This vegan parmesan cheese is the absolute best recipe! It uses 5 simple whole foods, can be made in crumble form or grated from a block!
Making dairy free cheese using simple ingredients and an easy process is tough. But this dairy free version of traditional Parmesan is simple amazing!
This post was originally published on October 8, 2017.
This recipe is very similar in process to my vegan Cotija cheese. With a few simple changes to nail that salty tangy flavor of Parmesan, I could still shape this into a wheel then allow it to harden for freshly grated vegan Parmesan cheese!
Ingredients
I aim to create easy recipes without a lot of fuss. Many vegan cheese recipes out there need fermentation, or hard to find ingredients. While they taste amazing, it simply isn't practical.
A handful of simple, easy to find, whole food, plant based ingredients is all you need to make this easy cashew parmesan cheese:
- Raw cashews
- Lemon juice
- Distilled white vinegar
- Sea salt
- Ground mustard
How To Make Vegan Parmesan
I use a very unique process to make this vegan Parmesan recipe. Following these steps is critical in getting the end result!
- Place dry cashews in a food processor and blend until they are a fine crumble.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse. (Stop here to use as is in crumbled form.)
- If grating, shape into a wheel and refrigerate overnight.
- Cut into wedges, grate and use on everything!
Serving Suggestions
This vegan parmesan cheese recipe is fabulous on basically everything! Here are some of our favorite recipes to pair it with:
- Broccoli Pesto
- Vegan Carbonara
- Roasted Red Pepper Pasta
- Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Gnocchi
- Tuscan Ribollita Soup
- Gluten-Free Eggplant Parmesan
- Vegan Moussaka
- Cavatelli and Broccoli
- Caesar Salad
- Or on a homemade pizza with easy pizza sauce!
Preparation Tips
In order to make the best vegan parmesan cheese, make sure to check out these helpful hints:
- The easiest way to shape into a wheel is by wrapping in plastic wrap and press into your desired shape.
- The white vinegar is what gives this recipe the sharpness and tanginess of Parmesan. If you substitute it for another vinegar you will not get the same flavor.
- For added sharpness and flavor you can add some miso and/or nutritional yeast.
- For best grating results wait until it chills overnight in the fridge. If you can't wait keep checking for hardness every few hours!
Storage Tips
- Keep the cheese chilled until you're ready to grate. It will soften and not grate very well if left out of the refrigerator.
- You can also just use this crumbled straight from the food processor. Store the crumbles in the fridge, it will harden up once refrigerated.
- Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 7 days.
- You can also store in the freezer for longer periods of time.
Common Questions
There are many versions of vegan parmesan cheese out there. Many include cashews or seeds, seasonings, and nutritional yeast. This recipe uses simply cashews, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, and ground mustard.
There are store-bought vegan parmesan cheeses, but it's so easy to make your own at home! That way you can customize the flavor, and know you're only eating real whole foods.
In my humble opinion, this one! It's simple to make with easy to find whole food plant based ingredients and tastes absolutely fabulous! Plus, it has that classic hard texture that's perfect for grating!
While many cheeses are vegetarian, parmesan cheese is not one of them. Some cheeses, including parmesan cheese, use rennet which is not vegetarian.
More Vegan Cheese Recipes
Vegan and cheese don't usually go together, until now! If you like this recipe for vegan parmesan cheese, you need to check out these plant based cheesy recipes made with easy to find whole food ingredients:
- Vegan Feta Cheese
- Creamy Vegan Cream Cheese
- The Best Vegan Cheese Sauce
- 4 Ingredient Vegan Cotija Cheese
- Easy Vegan Ricotta Cheese
- Green Mac and Cheese
- Vegan Mexican Chili Cheese Dip
- The Perfect Vegan Cheese and Dip Platter
- Vegan Queso Blanco (Mexican White Cheese Dip)
The Best Vegan Parmesan Cheese Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw cashews , do not soak
- 2 ½ teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 ¼ teaspoons distilled white vinegar (see note)
- ½ teaspoon sea salt , can use up to ¾ teaspoon
- pinch ground mustard
Instructions
- Place dry cashews in a food processor and blend until they are a fine crumble.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until incorporated. Stop here if you prefer not to grate this but simply use it in crumbled form.
- If you are shaping it into a wheel to grate, then you can keep blending until smooth. It should come together into a ball, almost soft and dough like.
- Shape into a wheel and refrigerate overnight. You can use plastic wrap to store it in or shape with your hands and store in an airtight container.
- It will be ready to grate in the morning, but if you can't wait keep checking for hardness every few hours!
- This also stores very well in the freezer if you know you won't use it all within 7 days.
