Vegan Ricotta Cheese made with slivered almonds, vinegar, yogurt, water and salt. So easy and tastes so authentic and like True Food Kitchen’s ricotta cheese! It is creamy, smooth, rich, thick and heavenly.
Does the fact that ricotta cheese is made with dairy stop me from creating the most amazing, authentic vegan ricotta? Nope. It’s fantastic and so real that I was giddy with how delicious it turned out, all without any oil either. I sneakily asked a close reader to taste test it yesterday to see if she thought it was just as good as we did. She said “spot on” and loved it. Vegan almond ricotta for the win.
We love the almond ricotta cheese at the restaurant, True Food Kitchen, so that was the inspiration here. And, I’m happy to report, that it tastes even better. It has more flavor. I knew I had a winner.
The great thing about this Vegan Ricotta Cheese is that it has no nutritional yeast.
INGREDIENTS NEEDED
For this Vegan Almond Ricotta Cheese you will only need 5 ingredients total, including the salt/water: (exact measurements and details on the recipe card below)
- raw, slivered almonds
- plain coconut or soy yogurt (or whatever you like as long as it is not sweetened/flavored)
- white vinegar (key to the best cheesy flavor, as evidence in my Best Vegan Queso and my Cream Cheese Alfredo)
- salt
- water
HOW TO MAKE VEGAN RICOTTA CHEESE
Tip: You will need a food processor for this, a blender will not work, not even a vitamix because of the small amount of water used. Trying to use a blender will yield gritty ricotta and trying to add more water to compensate will yield a really bland taste, so a processor is a must here.
Step 1: Add the almonds to a large bowl and cover completely with boiling water. You must use boiling water here. Soak for a minimum of 6-8 hours or simply overnight.
Step 2: Add the soaked almonds to a food processor along with the yogurt, water,white vinegar and salt. Blend until completely smooth and creamy, stopping to scrape the sides as needed.
This is how the texture should look. Smooth and creamy with a classic ricotta texture, but not gritty.
The combo of the vinegar and yogurt give it the perfect subtle ricotta cheese flavor. I love ricotta because it is a subtle cheese flavor, unlike mozzarella or other cheeses, yet the amazing creamy, thick texture makes it such a delicious addition to so many dishes.
WAYS TO USE VEGAN RICOTTA CHEESE
- Now, one amazing way is to use this vegan ricotta on pizza, of course!
- My favorite way to use it is in these Vegan Stuffed Ricotta Shells with Spinach.
- Spread the cheese on toast and add green onions for a delicious breakfast.
- Add dollops of the ricotta over pasta for a delicious cheesy touch!
HOW TO USE VEGAN RICOTTA ON PIZZA
Before baking…add desired toppings or any veggies you like. I usually don’t like too many toppings, olives and basil or spinach. I wanted basil but when I went to Kroger, they had NO basil, can you believe that? Weird. So, I used spinach instead. Still yummy. I always use my favorite 5 minute pizza sauce.
BAKED and delicious.
The first bite into that delicious smooth and creamy ricotta had both my daughter and I so happy! I mean, look at that texture.
MORE VEGAN CHEESE RECIPES TO TRY
- Best Vegan Queso
- Vegan Pimento Cheese
- 5 Ingredient Strawberry Cream Cheese
- Blueberry Cream Cheese
- Smoky Black Pepper Cream Cheese
- Baked Smoky Cashew Cheese
- Baked Herbed Cashew Cheese
- Easy Vegan Mexican Cheese Sauce
- Nut-free Fat-free Vegan Cheese Sauce
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If you make this recipe, be sure to leave feedback below and share your pic on Instagram or Facebook and tag me @thevegan8 #thevegan8!
Vegan Ricotta Cheese
Ingredients
- You will absolutely need a food processor to make this cheese, a blender will not work.
- 1 1/2 cups (210g) slivered almonds (not whole!)
- 5 tablespoons (75g) HOT water
- 2 teaspoons (10g) white vinegar
- 4 tablespoons (60g) unsweetened plain dairy-free yogurt (I like the So Delicious plain coconut yogurt, as well as the Kite Hill almond plain yogurt, both are SO good.)
- 3/4 teaspoon fine salt
NOTE
- If you absolutely cannot find a plain, unsweetened yogurt anywhere you live, you can try a vegan sour cream. OR sub for full-fat coconut milk, starting with 2 tablespoons and adjusting only if needed.
- I use this food processor
Instructions
- You will need a food processor for this, a blender will not work, not even a vitamix because of the small amount of water used. Trying to use a blender will yield gritty ricotta and trying to add more water to compensate will yield a really bland taste, so a processor is a must here.
- Add the almonds to a large bowl and cover completely with boiling water. You must use boiling water here. Soak for a minimum of 6-8 hours or simply overnight. You MUST soak them this long and do not try to rush this step or do a quick 30 minute boil. Since so little liquid is used to blend up the almonds, the soaking is required. This is what will yield a richer, flavorful ricotta, as opposed to having to add a bunch of water to get it soft during blending.
