Dairy-free hits and misses

In our ongoing quest to reduce our use of dairy products, Brian and I are continuing to experiment with new substitutes for the few remaining cow-based products in our diets. In the past month, we've tried two new nondairy alternatives—one successful, one not so much.

The successful one was a coconut whipped topping that we found at Trader Joe's. Back when we first started down the dairy-free path over a year ago, this was the first place I looked for a whipped cream alternative, since I'd seen some very good reviews of their coconut-based whipped cream. But sadly, when we went looking for it, we found it was no longer available. So instead, we tried a bunch of other substitutes, including coconut-based Reddi Wip (which tasted okay but didn't come out of the can very well), various DIY recipes that didn't work at all, and Coco Whip, which was good in a raspberry fool but not ideal for topping pudding or cocoa, since it doesn't keep very long in the fridge.

However, on a recent trip to Trader Joe's, we discovered cans of a new coconut whipped topping in the refrigerator case, bearing the name "Sweet Rose." We snatched up a can, brought it home, and tried it on cocoa and other desserts, and I can report that it works quite well. It does have a very distinct coconut flavor, not a neutral sweet taste like regular whipped cream, so it might not be suitable for every type of dessert, but it was perfectly compatible with chocolate and reasonably good with the apple-raisin bread pudding (made with oat milk). We made a point of handling the can with particular care, always shaking it before use, keeping it vertical while dispensing, and cleaning the nozzle after use, and we seem to have avoided the problems we had with the Reddi-Wip can.

The only real problem I have with this stuff is the cost. A $3.29 can only holds 6.5 ounces, only half as much as the large cans of whipped cream we usually buy for around the same price, so that makes it around twice as expensive. Worse, it seems like the amount we actually got out of the can before it ran dry was less than half as much as we usually get from a can of whipped cream. I didn't actually measure it, but I know it only lasted us about a week. So if we wanted to switch entirely from regular whipped cream to this coconut stuff, we'd have to pick up two or three cans on every trip to Trader Joe's, and we'd also have to go through the work of recycling those cans a lot more often. Still, I suspect the small amount of extra waste produced from those extra whipped cream nozzles is less damaging to the environment than the cow-based emissions from real whipped cream.

Still, if we're willing to put up with these minor inconveniences, it looks like we may finally have a workable solution to the problem of whipped cream. Cheese, however, continues to elude us.

After our success with the vegan mozzarella recipe from It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken, we thought we'd try the same blogger's vegan nacho cheese recipe to see how well it substituted for cheddar in something like our favorite Cheesy Rice Casserole. This recipe calls for cashews, so it's both a bit pricier and harder to make than the mozzarella, but we thought we could at least try it and, if it worked, see if we could come up with a way to combine the seasonings from this recipe with the technique from the faux-zarella.

However, before we got around to acquiring all the ingredients for this experiment, I came across this other recipe on the same blog: Homemade Vegan Mac & Cheese Powder. And we thought, gee, that looks much easier to make, and it doesn't call for any ingredients we don't already have. And if it works as well for macaroni and cheese as she says it does, it should work equally well in our casserole, if we can just figure out how much to use.

So we consulted a standard macaroni and cheese recipe and found that, with half a pound of cheddar cheese—slightly more than we use in our casserole—you can make enough cheese sauce for 1 3/4  cups of dried pasta. And according to the blog, 1/4 cup of the mac & cheese powder was enough for 1 cup of noodles. Hence, we reasoned, half a cup of the powder, or half a recipe's worth, should be plenty for our casserole. We'd just mix it up with some homemade oat milk in the same proportions she used for her mac & cheese sauce (1/2 cup powder to 1 1/2 cups milk), stir it into the spinach and rice, bake it, and see how it came out.

When we pulled the casserole out of the oven, it looked pretty close to the original version. A bit yellower in color, and not as nicely browned on top, since we hadn't added the melted butter the recipe calls for, but reasonably like what we were used to. But the actual taste was nothing at all like the original. It wasn't just that it lacked the cheesy flavor we were used to; it had a distinct flavor of its own that was discordant and off-putting. There was a faint sweet undertone to it that seemed completely wrong, and the lemon pepper and turmeric, though there wasn't a lot of either in the recipe, also struck a discernible, discordant note. Brian wasn't as bothered by it as I was, but he certainly wasn't enthusiastic about it.

So, as far as we're concerned, the It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken blog is now batting .50 on vegan cheese substitutes. The mozzarella was great, the mac & cheese powder awful. Based on this average, we're not in any big hurry to try the nacho cheese recipe, which could come out anywhere on that spectrum.

However, we did learn one thing from this experiment with the casserole: it doesn't necessarily need to have cheese in it to taste good. What we disliked about this dairy-free version wasn't the lack of cheese, but the added flavors that didn't work with it. So now we think the next time we try it, we'll just leave out the cheese entirely and instead stir in a spoonful of Penzeys Mural of Flavor, which should be compatible with all the other ingredients. With the eggs (which we currently have no plans to give up) to hold the casserole together, it will probably work fine, and it will actually be easier and cheaper than the original.

As for the other cheddar-based recipes we enjoy, such as quesadillas this Easy Vegan Cheese sauce from ElaVegan looks like it might do the trick. It appears genuinely easy and quick to make—even easier than the vegan mozzarella—and all the ingredients in it are already in our kitchen. So this will probably be our next dairy-free experiment, and I'll post you on the results.