Cashew Cheese substitute

Best substitute

Firm Tofu With Lemon and Nutritional Yeast

1 block (about 14 oz) firm tofu plus 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast, 1 tablespoon olive oil and ¾ teaspoon salt

Best for vegan lasagna

Taste and texture differ

The best nut-free option, and genuinely convincing in baked pasta.

Other cashew cheese substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Blanched Almonds, Soaked and Blended
Close match
Use the same amount by weight of nuts, using 1 cup blanched slivered almonds plus ½ cup water
Nearly indistinguishable from cashew cheese, and usually cheaper.
What changes
Best for
vegan ricotta, dips, spreads, lasagna, crackers
Use blanched almonds with the skins removed, or you get brown specks and a tannic edge. The texture is a hair grainier than cashew unless you have a high-speed blender and the patience to run it a full two minutes, and the flavor is slightly more astringent, which actually suits a savory herb spread. It is still a tree nut, so this does not solve a nut allergy.
3Macadamia Nuts, Soaked and Blended
Close match
Use the same amount by weight, using 1 cup macadamias plus ½ cup water
Richer and softer than cashew, and the best-tasting option on this list.
What changes
Best for
cheese boards, spreads, cultured vegan cheese, dips
Macadamias are considerably higher in fat, so the result is buttery and luxuriously smooth, closer to a soft French-style cheese than to ricotta. That richness is wonderful on a cracker and slightly excessive stirred through a pasta bake. They also need less soaking, about an hour. The obvious drawback is price, and they are a tree nut.
4Sunflower Seed Cheese
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight of raw hulled sunflower seeds, soaked 4 hours, plus ½ cup water per cup of seeds
Nut-free and cheap, with a color and bitterness you have to manage.
What changes
Best for
dips, sauces, baked pasta, nut-free vegan cheese
Sunflower seeds carry chlorogenic acid, which makes them taste faintly bitter and can turn the mixture a grayish green, especially if there is baking soda anywhere nearby. Counter both with extra lemon juice and a teaspoon of maple syrup, and it comes out surprisingly good. Blend longer than you would cashews. Best hidden inside a cooked dish rather than served plain on a cracker.
5Dairy Ricotta or Whole-Milk Cottage Cheese
Different taste
Use the same amount
The obvious answer when the recipe only used cashew cheese because it was vegan.
What changes
Best for
lasagna, stuffed shells, pizza, dips
Real ricotta is richer and milder, browns properly in the oven, and does not need a blender. It is also less salty and less tangy than most cashew cheese recipes, which lean on lemon and nutritional yeast, so add a squeeze of lemon and a little extra salt to bring it into the same range. Drain cottage cheese first if you use it, or the filling will be watery.
6White Beans With Tahini
Different taste
1 can (about 15 oz) cannellini beans drained, plus 2 tablespoons tahini, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil and salt
The genuinely nut-free, budget option, and the honest least-bad choice.
What changes
Best for
baked pasta, stuffed vegetables, layered casseroles
This is worth being straight about: it does not taste like cheese. Blended cannellini beans give you the right creamy body and the tahini adds fat and a savory backbone, but there is a distinct beany flavor that nutritional yeast only partly hides. Inside a baked lasagna, under tomato sauce and herbs, it works well. Spread on a cracker and served as cheese, it will not fool anybody. Add a teaspoon of white miso for depth.

What is Cashew Cheese?

Cashew Cheese is Cashew cheese is a soft vegan cheese made by blending soaked raw cashews with water, lemon juice or vinegar, salt and usually nutritional yeast, and it appears in recipes as cashew ricotta, cashew mozzarella or cultured fermented cashew cheese.

Cooking tips

Cashew cheese is doing three things: fat for richness, salt and acid for the sharp savory bite that makes your mouth read it as cheese, and umami from the nutritional yeast. If a substitute tastes bland, it is almost always missing salt or acid rather than missing fat. Add lemon juice a teaspoon at a time until it makes you salivate slightly, then salt until it stops tasting flat.
Soak the nuts or seeds properly. Four hours in cold water, or fifteen minutes in boiling water if you are in a rush, is what lets them break down into something smooth instead of gritty. Unsoaked cashews in a standard blender give you a sandy paste that no amount of extra blending will rescue.
Cashew cheese does not stretch or melt, and that is a starch problem rather than a fat problem. If a recipe wants stretchy vegan mozzarella, whisk 2 tablespoons of tapioca starch into your blended base and cook it in a pan over medium heat, stirring, until it suddenly turns thick and glossy and pulls away from the sides. That transformation is the stretch.
For a baked dish, blend the cheese a little looser than you want the final texture. It firms noticeably in the oven as water evaporates, and a filling that was perfect in the blender often comes out dry and crumbly in a lasagna.
Cashew is a tree nut, so a recipe calling for cashew cheese is not automatically allergy-friendly. Tofu, sunflower seed and white bean versions are the routes to a nut-free dish, and sunflower seeds are the closest in behavior.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use regular cheese instead of cashew cheese?

Yes, and it will usually be easier. Ricotta swaps in one for one for cashew ricotta, and low-moisture mozzarella replaces cashew mozzarella with far better melting and browning. Dairy versions are milder and less salty than most cashew cheese recipes, so add a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of extra salt if the dish tastes flat by comparison.

Can I leave the cashew cheese out?

Usually not, because it is the filling or the topping rather than a seasoning. A lasagna without it is just pasta and sauce, and a vegan dip without it has no body. The one exception is where a recipe scatters a small amount over the top for richness, which you can replace with a drizzle of good olive oil and a handful of toasted breadcrumbs and still eat happily.

Why is my cashew cheese substitute gritty?

Either the nuts were not soaked long enough or the blender is not powerful enough to break down the cell walls. Fix it by soaking longer, adding a couple more tablespoons of water so the blades can create a vortex, and blending in one-minute bursts with scraping in between. If it is still gritty, boiling the soaked nuts for ten minutes before blending softens them considerably.

What is the best nut-free substitute for cashew cheese?

Crumbled firm tofu seasoned with lemon juice, nutritional yeast, olive oil and salt, which is the most convincing for anything ricotta-style. Soaked raw sunflower seeds are the closest in behavior if you want something blendable and spreadable, though slightly bitter and grayer in color. Blended white beans with tahini is the cheapest and works best hidden inside a baked dish.

Does cashew cheese need to be fermented?

No. Fermented or cultured cashew cheese, made with probiotic capsules or a rejuvelac starter and left at room temperature for a day or two, has more complexity and a real cheesy funk. But an unfermented version made with lemon juice and salt is what the vast majority of recipes mean, takes ten minutes, and works fine in lasagna, dips and pizza.

Related substitutes

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Cashew Cheese substitute

Other cashew cheese substitutes

2Blanched Almonds, Soaked and Blended

3Macadamia Nuts, Soaked and Blended

4Sunflower Seed Cheese

5Dairy Ricotta or Whole-Milk Cottage Cheese

6White Beans With Tahini