AD – Written in collaboration with Violife.
Over the years I’ve been vegetarian, then vegan, then back to vegetarian and more recently I had to become dairy free because Arthur had CMPA (Cow’s Milk Protein Allergy) and I was (and still am) breastfeeding. During my times of being vegan, Sam joined me on a couple of them too, we have made some permanent household changes. We buy Soya or Oat Milk instead of Cows Milk and have done for around 4 years now, we don’t buy butter and I tend to chose vegan snacks subconsciously. But, each time being vegan and dairy free we have struggled to find a “decent” vegan cheese.
I’m never expecting miracles with vegan cheese, I don’t expect it to taste identical and I don’t expect the texture to be perfect BUT a lot of the ones we’ve tried have been a long way off. Violife got in touch with me recently asking if I’d like to trial some of their vegan cheese alternative products so I thought why not. And wanted to share the process with you too. We all know I love a good cheese tasting.
The products they sent us to try are Original Flavour Grated, Smoky Cheddar Flavour Slices, Original Flavour Slices, Epic Mature and Le Rond Camembert Flavour which I was most intrigued to try.
The Violife Le Rond Camembert Flavour was our favourite by far, Camembert isn’t something we have often but we couldn’t really taste the different. I baked it in the oven, it did say 5 minutes on the instructions but I found it took 15 to melt it properly. It melted so well, it was sticky and delicious. I drizzled it with olive oil and topped with some caramelised onion chutney which was a nice accompaniment.
The Violife Epic Mature, Original Flavour Grated and Original Flavour Slices are all very similar. Sam tried the Epic Mature in a toastie with pickle, it did melt but not as much as the “normal” cheese he compared it too. I tried a bit on it’s own and enjoyed it. It’s not quite got the texture of cheese, it’s a little rubbery but in a sandwich you can’t really notice any difference. Especially with sauces/pickles etc. The Original Flavour Slices are great in a sandwich and I tested the Original Flavour Grated on our lasagne. Again, it didn’t melt quite as well and was a little more sticky than usually but we still all enjoyed, Arthur included. It’ll be a nice addition to some of my vegan recipes.
I had one of the Violife Smoky Cheddar Flavour Slices in a sandwich for lunch today. I really enjoyed this, I’m used to vegan cheese after being dairy free for so long and trying so many so I’ve got used to the different texture of it. I loved the Smoky flavour of this. I had it with lettuce, cucumber and some vegan mayonnaise. I wouldn’t have known I was eating a vegan sandwich.
I’ve also tried Violife Original Flavour Creamy in the past and Arthur ate a lot of this when he was weaning. It worked well as a spread, and stirred into pasta. We also enjoyed it on crackers. I could easily make a switch to this one.
All in all we were so impressed with the Violife Vegan Cheese alternatives. Ones we’d definitely buy again are the Camembert, the Smoky Slices and the Creamy Spread. They’ve got so many other products I’m yet to try too, including Greek Style, Mediterranean Style, Creamy with Hot Peppers and a Tex Mex Grated. They even have a Cocospread!
Have you tried any of this these Vegan Cheese alternatives? Which were your favourites? Or do you have any others you’d recommend?
Until next time,
Ami x
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