Learn how to make the most delicious cultured vegan butter at home, including a creamy buttery spread for slathering on toast and bagels, and butter sticks with a firmer texture that you can use to make a vegan pie crust, croissants, cookies, cakes, vegan buttercream, and so much more. Best of all, it's all so simple!
There are so many vegan butters on the market now, but buying the better brands can feel like a bit of a splurge. Once I'd learned to make my own vegan butter, it was a splurge I could happily avoid. Besides, the homemade vegan butter tastes far better than the best brands on the market anyway and has the healthfulness of live cultures from my homemade cultured vegan yogurt. A win-win.
I'm going to show you in this post how to make both a softer, utterly buttery vegan butter spread to daub on toast, and, with a little tweak, a harder vegan butter that you can form into sticks for baking.
Table of Contents
Why you will love this recipe
- It's buttery and delicious! The live cultures in the butter make the butter naturally buttery without having to add apple cider vinegar or nutritional yeast (which are awesome ingredients but we are not faking any flavors here). The inspiration for this recipe is Miyoko's European-style cultured vegan butter and I believe it is as good as the real thing.
- You can use it for serving at the table or baking. If you love putting a pat of butter on your vegan waffles and vegan pancakes, you can't do better than the spreadable cultured vegan butter. And you can bake to your heart's content with the vegan butter sticks. I use them to make my vegan pie crust, vegan buttercream, breads, croissants...your imagination is the limit. You can even use it in dishes like this vegan butter chicken or vegan sage butter gnocchi for an authentic flavor. To form butter sticks that unmold easily you can buy a simple silicone mold (I bought this one from Amazon. It has tablespoon markings on it and it works like a charm).
- It's so easy. You'll be amazed at just how easy making your own vegan homemade butter is. You need just a few, easily available ingredients and some of them are likely already in your pantry. Once you have them on hand it will take you all of five minutes or less to make the butter.
- Gluten-free, can be nut-free and soy-free. See FAQs below for more.
Ingredients
- Oils: You will need refined coconut oil (not virgin coconut oil, which will taste like coconut) and another neutral oil, like avocado oil, sunflower oil, grape seed oil or safflower oil.
- Cultured vegan yogurt. This ingredient is key to that amazing buttery flavor. I use my homemade vegan cultured cashew yogurt (you can also use this Instant Pot recipe for vegan yogurt). If you are nut-free, use a nut-free vegan yogurt. Make sure it's plain and not flavored or sweetened yogurt.
- Liquid lecithin. I use soy lecithin, which is easily available online, but if you are soy-free you can use sunflower lecithin. You can make vegan butter without the lecithin, certainly the spreadable kind, but there are two good reasons to use it: for one, the lecithin acts as an emulsifier, which means the water-based ingredients (like the yogurt or non-dairy milk) in your butter won't separate from the oil as they stand. Also for vegan butter sticks it is best to use the lecithin because it makes the butter harder and keeps it from melting too easily when handled, resulting in better baked goods.
How to make vegan butter
Place all ingredients for vegan butter in blender--vegan yogurt, coconut oil, another neutral oil, salt and lecithin (use less lecithin for spreadable butter--see recipe card below for exact quantities).
Blend the ingredients for 15 seconds on low speed, then increase speed to high and blend for 30 more seconds.
If you are making spreadable butter pour into a container you would like to serve it from.
If making butter sticks, pour the mixture into silicone molds. Refrigerate the butter for 2-3 hours until completely set.
Tips for success
- Melt the coconut oil completely before using it--there should be no lumps.
- Adjust the amount of salt to your taste. I add ½ teaspoon of salt and it's perfect for me, but you can use less or more. Skip the salt to make unsalted butter sticks for baking.
- If you don't have or don't want to use lecithin, you can skip it but keep in mind that even after thorough blending your oils and vegan yogurt could separate. Also the butter sticks will turn our softer.
- Use silicone molds if you want to be able to pop the butter sticks out. You can use a regular container for the spreadable butter, but be sure to use one nice enough to serve from.
- This recipe makes approximately 24 tablespoons or three butter sticks. You can easily double or triple the recipe.
Storage instructions
- Refrigerate: Store the butter in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks.
