Best vegan butter for baking: 7 sticks and shortenings compared

For most baking, buy Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks. They are Certified Vegan, about 79% fat by our arithmetic, and the maker says each stick stands in for half a cup of butter. Use the Soy Free version in a soy-free kitchen, Spectrum’s organic shortening for pie crust, and Miyoko’s unsalted cashew butter when the butter is the flavor.

The page this one replaces had a sister post on cholesterol, which said vegan butter carries about half the saturated fat of dairy butter. That holds for Earth Balance’s sticks, at 3.5 g a tablespoon, against about 7.2 g in a tablespoon of unsalted dairy butter by USDA’s figures (our arithmetic for the tablespoon). It does not hold for Miyoko’s European Style Cashew Milk Butter. Its label lists 8 g of saturated fat a tablespoon, 40% of the Daily Value, which is more than the dairy butter it replaces. Coconut oil is its first ingredient. So “vegan butter” settles whether there is an animal in the pack and says nothing about the fat. How long each of these keeps once open is a separate question, answered in our guide to whether vegan butter goes bad.

What the number on the box means

Dairy butter has a legal floor. US law defines it as made from milk or cream and containing at least 80% milk fat by weight. Margarine has the same 80% floor, from plant or animal fat. A product under 80% fat cannot be called margarine, and the trade names it a spread instead. That is why Earth Balance’s sticks, which Conagra recommends for baking, carry the full name “Vegan Buttery Sticks, 78% Vegetable Oil Spread”. They are a hair under the line.

The nutrition panel lets you check any of them. Divide the grams of fat in a serving by the serving’s weight and you have the fat share, near enough, since labels round. Here is what that gives on the products below, with USDA’s unsalted dairy butter for comparison.

Product	Form	Fat per serving, per the label	Fat share, our arithmetic	Saturated fat per tablespoon	Vegan, per the maker
Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks	4 sticks, 16 oz	11 g in 14 g	About 79%	3.5 g	Certified Vegan by vegan.org
Earth Balance Soy Free Buttery Sticks	4 sticks, 16 oz	11 g in 14 g	About 79%	3.5 g	Yes
Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks with Olive Oil	Sticks, 16 oz	11 g in 14 g	About 79%	5 g	Yes, all its Plant Butters
Miyoko’s European Style Cashew Milk Butter, Unsalted	8 oz	10 g in 14 g	About 71%	8 g	Yes, all its butters
Miyoko’s Oat Milk Butter, Salted	12 oz	9 g in 14 g	About 64%	4.5 g	Yes, all its butters
Melt Organic Plant Butter Sticks, Unsalted	2 sticks, 8 oz	Not on the page we read	Not known	Not on the page we read	No vegan wording; free of dairy and common allergens
Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening	24 oz	Not in the page text	One ingredient, organic palm oil	Not in the page text	No vegan wording
Dairy butter, unsalted (reference)	USDA data	11.5 g in 14.2 g	About 81%	About 7.2 g	No

The three sticks land within a rounding error of each other. The two Miyoko’s butters sit lower, and the oat one is the lowest fat share in the set. These labels do not give water content. On the Earth Balance panel, protein and carbohydrate are both 0 g, so the other 3 g of its tablespoon is water and salt, by our arithmetic. Oklahoma State’s food processing center says high-water spreads are not preferred for baking. That note is about diet spreads, not a 64% butter, so read it as a direction rather than a verdict on the oat tub. Our own line for baking is to reach for something near 80%.

The seven, one by one

Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks

Our pick for cookies, cakes and anything that starts with “cream the butter and sugar”. Conagra’s SmartLabel page lists the sticks as Certified Vegan by vegan.org, non-dairy, gluten free and free of hydrogenated oils, and says each stick substitutes for half a cup of butter. That last line is the practical one. USDA puts a stick of dairy butter at 113 g and a cup at 227 g, so a recipe written in sticks of butter needs no conversion.

The oils are palm, canola, soybean and flaxseed, with water, salt and, under 2%, natural flavor, soy protein isolate, olive oil, organic soy lecithin, lactic acid and annatto. The allergen line is soy. Per tablespoon: 11 g of fat, 3.5 g saturated, 0 mg cholesterol and 120 mg sodium. That sodium is worth a thought in a recipe that also calls for salt. Salt is the third ingredient in the stick, so taste the dough before adding the recipe’s own pinch. Don’t buy these for a soy allergy. The next ones are for that.

Earth Balance Soy Free Buttery Sticks

Same 78% vegetable oil spread name, same 11 g of fat and 3.5 g of saturated fat a tablespoon, same half-cup-a-stick instruction and the same baking recommendation on the page. The oils change to palm and canola with a little olive oil, and the protein is pea protein isolate with sunflower lecithin in place of the soy. The claims list says vegan, soy free, gluten free and non-GMO. If anyone at the table avoids soy, this is the stick, and there is no reason a baker without that problem should pay more attention to it than that.

Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks with Olive Oil

Country Crock says all of its Plant Butters are vegan and dairy-free, and tells you to substitute them for dairy butter one-for-one in cooking and baking. The olive sticks list palm fruit, palm kernel, olive and canola oils, water, salt, pea protein, glucose, sunflower lecithin, citric acid, natural flavor and beta carotene. A tablespoon has 11 g of fat and 5 g of it is saturated, the highest of the three sticks.