- After soaking the almonds, drain and rinse them and add them to a food processor.
- Process the almonds into small pieces, but not fully. Add the 5 tablespoons hot water, vinegar, yogurt, salt and process until it resembles ricotta and scraping the sides several times, as needed. It will seem too dry at first, but keep processing until it is smooth and no longer crunchy bits of almond remain. Please understand that food processors can greatly vary in both size and power, so yours may take several minutes to get smooth. You just simply need to be patient. Do NOT stop processing until it's smooth. The recipe works perfectly to get smooth if you do this. I literally let mine go a few minutes without stopping and it gets creamy and fluffy and perfect. Once it reaches the smooth texture, taste and if you desire more tang, add more yogurt or salt. If using the coconut milk, it will not taste as tangy or cheesy so you may want to add a tiny bit more vinegar if needed. The ricotta should be subtle but have a nice mild tangy cheesy flavor.
- To use this on pizza, just add it with your other toppings before baking. If you want it to stay thick and round, just use rounded spoonfuls. If you want it more flat or spread out, that works too, just press it down a bit before baking. It bakes lovely.
Shelly
This was a fail for me, twice. Not sure how others are having success. I soaked the almonds for 2 days (since the first time was a fail, I thought I’d give a longer soak a try) and still had to run the mixture through the blender AFTER the food processor. It was too gritty, even though I ran it through the food processor for at least 5 minutes. Flavor was also very bland, had to tweak it quite a bit. Love most of your recipes but this one just didn’t hit the mark for me.
Name*
Hi Shelly, I’m sorry to hear you didn’t have success. Because as you pointed out, all others have had amazing success. The recipe works perfectly which I why I shared it. May I ask what type of almonds you used?? Did you use ones with skins and did you use the yogurt, salt and vinegar and weigh the ingredients? Something is missing here because I’ve made it 5 times and it’s not gritty or bland at all. Ricotta isn’t a bold taste though, but it’s not bland, but more subtle than mozzarella and other cheeses. Hope I can help figure out what went wrong there!
Shelly
My almonds were skinless, blanched and slivered. I followed your recipe closely which is rare for me since I usually successfully wing it. I have a good quality Breville food processor too. I started using the large bowl and wasn’t getting a smooth enough texture so I switched to the small bowl. Still no luck and the vitamix was the winner. So strange!
Brandi
Yeah I don’t know what to tell you because I’ve had 4 more rave reviews come in on the vegan stuffed shells last night who made the ricotta and they all loved it. It gets smooth very easily for me and everybody else. Did you double the recipe? I know I tried doubling it and it was way too many almonds and wouldn’t get smooth so the amount listed was necessary.
Nancy
I had the same problem with my food processor so I ended up using my Vitamix. A few pulses and the texture was perfect.
Whitney
My food processor (KitchenAid) was also not able to blend up the mixture properly. Had to put it in my Blentec which did a better job. Tastes great!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Yes,I have a cuisinart processor! It’s more powerful than my kitchen aid. Glad you enjoyed it!
Penny
YAY!!! Another winner from Brandi!!! Seriously your recipes are incredible. This was super easy to whip up (after the almonds soaked overnight) and it has that real ricotta texture & TASTE! No one knew it wasn’t a dairy version.
Thank you Brandi for ALL your hard work and dedication in bringing us these GREAT recipes!! 😊
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Awww, thank you so much Penny for this amazing review and feedback! I’m so happy to hear how much you loved this cheese and recipes in general, your comment was so sweet!
Linda
I want to make this over the weekend but can’t find plain dairy-free yogurt anywhere. Have you tried it with the vegan sour cream or the coconut milk? I have coconut milk here and have seen sour cream in the stores but was worried it wouldn’t be the same.
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Hi Linda, I would definitely try the vegan sour cream and I think that should work much better than the coconut milk. It is tangy, a bit more than yogurt but similar. I think it would work!
Sue
Brandi, your recipes are always good and always dependable. But THIS time you have outdone yourself!
It’s amazing to me how much this looks like ricotta! And it tastes great, too.
Last night I made cannelloni with spinach, spices and your ricotta If my family hadn’t known better they would have sworn they were eating an old favorite with dairy ricotta. I doubled your recipe and it was absolutely perfect.
I salute you, my ricotta queen.
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Oh Sue, you have made my day! Thank you so much for the glowing review! I’m so very happy to hear how much you loved the ricotta cheese! Thank you Sue!
AnnMarie
Thank you so much for this recipe!! I tried True Food Kitchen’s Butternut Squash Pizza a couple months ago and was obsessed with their almond ricotta. I emailed them asking for the recipe but they wouldn’t give it up. Your recipe is amazing and I just used it to recreate that pizza from True Food Kitchen….it was delicious! Can’t wait to try this ricotta in other recipes!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Woohoo! So glad it lived up to the True Food Kitchen’s Pizza, yay! Thank you AnnMarie for the wonderful review!