Notes
- Keep cheese cold in the fridge until ready to grate. It will soften and not grate well if left out. It also stores very well in the freezer for extended periods of time.
- The white vinegar is what gives this recipe the sharpness and tanginess of Parmesan. If you sub it then you will not get the same flavor.
- You can also just use this crumbled straight from the food processor or store crumbled in the fridge if you don’t want to grate it. If you simply store it crumbled, it will harden as crumbles in the fridge.
- This makes 1 wheel about 5 inches by one inch, or a little over 1 ¼ cup grated. Serving size is 1 tablespoon.
Recipe by Veggies Don’t Bite, visit our site for more great plant-based recipes.
Nutrition
Nutrition and metric information should be considered an estimate.
Sarah
I have this one in my fridge all the time...this recipe was such a discovery for me! I’ve been eating vegan for more than a year now, and was sooooo excited to find your website! Your flavour palet is exactly the same as mine, I absolutely love all of your recipes!! And they always turn out exactly the way they should!
veggiesdontbite
Awe thank you so much Sarah! your comments made my day!
Starrysky
Hello Sophia,
This is a wonderful Creamy Vegan Parmesan Cheese Recipe! I have switched to using only your recipe now. I prefer your recipe without adding anything as it turns out perfect every time. I had tried it with adding Nutritional Yeast as that is what I always used with other dry Vegan Parmesan Cheese recipes, but did not care for it in your recipe. Mine also comes out much lighter in color without it (but not as white looking as in your photos.) I shape it into a circle using food safe gloves and place it in a small round 8 oz Duraflex glass container and store with tightly covered lid in fridge overnight. Then next day, take it out, let it soften a bit, and cut it into 4 small pieces to shred using the food processor shredder disc in my newer Ninja Food Processor and it comes out great! Blessings from ( not so sunny right now in San Diego, CA.
veggiesdontbite
I am so happy you like it! Thank you so much for the fabulous review!
Whitney
Hi! Curious if this melts? I am in search of a parmesan I can use to make spaghetti carbonara, my friend is allergic to casein.
Appreciate any suggestions anyone has!
Thank you!
-W
veggiesdontbite
Hi Whitney! I wouldn't say this melts smoothly. It definitely softens but it's more of a topper. But I would suggest using this and one of my cream sauces together for carbonara. I have an alfredo like sauce coming out next month but these recipes I have now should work too, simply use the cream portion only: https://www.veggiesdontbite.com/creamy-vegan-orzo-risotto-mushrooms-peas/, https://www.veggiesdontbite.com/vegan-scalloped-cauliflower-gluten-free/ or https://www.veggiesdontbite.com/greek-vegan-moussaka-gluten-free/
Tess
Has anyone tried apple cider? I would rather not have to white vinegar since I don't use it?
veggiesdontbite
Hi Tess! You can use apple cider but it doesn't have the same tang as white vinegar so the flavor will not be exactly the same.
Margie
Don’t usually leave comments or reviews but this was the best vegan pasta topper I’ve ever tried. Thank you for this recipe! I did add a little miso and nutritional yeast as per suggestions. But I’m sure it would have been great even without those. I didn’t wait for it to harden because it was for tonight’s dinner.
veggiesdontbite
Wow! Thank you so much Margie!! So so happy you liked it!
Tram Nguyen
Hello Sophia,
Thank you for your great vegan cheese recipe. I'm not sure about raw cashews in the ingredients, did you mean the cashews are uncooked? If so, we can eat raw Cashews? I'm confused a little bit because I saw on the online, they say we can not eat raw cashews due to its poison.
Thank you again, Sophia.
veggiesdontbite
Hi Tram! Raw cashews are simply those that have not been roasted. You can find them many places and are called raw cashews. They are very safe and a big part of dairy free recipes!
REBECCA TASKER
Hi - Do you think it's possible to make a version of this without nuts? Maybe substitute all hemp seed for the cashews? I have nut & dairy allergies but am craving some grated parm in my salad. Any advice would be appreciated.
veggiesdontbite
Hi Rebecca! So sorry to hear about the allergies. I have never tried it with anything else, but you can certainly give hemp seeds or even pumpkin or sunflower seeds a try. It wont have the same flavor, and you may need to adjust the lemon and vinegar so that you can mask the seed flavor. Cashews don't have the same strong flavor as the seeds so just play around with it. Let me know what you try!
Katharine
I am working on a hemp seed parm right now. My sweetie bought a heap. It doesn't taste much like parm but it is good.