Then there is the allergen line. The page says “Contains Soy” under an ingredient list with no soy in it, and a footnote telling you to check the packaging for the latest ingredients. The page does not say which of the two to trust beyond the box, so read the box. Olive oil is third of four oils; buy these for the stick, not for the olive. An avocado oil version sits beside them, with avocado in the olive’s place and the same “Contains Soy” line.

Miyoko’s European Style Cashew Milk Butter, Unsalted

The one with a flavor of its own. It is organic coconut oil, cultured cashew milk, water and sunflower oil, with sunflower lecithin and natural flavors under 2%, and Miyoko’s says all its butters are vegan, including the cultures. The maker calls the unsalted butter perfect for baking and a 1:1 swap in any recipe. The description above it promises “the perfect hint of sea salt”, on the unsalted butter, whose sodium is 0 mg. Trust the panel.

The panel is also where the catch is. 10 g of fat in a 14 g tablespoon, about 71% by our arithmetic, and 8 g of it saturated. It contains cashews, so it is out for a tree nut allergy. The 8 oz pack is listed at $6.49 on Miyoko’s site, which sends you to a store finder rather than selling it there. In September, retailers pulled one lot of the salted version, lot 1007871, for potential E. coli; Wegmans lists it as a recall. That lot is the salted butter, not this one. Buy this when the butter is something you will taste, in shortbread or a butter cake, and use a stick for the rest.

Miyoko’s Oat Milk Butter, Salted

Organic high oleic sunflower oil, cultured whole grain oat milk and coconut oil, with lecithin, sea salt, mushroom extract, natural flavors and plant colors. 9 g of fat and 4.5 g saturated in a 14 g tablespoon, in a 12 oz pack. Miyoko’s says this butter can bake, and it probably can, but at about 64% fat it is the furthest from 80% of anything in the table. The page itself is a little confused. Its description talks about cashew milk, which this butter does not contain. Use it on toast. For baking we would take the cashew butter or a stick, both nearer the 80% that a recipe written for dairy butter was built around.

Melt Organic Plant Butter Sticks, Unsalted

Of the sticks we read, Melt’s are the only unsalted ones. The unsalted sticks come 2 to an 8 oz pack and are an organic blend of coconut, high oleic sunflower and palm fruit oils, with water, sunflower lecithin, organic natural flavor, tocopherols and annatto. Melt says its butter is free of all common allergens, including dairy, soy, nuts and gluten. Two things are missing from the page we read. There is no nutrition panel in the text, so we cannot give you a fat share, and the products page does not use the word vegan. The list reads plant-only. If you need unsalted sticks and no top-9 allergens, this is the pack, and it is the one we would most like to see a nutrition panel for.

Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening

One ingredient: organic palm oil, Fair Trade Certified. Spectrum sells it for baking and cooking with a neutral taste, never hydrogenated, in a 24 oz tub, and closes its description with “just imagine what it does for a pie crust”. That is the job we would give it. With palm oil as the whole list there is no water in it and no butter flavor either, which makes it our choice for a crust under a filling and the wrong fat for a butter cookie.

Spectrum’s page does not say vegan. With one plant ingredient there is nothing left to ask about. If the palm oil itself is your question, the Fair Trade line is what Spectrum offers on it, and that is a different question from whether it is vegan.

The shortening we can’t call vegan

Crisco’s All-Vegetable Shortening Baking Sticks come as one-cup sticks, 6.7 oz each, and list soybean oil, fully hydrogenated palm oil, palm oil, mono and diglycerides, and TBHQ and citric acid as antioxidants. The page says kosher pareve and gluten free, and nothing about vegan. Crisco’s page does not say where the mono and diglycerides come from, and our page on whether monoglycerides are vegan explains why that is the question. On this site, unknown is not vegan, so it stays off the list, one-cup sticks and all. If Crisco ever states the source, it goes straight in.

Saturated fat and cholesterol, label by label

This is the part of the old cholesterol post worth keeping, with the numbers checked. The Earth Balance Vegan sticks and both Miyoko’s butters print 0 mg of cholesterol, and Country Crock lists its olive sticks as not a significant source of cholesterol. A tablespoon of unsalted dairy butter has about 30.5 mg by USDA’s figures (our arithmetic). On cholesterol, the swap does what it says.

Saturated fat is where the products part company. Per tablespoon, the labels give Earth Balance 3.5 g (18% of the Daily Value), Country Crock’s olive sticks 5 g (25%), Miyoko’s oat butter 4.5 g (23%) and Miyoko’s cashew butter 8 g (40%). Crisco’s own page compares its 3.5 g with 7 g in butter. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2025 to 2030 say saturated fat should in general not exceed 10% of total daily calories. We are not going to tell you what that means for your heart; the guidelines are the source for the limit, and the Daily Value on each panel is the quickest way to see how much of a day one tablespoon uses. If saturated fat is the reason you are choosing, the Earth Balance sticks are the lowest of the butters with a published panel and Miyoko’s cashew butter is the highest.

Buying it

Buy Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks for everyday baking and the Soy Free sticks if soy is a problem. Keep a tub of Spectrum for pie crust. Buy Miyoko’s unsalted cashew butter for the bakes where butter is the point, and check the lot code on any Miyoko’s salted pack against the recall. Leave the oat tub for toast, and leave Crisco’s sticks on the shelf until Crisco says where its mono and diglycerides come from.

The crust is half of a holiday pie, and our roundup of store-bought vegan Christmas food covers the ready-made crusts, including the Pillsbury ones made with lard.

The best vegan butter for baking: 7 checked, and the cashew one with more saturated fat than dairy

What the number on the box means