Cow-free cheese experiments

Ever since we successfully got our household off dairy milk late last year (not counting the occasional latte bought away from home), I've been thinking about ways to eliminate, or at least cut down on, our use of other dairy products, particularly cheese. One approach is simply to leave out the cheese whenever possible; for example, we tried making a batch of our favorite Full Meal Burritos (from The Clueless Vegetarian) without the cheese, substituting some sliced avocado instead for the texture variation, and that seemed to work pretty well. But it's not really an option for a meal that relies on cheese as a primary ingredient, such as pizza.

So we were intrigued to see, on a recent visit to Trader Joe's, not one but two shredded mozzarella substitutes made from non-dairy milk. The only vegan mozzarella we'd tried so far, Daiya, had proved somewhat disappointing; the flavor was okay, but the texture wasn't the same as real cheese. It also cost something like $11.50 a pound (a little over $5 for a 7-ounce package), while these two products were only $7 a pound. That was still more than three times what we normally pay for mozzarella (since we typically buy it only when it goes on sale for $2 a pound), but it was less than the cost of the fresh mozzarella we occasionally spring for at the farmers' market, so it was at least within our splurge price range. Certainly it was low enough to be worth a test.

The product we opted to try first, Trader Joe's "Almond Mozzarella Style Shreds Cheese Alternative," wasn't technically vegan; its ingredient list included casein (a milk protein) and "natural parmesan cheese flavor," which was made from, basically, a small amount of parmesan cheese. But since its main ingredient was almond milk rather than dairy milk, it would presumably have a significantly lower carbon footprint than real mozzarella, which was what we were after. And when we tried some on a veggie pizza, the results initially looked encouraging. The not-quite-vegan cheese looked like real mozzarella, and it appeared to stretch like real mozzarella when we sliced into the pie. But when we bit into our slices, we found it didn't quite taste like real mozzarella - didn't taste like much of anything, in fact. It had the soft, melty mouthfeel of the real thing (possibly due to the casein), and the flavor was mild and slightly salty, as you'd expect, but it just didn't have the tang that makes cheese taste like cheese. It was perfectly inoffensive, and we were able to finish up the pizza without a problem, but without the same relish as usual.

So, on our next trip to the store, we picked up a package of the second product, Trader Joe's "Vegan Mozzarella Style Shreds." As it says on the package, this one is truly vegan, containing no casein, and this was apparent in the the texture of the raw shreds, which were rather more crumbly and less soft and chewy than real mozzarella. But what threw us most for a loop when we bit into them was the flavor, which was quite a bit more pungent than you'd expect from mozzarella. To my palate, it had the flavor of a much stronger cheese, something along the lines of Manchego, which neither of us cares for very much. But we decided to reserve judgment until we'd seen how it performed on top of an actual pizza.

Brian used these shreds on his butternut squash pizza, and it was apparent as soon as the pie came out of the oven that they weren't performing quite like real cheese. Although the shreds had indeed melted over the top of the pizza as they should, the surface of the pie had an odd sort of oily, slippery look to it. And when we tasted the pizza, it was clear that this peculiarity wasn't just a matter of looks. Although the flavor of the cheese in its melted form was still stronger than what we're used to, it probably wouldn't have been too off-putting by itself; it was the texture that we both found weird and disturbing. It was oddly sticky, almost gluey, as if the pie had been coated in some sort of mucilage instead of cheese. Brian was able to tolerate it, but I only made it halfway through my slice before giving up in disgust.

So, in short, neither of these products was really an adequate substitute for genuine mozzarella. I had a half-baked idea that maybe, if we combined the two, we might get somewhat better results; since the first one had an acceptable texture but no discernible flavor, while the second had a stronger flavor and an objectionable texture, I thought splitting the difference might give us something not ideal, but maybe closer to what we had in mind. But since neither the flavor nor the texture of the vegan cheese was really right, Brian thought this was unlikely to yield anything close to mozzarella. Combining the almond mozzarella style shreds with Daiya, which had the right flavor but not the right texture, might work a little better, but both the flavor and the texture would still be only halfway right.

Perhaps a better option would be to use the almond mozzarella style shreds, but top them with something else that could give them a flavor boost. A bit of nutritional yeast, for instance, might give this mild-mannered cheese substitute the extra umami it needs to make it a truly reasonable cheese substitute. Or, maybe we should just keep exploring other commercial alternatives. I'm pretty sure I've seen a brand of vegan mozzarella shreds in the refrigerator case at our local Stop & Shop that we haven't used before, so maybe that one is worth a try.

And if that still doesn't work for us, maybe we should look into the possibility of making our own. I found a recipe on It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken labeled "The Best Vegan Mozzarella," which the author claims can be whipped up in just five minutes of hands-on time—far less time than it took us to make real mozzarella at home the one time we tried it. And while the pictures on her site seem to suggest that it doesn't quite melt like real mozzarella, it certainly looks better than the Trader Joe's vegan shreds. (It does call for one hard-to-find ingredient, kappa carageenan, but she links to a source for that online.) The biggest downside is that you have to use it within a week, so we'd have to make small batches for immediate use. But it would be interesting as an experiment, even if it proved impractical for everyday use.