Califia Farms Oat Barista blend is the best!

Trader Joe’s has a good store brand vegan butter. Looks like a knock off of Miyokos but cheaper. All Miyokos products are superb.

Tofutti brand cream cheese is great for icings and cheesecakes. Generally, for baking I try to use the brands named in the recipes. Some butters have a high water content, which can affect results.

We love kite hill protein yogurts and Siggis brand.

Any oat milk product is super creamy and delicious as a coffee creamer. Chobani makes flavored non-dairy ones that are really good.

I can't stand vegan cheese, with the one exception of cream cheese: Tofutti is shockingly good, and if you can't do soy, Violife (or Trader Joe's house brand, which I think is the same) is passable.

Trader Joe's also makes a vegan kale pesto that is quite good.

Miyoko's butter is good but IMO not worth the $ over Country Crock or Smart Balance (one of which is usually on sale or has a coupon).

Kite Hill raviolis are good, not wild about their other stuff.

Concur with previous posters that coconut oil is generally the best butter sub for baking.

Chobani is my favorite oat milk by far and is good in coffee. Of the nut varieties, I like cashew the best for all-purpose use (on cereal, in cooking).

I like the vegan Boursin for cream cheese sub. Trader Joe’s has it.

Parmella smoked Gouda

Siigis non dairy yogurt - vanilla chai only (lots of protein)

For baking/mashed potatoes/ curries- so delicious plain unsweetened coconut yogurt

Learn how to make cashew cream/cheese it’s better than store bought

MOMS bulk aisle for nutritional yeast

Violife feta is sort of like a non musky chevre

Califa or Laird make ok coffee creamers

Miyokos butter is tasty for toast. I use earth balance to cook though.

Nothing replaces dairy but some of these are doable in a pinch. There’s also a new cheese counter at DC vegan, which I have not had a chance to check out yet. It looks promising.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you everyone for these recommendations. I'm diarrhea lady from the health thread who might be lactose intolerant for now. I can't wait to find these suggestions at Moms or Whole Foods. I did score Country Crock plant based butter spread at Safeway and its surprisingly delicious. Fooled me!

One of the PPs here, but if you think it may be specifically lactose, there are *so* many lactose free products on the market these days. 25 years ago, I went vegan for a while as it was so much easier than eating around my severe intolerance. These days, you can pretty much find lactose free anything, from yogurt and butter, to feta, to heavy cream… not to mention other non dairy items that used to be loaded with lactose.

My tip for you is to read all labels, because the sources of lactose in your diet may not be what you think. Lactose is used as a filler in all kinds of things, for seasonings to medications. It pops up in places you’d never think, like savoury rice cakes, powdered soup bases, etc.

You all are really so awesome. Wanted to say again hoe appreciative I am!!

Thank you everyone for these recommendations. I'm diarrhea lady from the health thread who might be lactose intolerant for now. I can't wait to find these suggestions at Moms or Whole Foods. I did score Country Crock plant based butter spread at Safeway and its surprisingly delicious. Fooled me!

Tofutti sour cream and cream cheese - way better than Kite Hill
Daiya cheese - pretty good flavor but a plasticky texture when it's not melted
Earth Balance is the closest to something that can be used as butter

Creamer: nut pods
Crackers: Simple Mills
Goldfish: not the same but close MadeGood Star Puffed Cheddar Crackers

Kite Hill products

If you live near Roots, go there and buy and try different vegan options and see what you like

Not vegan but I am dairy-free because of an allergy (as well as gluten-free which is not relevant to this thread). It's surprisingly difficult to reproduce the flavor of dairy without milk, however there are a few products that are good enough.

For butter, I use Earth Balance spread. They have a bunch of varieties but I like the "whipped" one for spreading on my (gluten-free) toast.

I don't use coffee creamer, but I like almond milk in my coffee. There are a few vegan creamers out there, most likely made from coconut oil. Coconut oil has a nice texture but it will always have the flavor of coconut which some people find off-putting.

There is no acceptable vegan cracker that tastes like cheese. Just eat something else. I like the Crunchmaster multi-grain crackers which are gf and vegan. They don't taste like cheese in any way but they are good crackers. I like to spread Tofutti Cream Cheese on them.

Speaking of Tofutti Cream Cheese, it's the best one and no other vegan cream cheese even comes close. Tofutti sour cream is pretty good, too. However, the weird part about the Tofutti products is that the texture seems to change from batch to batch. Sometimes, the product is extremely firm, and sometimes it's quite soft. I don't know if it might have to do with shipping temperatures, but the flavor is always decent. You can give the sour cream a good stir if it seems stiff.

The only vegan cheese product I like is the shredded Daiya cheese. I use both the mozzerella and the cheddar styles on things like pizza bagels and nachos.

Anonymous wrote:Culina plant-based yogurt is fantastic. I have terrible lactose intolerance so cannot really eat the real stuff anymore. Their bourbon vanilla flavor is divine.

(note - this is just for eating/snacking; can't speak to how well it works with cooking; i.e. in recipes that call for yogurt as a thickening or souring agent)

I bake with kite hill Greek style yogurt and it has been decent in muffins and cupcakes. Not sure how thick culina is but I’d use something that is nice and thick in baked goods, hence Greek style.

Op these are all good leads to help you avoid spending $ on the many, many, many bad products in this category. I recommend finding a few favorites but also embracing dairy free recipes that are written not to need traditional butter etc. you will get best results from recipes that are written as paleo or vegan or dairy free, allergy free etc. just takes some experimenting to see what works for you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot recreate these things without them tasting rancid or like cardboard.

Not true. I'm not a vegan and Miyoko "butter" is amazing. I haven't tried to bake with it but it's great on toast.

I tried their butter, and found it to be oily. It grossed me out, and I decided to go back to Kerrygold or other really high quality butters instead.

Culina plant-based yogurt is fantastic. I have terrible lactose intolerance so cannot really eat the real stuff anymore. Their bourbon vanilla flavor is divine.

(note - this is just for eating/snacking; can't speak to how well it works with cooking; i.e. in recipes that call for yogurt as a thickening or souring agent)

butter: for baking, look for recipes that are dairy free and use coconut oil in particular- it is the best butter sub. For spreading on bread, you can buy vegan butter but I don’t think it’s worth the $. Also Note that real butter does not contain milk protein and many people who don’t tolerate milk and cheese can handle butter

coffee creamer: oat milk is the way to go. Preferably with no weird additive or sweetener to give it a weird aftertaste.

cheeses. Miyoko for sure. And try the pourable Miyokos pizza mozzarella. It comes in a white bottle and is so good. You will love it if you miss pizza!

sour cream. Kite hill is fine for this.

Signed, mom of a milk allergy kid who tries to buy/make subs that taste good to me