Jessica
So keen to try this out but I was just wondering if it melts at all?
veggiesdontbite
Hi Jessica! It would soften but it doesn't melt smooth, But regular parmesan isn't really meant to melt smooth either. So it depends on what you are wanting to melt it for!
Karen
So excited to try this CHEESE recipe! I've been making "Parmegan" from Sam Turnbull's Fuss Free Vegan cookbook, which I love. But a solid, grateable WHEEL!? So intrigued!
veggiesdontbite
Hi Karen! Yes! It dries out and hardens more and more as you refrigerate it. Hope you like it!
Robyn
Hi. Can I grate it straight from the freezer or will it just crumble up.
veggiesdontbite
Hi Robyn! I let it sit for a few minutes then grate. You can grate it frozen it is just a little hard so if you let it sit for a minute it softens up and it's easier to grate.
Marna
Has anyone tried this using Brazil Nuts. I have read that they give vegan Parmesan a fantastic flavor.
veggiesdontbite
Hi Marna! Brazil Nuts should work, it will be a little different flavor but they are buttery so it should be great! They are very similar to macadamia nuts.
Jennifer
HI, I know that this post was created some time back, but I just wanted to send an update experiment. I made the wheel as you recommended, but I subbed a 1/4 cup of pine nuts and 3/4 cup of cashews. I also added more salt than recommended. Being half southern Italian, I wanted to use nuts/seeds that are a regular part of our cuisine, as well as the added salt because we often use Pecorino Romano to grate (sheep milk cheese) which is a much saltier cheese. It seems that there is no way to go wrong with your recipe! It is wonderful! I put just a touch of nutritional yeast (I do not care for that flavor when it too dominant in vegan "cheese" but I find just a touch nice, and ditto for miso when it is over used, but I did not add that, the nuts and seeds have enough moisture already). I even accidentally spilled a little more than "a pinch" of mustard. But you know what? It still tasted fantastic, whether crumbled in the food processor, or smoothed out into the "wheel." I can not wait to see how it is once it hardens tomorrow. I made it specifically because I would like to make eggplant parmesan, but I can see that it will be delicious for numerous dishes!!! Thank you for your site!
veggiesdontbite
Thank you so much Jennifer for your sweet comment and for sharing what you did! I actually have also used pine nuts and loved the flavor! I kept this with cashews, mostly due to the cost of pine nuts but I really love that addition! I hope your eggplant parmesan came out amazing!
Stephanie
Thanks for your comments! We followed your pine nuts/little more salt/little more mustard suggestion to use in our vegan eggplant scallopini for Christmas dinner and it was fabulous!
veggiesdontbite
So happy you liked it Stephanie! I love creating things and having such a great community here that can share their experience and suggestions!
Marielle
This recipe is awesome! First time I made this and it just blew me away! I made pesto with it and it totally worked. Thanks for sharing it. I will share it and mention you on my blog when I post my new peppermint pesto recipe Thanks!
veggiesdontbite
Thanks Marielle! So glad you like it!
Robert Miller
Miso kicked it just right.
I had to add a splash of almond milk (not quite a tablespoon) to make it smooth. over 20 min in the processor and still grainy. processor was getting hot. That did the trick.
veggiesdontbite
Hi Robert! Glad you liked it! Depending on your processor it may take some time for sure. Mine doesn't take more than 5 minutes but there are so many kinds out there. I often just make the crumbled version of this to save time. But glad the milk helped!
Aaron
Which processor do you use?
veggiesdontbite
I Aaron! I use an 11 cup food processor by Cuisinart. I love it!
Juanita
Which kind of Miso did you add?
Nina Windhauser
It was great! I added a little miso.
veggiesdontbite
Glad you liked it!!
Faith Ukwuomah
I've been making my own vegan cheese for a few years now, but I never made the hard versions of it. Plus I can't eat Parmesan cheese due to my intolerance to lactose (and I'm Italian 😶). But seeing this recipe made my day, I'll definetely try it during the Easter period.
Btw, can I use apple cider vinegar or ume plum seadoning instead of white vinegar?
veggiesdontbite
Thanks Faith! I hope you enjoy this. The white vinegar is what give this it's characteristic tang. So other vinegars can work but it won't taste the same. Let me know if you try it!
Kerstin
Love how easy and delicious this Parmesan is! I added a TBSP nooch. Now it's a staple at the house.
Thanks for sharing!
veggiesdontbite
Yay! So happy you like it!
VeggieTater
This sounds great and I want to make it now but have no cashews, so am going to try the walnuts and brazil nuts I've had in the fridge that need to get used, hope they work! If it doesn't hold together I still have crumbles!
veggiesdontbite
Thank you!! Let me know how it turns out!