g. Treeline’s cashew wheel, the closest any vegan cheese here comes, has 4 g in the same 28 g. Miyoko’s mozzarella has under 1 g per ounce. Violife’s shreds and Follow Your Heart’s slices both print 0 g, although both list a plant protein among their ingredients.

The zero is rounding. Under 21 CFR 101.9, protein is stated to the nearest gram, and a serving with less than 0.5 g may be listed as zero. So a 0 on the panel means under half a gram per serving, and the lentil or potato protein is there in an amount too small to count. If a sandwich is your main protein of the day, read that column before you swap: a 20 g slice of Follow Your Heart’s gouda brings 0 g, against 7 g in 28 g of Cabot’s cheddar.

How to check a cheese label yourself

Read past the front. On Cabot’s cheddar, “0 g of lactose” and “no animal rennet” both describe a milk cheese. The word you want is vegan or dairy-free, and then the ingredient list to confirm it.

Look for casein, caseinate and whey. All three come from milk, and they are how milk gets into products that sound like they have none, the same pattern our list of everyday foods that turn out not to be vegan runs through.

Then read the allergen note separately from the vegan claim. Babybel’s plant-based cheese is certified vegan and made on equipment that also handles milk, and Daiya says shared lines are possible for allergens other than dairy. Three of the seven vegan cheeses here are cashew-based.

Last, check the date once the pack is open. Daiya gives its shreds 7 days, and Rebel Cheese gives its brie the same.

A grilled cheese needs the butter as much as the cheese, and our roundup of vegan butters for baking and cooking has the ones that pass.