Tara
I LOVED this recipe and it was super tasty. Even my meat eater friends loved it! Thanks so much for the tasty recipes you share all the time!!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
That is awesome Tara, love hearing that it was a hit all around! Thank you for the feedback!
Jennifer
OMG you’ve done it again! This ricotta is fabulous! I’ve just made it for my manicotti tonight. I was going to cook the jumbo shells, but can’t find any locally that I know are GMO free. I love your recipes, Brandi! Thanks for having your page 🙂
*side note – I highly recommend for anybody making this to follow her instructions exactly. I started off with 2 Tbl of yogurt and finished off with about 3 for my liking.
Jennifer
So sorry…meant to give it 5 stars!!
Shree
Oh my! I’m waiting for my lasagna to come out of the oven. I tasted the ricotta and it is spot on! Thank you so much for developing such a great and wonderful cheese! Love following your recipes and I can’t wait to try the stuffed shells. Yummy!!
KeepLeft
This recipe is a game-changer for my plant based lasagna. I love your recipes!
Brenda
Could I use cashews or other nuts in place of the almonds in this recipe?
Thanks!
Neri
It turned out great! I made lasagna today with spinach and mushrooms, and it was delicious! Thank you for sharing the recipe.
Judy Fine
I made the vegan ricotta cheese for the stuffed shells this weekend. This by far was the very best recipe I have made since going wfpb in 2012. We have had them for 3 meals with 2 family members and everyone just loved the flavor. The flavor of the ricotta is deep, savory and very well suited for the shells. The pizza sauce was excellent as well. This was truly a big winner. Many thanks for your hard work in developing delicious recipes.
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Wow, that is the best feedback ever, thank you so much for letting me know Judy!
Courtney
LOVE THIS RECIPE!!!! I’ve made it so many times, it’s defin become a family favorite 😍 One thing I wanted to know, if we wanted to make the cheese and fridgerate it for the following day (i.e. if I make the cheeese tonight but don’t make the meal until tomorrow night) how does the ricotta hold up? Is it okay to refrigerate it for the following night or does it need to be made and used the same night?
Can’t wait for your cookbook!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
So happy to hear that Courtney!! Oh yes, it holds up perfectly in the fridge so you can definitely make it in advance 🙂
NC
I just made this tonight, really great tasting. I used my Ninja food processor but it did not yield the ricotta consistency so I transferred it to a blender. I was afraid it would not come out as you indicated in the recipe but I simply pulsed it and it worked well. Thanks for sharing this great recipe.
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Awesome, so glad you loved the recipe! Thank you for making it!
Sue
I made this today for friends for the first time and am so glad it worked out really well! I have a small little Oscar food processor so it was pretty full but I was able to to the whole recipe in it. I have to give credit to you for the very good directions–without your notes and exolanations on what might happen or how it would seem, I probably would have under-processed it and found it grittty and not good. I kept going until I got the fluffy texture and smoothness I was looking for. I was really impressed with it!!! My friends who I invited for lunch also really enjoyed it and were surprised that it was made from almonds (non-vegan) and that I MADE it myself (vegan friend who thought I bought it). WIN!!
This is such a keeper!! Thank you. Genius!
Amanda
Wow this looks AMAZING! All I could think of was a veggie calzone made with this in it! YUM
Angie
I made this today and used it to make a roasted vegetable pizza….AMAZING…thank you!
Raquel
I guess I need some suggestions! While the flavor of this ricotta is great I just can’t seem to make it smooth, like ricotta. It always has small pieces of almond to chew on. I have soaked the slivered almonds for over eight hours, and the second time even microwaved them in the soaking water at the end to make them more soft. I run my food processor for 20 plus minutes and it still won’t get smooth! I am using the Ninja Professional system which has a food processing attachment and am wondering if that’s the issue. Anyone have suggestions?
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Hi Raquel! That’s very odd, I’m giessing it’s your food processor. I make it all the time and it’s always smooth. What size is your food processor?
Johanna
That’s looks amazing! I can’t believe that I haven’t made the Pimento Cheese again.
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Thank you Johanna!
Allyson
I just made this ricotta and tried it on pizza…and it is amazing! So delicious! I ended up using 4 T. of the So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk yogurt and it was perfect…a subtle tangy flavor, and so, so good. Can’t wait to try this in lasagna! Thank you!
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Yay, so thrilled you loved it so much Allyson! Yes, I always use the 4 T as well! Thank you for the lovely review!
Sue
Hi Brandi. Just wanted to tell you that since first making this, it has become the most repeated recipe in my kitchen . Thank you so so much for giving us back our beloved Italian food.
Roger
What a great recipe ! I used your Ricotta and Pizza sauce recipes in a whole grain lasagne with spinach and zucchini… Fantastic flavor and texture.
brandi.doming@yahoo.com
Yay, so glad you loved it Roger! That sounds really delicious!! I’ve been meaning to try it in a lasagna since several readers are having success!