This vegan and dairy-free cultured cashew yogurt is a breeze to make. It’s thick and tangy and delicious and filled with great-for-you probiotic cultures.
I love this cashew yogurt so much, it has pretty much replaced the quick, non-cultured yogurt I’d blend up in the past to eat or add to various dishes.
I loved yogurt in my pre-vegan days and I’ve never really been able to wrap my head around storebought vegan yogurts, which just don’t taste right and their texture is almost always completely off. Call me picky.
So the last time I bought a cashew yogurt off the shelf that had live cultures, I decided to try making my own. Partly so I didn’t have to spring six bucks for a small tub of yogurt, and partly so I didn’t have to rush to Whole Foods each time I needed some.
I also wanted a thicker yogurt, and the storebought ones are too thin for my liking.
I loved the result, and I started to make my own, using some of the storebought yogurt as a starter.
This is really a very simple recipe — all you need are the cashews and the starter (any vegan yogurt with live bacterial cultures will do), a bowl, and a blender, and you’re all set. The result is a thick, creamy, tangy yogurt that tastes gorgeous.
I love eating this yogurt by the spoonful, but I especially love stirring in some berries, or using it to top granola. It also works great in Indian curries, raitas and biryanis, when the recipe calls for yogurt.
Try making some today. It takes minutes, and it is, like any homemade yogurt, a gift that keeps on giving. You’ll never need storebought again.
Homemade Cultured Cashew Yogurt
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw cashews or cashew pieces
- 1 cup filtered or distilled water (this helps the cultures grow faster than chlorinated tap water would)
- Either 1 tbsp vegan yogurt to use as a starter. Be sure to use one with live, active cultures. Or you can use probiotic pills, see next ingredient
- 2 vegetarian probiotic pills (instead of the vegan starter. I've linked to the brand I use)
Instructions
- Place the cashews and water in a blender and blend to a very smooth paste.
- Place the cashew paste in a ceramic or glass bowl. Microwave for 10-15 seconds or until slightly warm. You can skip this step, but I like that it gives the bacteria a head start.
- Stir in the starter or, if using probiotic pills, open the capsules and empty the powder into the cashew paste. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and place in a warm spot, like a cold oven with the pilot light on, or, in hotter temps, on the countertop.
- Let it stand for six hours or overnight. The set yogurt should be very thick and tangy.
Nutrition
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Recipes to try with vegan yogurt:
Cucumber Raita
Mushroom Biryani
Tofu Tikka Masala
Can’t get unsweetened dairy free yoghurt over here in South Africa easily (not in shops) so so far I have tried cashews and a vegan probiotic. Now going to try with organic coconut milk and probiotics! Keep up the great recipes :).
Thanks, Maureen!
When you say probiotic pills, do you mean the ones you can take by mouth? And how many billion ?
Vaishali, love your post on making cultured cashew yogurt – I feel the same way about store-bought vegan yogurts and generally don’t buy them any more. Can’t wait to make this recipe!
Thank you for your blog and website – so inspirational! Such delicious recipes!
Thanks, Nora!
Hi Vaishali,
Thank you for the recipe for cashew yoghurt.I have been making soy yoghrt to get more protein.Can we use a probiotic pill as a starter for yoghurt?
Thank you for all the lovely recipes.I tried out Diwali sweets and they came out really great.
Hi Geetha, yes, use the contents of one probiotic capsule, stir in, and proceed as you would with the starter. Glad you tried the sweets! A belated Happy Diwali.
This recipe couldn’t have come at a better time! I am definitely going to try this. Instead of using the microwave I will put the bowl of yogurt in a larger bowl of hot water for a short while. I fear that the microwave will destroy the cultures. Thanks!
Hi Rosemary, the culture is added after microwaving, but it’s perfectly good to warm in a bowl of hot water too! Hope you try. 🙂
Love your recipe! But for sure I would never use a microwave even to warm up water….it kills everything. Microwaves are the most unhealthy thing, not only do they destroy any nutrients in food, they give off harmful radiation into your food. Even conventional heat (above a certain temperature) does destroy the enzymes in live food. Don’t use microwave 😉
I recently read about extensive studies on different cooking methods (roasting, boiling, frying, steaming, microwave) on different foods and the nutrient loss, which were done to show the methods which preserved most nutrients in food, they were are steaming and microwave. The worst, affecting different vegetables differently, were boiling, roasting and stir frying. Peppers were worst affected. see Nutrition Facts for full details
Instead of microwave you can actually blend a bit longer it’ll warm up as it blends
Have you tried this in an Instant Pot, using the contents of a probiotic pill for the starter? Would you consider recipes for the Instant Pot?
I miss the stories about your family, everyone of them, and the pictures.
Thank you so many delicious recipes.
Hi Susan, I miss telling the stories too, thanks for missing them! I’ll try and come back with more. 🙂 And yes, I absolutely want to do more Instant Pot recipes and just got one. Keep an eye out!
This is great to have—thanks for posting! I finally found a store-bought brand I like (Forager) but it’s hard to find and expensive. Can’t wait to try your recipe.
Hi Supriya, that’s great. I used Forager too– it worked really well here.
Finally finally tried this…and didn’t work. I followed the recipe to a tee but still tastes like cashew cream and same consistency too. Can it be salvaged, and if so, how?
Your cashew cream needs to stand in s warm enough place — that is key. What starter did you use? I would advise leaving it out for another day to see if it reaches the right consistency but discard if it begins to taste off.
