Oat Cream substitute

Best substitute

Cashew Cream

¾ cup raw cashews blended with ¾ cup water makes about 1 cup

Best for pasta sauce

Close match

Blended cashew cream is the best swap for anything you are simmering: 3/4 cup raw cashews blended with 3/4 cup water makes 1 cup, and unlike oat cream it will never split. Soy cream goes in one for one and is the closest carton match. Full-fat canned coconut milk works one for one too but brings coconut flavor. If dairy is fine, single cream or half-and-half is the closest thing of all.

Other oat cream substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Soy Cream
Close match
Use the same amount
The closest carton-to-carton swap, more neutral but quicker to curdle.
What changes
Best for
pasta sauce, quiche, soups, gravy, mashed potatoes
Soy cream lacks the gentle sweetness of oat, so savory sauces taste cleaner and need slightly less salt correction. The catch is that soy protein coagulates when acid meets high heat, so stirring lemon juice or wine into a boiling soy cream sauce will split it in seconds. Get the sauce where you want it, pull the pan off the burner, then add the acid. Like oat cream, it will not whip.
3Full-Fat Canned Coconut Milk
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Richer and more forgiving in heat, with an unmistakable coconut aroma.
What changes
Best for
curries, tomato cream sauce, spiced soups, chocolate desserts
It is roughly double the fat of oat cream, so sauces come out plusher and thicken more as they cool. The coconut smell is invisible in a curry, a chilli or a chocolate dessert and immediately obvious in a mushroom sauce or a carbonara-style pasta. Add extra salt, a teaspoon of lemon juice and a little nutritional yeast to push it toward savory. Never use light coconut milk here, which is mostly water.
4Single Cream or Half-and-Half
Different taste
Use the same amount
The closest thing on fat and behavior, if the dish does not need to be dairy-free.
What changes
Best for
pasta sauce, soups, quiche, gratins, coffee
Oat cream was designed to imitate single cream, so this is the reference point rather than a compromise. It has no oat sweetness, so savory sauces taste more straightforwardly savory, and it reduces into a clinging sauce better than oat cream does. Like oat cream, it is too low in fat to whip, and it can curdle if boiled hard with acid.
5Oat Milk Plus Vegan Butter
Different texture
1 cup oat milk plus 2 tablespoons vegan butter, warmed together
The ninety-second emergency version, with real limits.
What changes
Best for
creamy soups, mashed potatoes, gravy, scalloped potatoes
This gets you the oat flavor and roughly the fat, which is enough to enrich a soup or loosen a mash. What it will not do is reduce into a sauce that coats pasta, because there is no emulsifier holding the fat and water together and it separates into a greasy film if you boil it. Use it where the cream is stirred in at the end, not where it is being cooked down.
6Blended Silken Tofu
Taste and texture differ
1 block (about 12 oz) silken tofu plus 1 tablespoon neutral oil, blended smooth
Nut-free and oven-stable, and prone to tasting flat unless you season hard.
What changes
Best for
quiche filling, baked pasta, creamy soups, savory tarts
Blend it far longer than seems necessary, until no chalkiness remains. It thickens soups beautifully and holds in the oven without weeping, which is why it is a staple of vegan quiche. On its own it tastes of almost nothing with a slight bean edge, so it needs aggressive salt, garlic, nutritional yeast and acid. It does not brown and it does not whip.

What is Oat Cream?

Oat Cream is a pourable oat-based cream carrying roughly the fat of British single cream, sold as oat single cream, oat cooking cream or under brand names like Oatly Creamy Oat, and its job in a recipe is to add fat and body to a sauce or soup without splitting when it meets heat or acid, though it will not whip.

Cooking tips

The most useful fact about oat cream is that it will not whip. It has nowhere near enough saturated fat to build the solid fat network that holds a peak, so no amount of chilling or beating will get it there. Only cartons explicitly labeled whippable will do it. If a recipe needs whipped cream, use chilled coconut cream solids or a whippable carton, and expect a softer peak and a coconut note.
It is doing two jobs: supplying fat for richness and body for texture, with a faint natural sweetness from the oats riding along. That sweetness is the thing people miss. A savory sauce made with oat cream needs more salt and a squeeze of lemon than the same sauce made with dairy, or it tastes vaguely like dessert.
It thickens as it reduces but never as much as dairy cream does, because it has less fat and less protein. If you need a sauce that clings to pasta, finish it with a teaspoon of cornstarch slurried in a tablespoon of cold water and let it bubble for a minute.
Do not boil it hard with wine, lemon juice or a lot of tomato in the pan. Like most plant creams it destabilizes when acid meets high heat and goes grainy. Cook the sauce first, take it off the heat, then add the acid. A stick blender will usually rescue a split sauce.
An opened carton keeps only three to five days in the fridge even though it was shelf-stable before opening, and it separates as it sits, which is normal. Shake it before pouring.

Frequently asked questions

Can you whip oat cream?

Standard oat cooking cream, no. There is not enough saturated fat to form the structure that holds air, so it stays liquid however long you beat it and however cold it is. Some brands sell a separate whippable oat cream with added fats and stabilizers, and that one works if the carton, bowl and beaters are all properly cold. For a reliably firm vegan whipped cream, chilled coconut cream solids are still the best route.

Can I use oat milk instead of oat cream?

Not straight, because oat milk has a fraction of the fat and your sauce will be thin and watery. Warm one cup of oat milk with two tablespoons of vegan butter to get roughly into the right fat range. That works well stirred into soup or mashed potatoes, but it will not reduce down into a proper coating sauce, so use cashew cream or coconut milk if the sauce needs to thicken.

Can I just leave the oat cream out?

In a soup, yes, and you can compensate by blending in a cooked potato or a handful of soaked cashews for body. In a pasta sauce, a quiche filling or a gratin, the cream is supplying the fat and the texture that define the dish, and leaving it out gives you something watery. Substitute rather than omit there.

Why did my oat cream sauce split?

Almost certainly acid plus a hard boil. Wine, lemon juice or a large amount of tomato added to bubbling oat cream will make it go grainy and separate. Cook the sauce to the consistency you want, take the pan off the heat, let it settle for a minute, then stir in the acid. If it has already split, a stick blender usually brings it back together. Cashew cream avoids the problem entirely.

Is oat cream the same as oat milk or coconut cream?

No, they sit at three different fat levels. Oat milk is thin, roughly comparable to skim or semi-skimmed milk in body. Oat cream is around single cream, meaning it enriches a sauce but cannot whip. Canned coconut cream is much higher in fat than either, rich enough to whip when chilled, and it carries a strong coconut flavor that oat cream does not.

Related substitutes

More dairy alternatives substitutes

Oat Cream substitute

Other oat cream substitutes

2Soy Cream

3Full-Fat Canned Coconut Milk

4Single Cream or Half-and-Half

5Oat Milk Plus Vegan Butter

6Blended Silken Tofu