How to Make or Buy Vegan Cottage Cheese
Cottage cheese is very popular, as a low-fat filling for baked potatoes, and a nice addition to a salad. However, as more people go dairy-free, it’s good to know how to make your own plant-based version. As for the most part, there are still very few store-bought varieties on sale.
This dairy-free cottage cheese (Easy and Cozy Recipes) is by a professional chef. All you need is firm tofu, lemon juice, salt and nutritional yeast (or white miso paste – not for pregnancy/nursing due to being unpasteurised).
Keep plant-based cottage cheese away from pets, due to salt, chives, nuts etc. Read more on food safety for people & pets.
Don’t compost leftover chives, as acids could harm compost creatures (just bin to naturally break down).
What is Cottage Cheese?
Cottage cheese was first ‘invented’ as a meat substitute during the First World War, made by European immigrants in the USA, to reduce food waste from leftover milk curds. It became a protein-rich wartime staple.
Apparently just before he had to resign due to the Watergate Scandal, former president Richard Nixon (who usually enjoyed eating cottage cheese with ketchup) had a ‘last presidential lunch’ of cottage cheese with pineapple.
Of course, today many people eat it, as it’s lower in fat than conventional cheese. But for those of us who lived a plant-based lifestyle (whether that’s for animal welfare, the planet or health), it’s something that most brands and stores have not yet managed to replicate.
Mostly served either on celery sticks or jacket potatoes, it’s rather tasty. So the good news is that now you can learn to make it yourself – or in a pinch, buy it!
Cottage cheese is made by adding an acid to pasteurised milk, to form curds that are then drained. It’s thought the name simply comes from the fact, that the immigrants lived in small cottages, who first created it. The resulting ‘lumpy cheese is low in carbs, so often popular with people on diets.
How to Make Your Own Vegan Cottage Cheese
This cottage cheese (Go Dairy-Free) adds in white miso, a tasty condiment from Japan. Don’t make this recipe is pregnant/nursing or for children/weak immunity, as miso is unpasteurised.
This version from Easy Healthy Recipes is made with herbs, salt and silken tofu, plus cashew nuts (but you have to remember to soak them first!)
5-Minute Vegan Cottage Cheese (My Quiet Kitchen) was an accidental creation, when realising a ricotta recipe tasted the same. All you need is some firm tofu, plain plant-based yoghurt, lemon juice, salt and garlic powder.
Once you mashed the drained mashed tofu with the other ingredients and marinate it in the fridge for an hour, you’ve got a nice condiment to eat with crackers, or even serve with Italian food. You can add optional herbs, or even use it as a sub for sour cream in recipes. It won’t keep for long in the fridge, so eat it up quickly, giving it a quick stir, if the ingredients separate.
Quick & Easy Vegan Cottage Cheese (It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken) is served on cantaloupe melon (if you do this, be sure to store it away from other foods, as it has to be treated like meat, due to a slight risk of salmonella (the melon that is, not the cottage cheese)
This recipe seasons silken tofu instead, with salt and lemon juice, alongside cheesy tasting nutritional yeast, which is rich in vitamin B12 (find it in health shops, if you can’t find it in supermarkets).
Here is an easy visual of ingredients needed to make vegan cottage cheese (Ela Vegan). All you need is:
- Tofu
- Plant-based yoghurt
- Vinegar and spices
- Chopped chives (keep away from pets)
Where to Buy Vegan Cottage Cheese
You can buy Cottage Drops online, made with organic soybeans and almond puree. Made in a solar factory with a wood chip boiler to reduce carbon, it’s lovely on baked potatoes or a slab of bread. This is from a German food brand (Germany has more vegans by ratio than anywhere on earth, so it’s not surprising that this has become the first country to launch a plant-based version).
You can also now buy artisan almond cottage cheese. Yogan is a Portuguese food brand, this one is made with fermented almond milk, rich in protein yet low in saturated fat. Created by two foodie entrepreneurs, this contains the best ingredients, after they missed cottage cheese, but struggled to find alternatives. Try on toast or crackers, or on baked potatoes. Store chilled, and eat within 3 days of opening.
For home delivery, keep dry ice away from children and pets. And dispose or recycle, as per instructions.
Why Are People Giving Up Dairy?
No-one denies that a small organic dairy farmer treats his cows well. But the big dairy industry (from where most dairy milk is produced – especially for all the by-products used in ready-meals etc) has huge welfare concerns.
In the UK, most male calves (of no financial use to the dairy industry – separate from beef industry) are shot dead, soon after birth.
Many cows spend their entire lives in factory farms, being inseminated and giving birth, then having their calves taken from them. Cows and calves form incredibly strong relationships, and will cry out loudly for weeks, if separated.
Some organisations are helping dairy farmers to transfarm over to growing more profitable oats, giving seeds and training. Remaining animals are then left to live out their lives in peace, akin to farm sanctuaries.