I used the Foragers cashew yogurt and put it back in the fridge while I waited for your reply. Think I could just take it out and put it in the cold oven for another day? Or do I need to take the chill out somehow? This is my first attempt at homemade yogurt!
Are you turning the oven light on? You need warmth for your yogurt to set. It won’t set when it’s cold around.
It worked! I put it back in the oven overnight (slightly warm from the casserole I’d made earlier in the evening), and it was perfect-o this morning! Thank you thank you thank you! How simple and wonderful!
Awesome! 🙂
Hi Vaishali, Love your website.
I am based in Sydney, We are slowly converting to veganism and what I miss most is yoghurt. I am looking forward to trying the cashew yoghurt. Can you please advise which vegan yoghurt did you use to start the culture and can you carry the cashew yoghurt culture forward for the next batch?
TIA
Priya
Vaishali, you have outdone yourself! I did try it over the holidays, and it is amazing!
Hi Saheli, how wonderful you tried! Thanks for letting me know.
Came back to say this is now a fixture. I don’t even bother warming the paste anymore (maybe the vitamix helps a bit with that). I just add 2 tbsp. of starter culture from previous batch and leave it on the countertop in winter for 2 whole days for perfect tanginess. For someone who didn’t care much for yogurt before, now I’m hooked! Now, if you had a recipe to make sesame seed yogurt….:-)
I love the recipe but I’m confused how 1 cup of nuts is supposed to yield 8 servings? How much are you considering as a serving?
Hi Maria, it yields a little over two cups.
I’m considering trying this with almonds (no skin), only because of the cost of cashews where I live. Do you think it could work?
Yes, I don’t see why not, but make sure they are blended really smooth. Cashews tend to blend to a creamier consistency than almonds. Blanched almonds might work better. You could also try this with coconut milk.
Vaishali, once the yogurt is made, can I just keep back one tablespoon of that yogurt to use as the starter for another batch and just keep it going indefinitely? By the way, I am amazed at the recipes you create. What a talent! I’m definitely going to try as many of them as I possibly can. My adult son lives with me and he usually won’t eat anything vegan, so there are a lot of dishes that I don’t make because I couldn’t eat all of it. I do wish he’d be more willing to try new things. Anyway, thank you for your beautiful recipes and for answering my question about the yogurt.
Hi Kathy, thanks for your encouraging words– you are so kind! And yes, you can absolutely keep back a tablespoon of the yogurt and use as a starter for the next batch.
Hi, have you ever made vegan yogurt and then added berries and frozen it? Would that work?
Do you think it would help to soak the cashews?
No need to soak if you’re using a high-powered blender, but otherwise it is a good idea to soak for at least 30 minutes before blending.
Has anyone ever added a little bit of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to make this even more tart like regular yogurt? BTW this recipe is simple but amazing. I finished all of it in a couple days and currently making more.
Does the length of time it incubates affect the amount of probiotics in the finished product? Or is the length just for desired thickness? The default on my yogurt setting on my instant pot seems to be 8 hours but I think you said 16-20 hours. I set my machine for 20 hours but we had a quick power outage this morning which shut down my instant pot so I am not sure how late by my first try incubated. It does taste wonderful!
Hi I would like to try making yogurt. Which probiotic pills do you use and recommend?
Very easy to make, tastes good!!
Hi! would love to try this, but you don’t have to soak the cashews first? I see most recipes call for the cashews to be soaked
Hi Melina, if you have a high powered blender, you can blend without soaking. Otherwise soak for at least 30 minutes or more if possible.
OMG – I will NEVER buy prepared from the store again! So creamy, nice not overwhelming tang. Next time is a double batch!
Hello thanks so much for this simple recipe. I’m definitely going to try it! Do you think we could use cashew milk (or almond milk) instead of grinding the whole cashews to make this recipe? We get that readily here and it would save me a step… also how warm should the cashew blend/milk be at the time of adding the starter? Is it the same as what we use for setting milk yogurt? Thanks again for sharing ☺️
You can use cashew milk but you might get a different, probably thinner, consistency. And the milk should be lukewarm, not hot, so the way you do it for milk yogurt would be fine.
Best yogurt ever. I’ve never tried store bought vegan yogurt, now I never need to.
Hi VAIS,HALI,
I am afraid, I did not succeed in making yogurt, but instead I made baked cashew cream. It tastes good but it is no yogurt. I used a different brand probiotic simple because I had them home. Instead of covering the pyrex bowl with a cheese cloth, I covered it with its own glass lid.
When it dd not ferment, I scanned other people’s post. It appeared a really warm env might encourage bacteria to ferment. So, I thought may be my oven’s pilot light did not generate enough warmth. After waiting for 12 hours, I turned on my oven to 200 degrees. After 6 hours when I checked it was baked cream.
Is cheesecloth essential? How warm must the env be? Could a different brand probiotic be the cause?
Thanks in advance for your insight.
Hi, six hours in a 200-degree oven will result in baked yogurt. You should NOT have the oven on when you place the yogurt in it. Depending on the weather where you are, it might take longer than 12 hours to ferment, so just be patient. You could have tried heating the cashew cream a little, for 30 seconds or so in the microwave, BEFORE adding the probiotic to create a warm environment for the bacteria. Also, there’s always a chance that the probiotic you used may not be active — some probiotics get less effective the longer they stand around.
Thank you for taking the time and responding. I wonder how one can check whether probiotic culture is active?
I had microwaved it but only for 15 sec for twice the amt of cashew+water as you recommended.
Thanks again,