- Freeze: For longer storage, freeze the vegan butter for up to 4 months.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, and you can use any cultured yogurt of your choice, including nut-free yogurt to make this recipe nut-free. Just make sure that it is not sweetened or flavored. I do, however, recommend homemade cashew yogurt for the best flavor.
For sure. This dairy-free butter has 89 calories per tablespoon compared to about 100 calories in a tablespoon of dairy-based butter. Dairy butter also has approximately 30 milligrams of cholesterol in each tablespoon, while the vegan version has none because it is a plant-based butter. There are healthy gut flora in this cultured vegan butter recipe and no palm oil -- a controversial ingredient found in some plant butters like Earth Balance. Also, no preservatives. That said, any fat is still fat. Although vegan butter is better for you, eat it in moderation.
You certainly can. In that case substitute the cultured vegan yogurt with an equal quantity of full-fat soy milk and add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. You can also add a teaspoon of nutritional yeast for flavor.
You can use olive oil as your second oil, but keep in mind that olive oil will add a bitter note to the butter. I would advise using another neutral oil instead, like grape seed oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil or avocado oil.
More homemade how-to recipes
If you love this homemade vegan butter recipe, be sure to check out more vegan how-to recipes on Holy Cow Vegan!
Vegan Butter Recipe
Equipment
- Butter dish or container
Ingredients
- 1 cup refined coconut oil (melted. Measure after melting)
- 3 tablespoons vegan yogurt
- 1½ tablespoons neutral oil (like avocado oil, grape seed oil, safflower oil or sunflower oil)
- 1¼ teaspoons liquid lecithin (for butter sticks. For spreadable butter cut down lecithin to ½ teaspoon)
- ½ teaspoon sea salt (or pink salt. Use more or less according to taste. For unsalted butter sticks skip the salt)
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in blender. Blend for 15 seconds on low speed, then 30 seconds on high speed.
- If making spreadable butter pour into a container you would like to serve it from. If making butter sticks, pour into a silicone mold. Refrigerate the butter for 2-3 hours until completely set.
Recipe notes
- Melt the coconut oil completely before using it--there should be no lumps.
- Adjust the amount of salt to your taste. I add ½ teaspoon of salt and it's perfect for me, but you can use less or more. Skip the salt to make unsalted butter sticks for baking.
- If you don't have or don't want to use lecithin, you can skip it but keep in mind that even after thorough blending your oils and vegan yogurt could separate. Also the butter sticks will turn our softer.
- Use silicone molds if you want to be able to pop the butter sticks out. You can use a regular container for the spreadable butter, but be sure to use one nice enough to serve from.
- Refrigerate: Store the butter in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks.
- Freeze: For longer storage, freeze the vegan butter for up to 4 months.
Kim
So I made this last night and the flavor is wonderful, but I need some troubleshooting or something please. I used liquid sunflower lecithin...
1 1/4 tsp to make the sticks. I poured it into the molds, and it's been overnight and the sticks aren't hard. Can you give me some guidance as to what could have gone wrong? Thank you.
Vaishali
Hi Kim, Try refrigerating the butter. Even without the lecithin the butter should harden up quite a bit to at least a spreadable consistency because of the coconut oil, which is solid at room temperature (unless you are in a very warm climate). I do use soy lecithin, but expect the sunflower lecithin should be a good substitute. You can try adding a little more lecithin -- a teaspoon more? -- if refrigerating the butter doesn't work. You will need to keep the vegan butter refrigerated when not using because, just like real butter, it will become soft when left outside at room temperature.
Jess
This looks great! I have sun lecithin, but in powder form, not liquid. Do you think I could use that instead? Thanks!
Vaishali
Hi Jess, you can use powdered lecithin but I believe you need much more than the liquid for the same result. Perhaps try adding 2 tsp for the butter spread or 5 tsp for the sticks?
Ray
Hi!
I don't understand the difference between the hard sticks and the spreadable butter in terms of the ingredients or ratio of the ingredients.
It looks like it's just a matter of shape, but there's no difference in firmness; am I correct? Please clarify.
Thanks!
Vaishali
Hi Ray, it’s the amount of lecithin — see the recipe card instructions. You will use less for the butter spread.