Creamy and super buttery homemade vegan butter! Easy 7-ingredient recipe that is spreadable, melts fabulously on toast and is great for baking and frying.
I can’t even tell you how pleased I am about this homemade vegan butter!
It is just perfect. It’s wonderful on bread, for spreading (and melting) on toast, you can use it for baking, for frying, for whatever you would usually use your vegan butter for.
And it’s homemade!
It has a wonderfully buttery flavor and takes all of about 5 minutes to make (a little longer to set).
Why Make Your Own Vegan Butter?
Now you might be asking: why do I want to make my own vegan butter when I can just buy some?
Well here’s the thing – a very common question I get asked on my baked goods that use vegan butter is: ‘Where can I find vegan butter?’ because a lot of countries don’t seem to have great availability for this.
Or it might be that you don’t love all the ingredients in the brands that are available to you, or maybe you’re like me and are just delighted when you can make your own things!
How To Use Vegan Butter
I wanted to make sure that this vegan butter is good for various uses, so I tried it for frying and fried up some mushrooms with some spring onions and it was perfect (and delicious!).
And then I wanted to make sure it was good for baking, so I creamed it up with some sugar and made some vegan oatmeal cookies with it, and they were perfect!
And as you can see I’ve been spreading it on bread and toast and just enjoying it all the ways one tends to enjoy butter.
You can pretty much use it anywhere you would use a regular dairy butter.
So Much Buttery Flavor!
It has a wonderful buttery flavor and everyone who has tried it agrees that it tastes like real butter. It really does.
And comparing the flavor to other vegan buttery spreads on the market, it compares very favorably. It’s just damn good I must say.
The buttery flavor comes about from the vegan buttermilk – apple cider vinegar mixed in with unsweetened soy milk or almond milk, I tested both and both worked great – and a little nutritional yeast.
Refined coconut oil is very neutral in flavor yet perfect in texture, so it enables this vegan butter to take on the other flavors added to it.
How About That Texture..
It does get very hard in the fridge, so it’s a lot like a traditional butter in that sense, if you want to spread it on bread or cream it up with sugar for baking, it’s best to let it soften slightly out the fridge first.
Spreading on toast is of course fine as is and it doesn’t need to soften first.
You’ll also find the texture of it tends towards crumbly when it’s still hard straight from the fridge, but this doesn’t have any impact on the result once spread. And to avoid this, let it soften a bit first.
Homemade Vegan Butter Q&A
How long does it keep in the fridge? This is of course a fresh homemade product, so while the oils in the vegan butter are long lasting (the base of this is refined coconut oil), other ingredients such as the non-dairy milk, are not.
It keeps for up to 2-weeks in the fridge, though it’s at it’s best for around 10-12 days.
Can I freeze it? Yes, if you’re going to want to use it for longer than 2 weeks then freeze the excess and only keep on hand what you are going to use. When you’re ready to use the frozen portion, just pop it in the fridge where it will thaw and get ready for use.
What can I use instead of canola oil? I found the canola oil to have a very neutral taste and to work well for this, but other options are avocado oil or olive oil. If you are going to use olive oil though then don’t blend the olive oil in. Blend everything else and then stir the olive oil in. Olive oil can tend towards a bitter taste when blended too long.
Can I use extra virgin coconut oil instead of refined coconut oil? Extra virgin coconut oil can be used but the flavor just wasn’t nearly so good when I tried it. It ends up with a coconut flavor. And I like coconut flavor, so it’s not like I had something against that.
The blend of flavors wasn’t as nice and it didn’t taste as buttery as it does when you use refined coconut oil. Also after only around a week in the fridge, it had got a sort of whitish look to it, like lard, rather than like butter. You can definitely try that though if you have an issue with using refined coconut oil, just know that the result is not as good.
What is the nutritional yeast for? It adds buttery flavor. However, it’s only used in a small amount so you can omit it if it’s an ingredient you have an issue with. You will lose some buttery flavor but that’s all.
What is the turmeric used for? The turmeric is just for color. So you can omit it, but it’s great to add it for a more buttery look. Make sure you only use a small pinch though. I tried it with a ¼ tsp and oh my, the color was luminous yellow, like the color of those highlighter pens!
If you love homemade things, then you will love this homemade vegan butter! It is:
- Creamy
- Buttery
- Spreadable
- Melty
- Great for baking or frying
Use it anywhere you would use a vegan butter! Keep it covered in a glass butter dish in the fridge where it will keep for up to 2-weeks – the italics there are because I tested this all the way up to day 15, and it still tasted okay but there was just something in the taste that was saying, hmmm, maybe this is past its best days!
I would say it has a fridge life of up to 14 days but really it is at its best for around 10-12 days. If you know you won’t use it that fast, then keep around only what you’ll use right away and freeze the rest.
This Vegan Butter Is Great In These Recipes:
- Vegan Garlic Bread
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Pound Cake
- Vegan Bread Pudding
- Vegan Apple Crisp
- Vegan Cinnamon Rolls
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Homemade Vegan Butter
Ingredients
- 1 cup Refined Coconut Oil (240ml) Melted*
- 2 Tbsp Canola Oil See Notes*
- ⅓ cup Unsweetened Soy Milk or Almond Milk (80ml)
- 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 tsp Nutritional Yeast
- 1 Small Pinch Turmeric
- ½ tsp Salt
Instructions
- Add melted refined coconut oil to the blender jug along with the canola oil.
- Add the apple cider vinegar to the unsweetened soy or almond milk and stir in so that it curdles into buttermilk. Add the buttermilk to the blender.
- Add the nutritional yeast, small pinch of turmeric and salt.
- Blend very well until smooth.
- Pour out into a butter dish and refrigerate until set.
- Remove from the fridge to thaw for a few minutes if using on fresh bread or creaming with sugar for baking.
Video
Notes
- The coconut oil must be refined coconut oil and not extra virgin coconut oil.
- Avocado oil is a great option to use instead of canola oil. Olive oil also works but bear in mind that high speed blending can cause olive oil to become bitter. If using olive oil, add it in at the end and mix in without blending.
- Storing: This lasts up to 2 weeks in the fridge. If you need it to last longer, freeze the excess and only keep what you will use within 2-weeks in your fridge.
- Make it soft and spreadable: This butter recipe above comes out a lot like a traditional butter in that it’s very firm straight out the fridge and needs to soften first before it becomes spreadable (unless you’re spreading on toast, in which case you’re good to go!). This makes it great for the purposes that a regular butter is good for. However, if you want to use it mostly as a spread (that also works for baking and frying) and want it soft and spreadable straight out of the fridge then adapt the first two ingredients of the recipe as follows: ½ cup (120ml) Refined Coconut Oil and ½ cup (120ml) Canola Oil or Avocado Oil (OR ¼ cup (60ml) of each canola oil and avocado oil) and then follow the rest of the recipe exactly as it is. This results in a soft, spreadable vegan butter that still works great for baking and frying. Thanks to one of our readers for experimenting with the recipe and coming up with this adaptation.
- This recipe makes one 9.7 ounce block (275g) of vegan butter.
I’m avoiding coconut oil because of my high cholesterol – is there another fat that would work? (Also avoiding palm oil because of the environmental consequences of palm oil production) Thanks in advance.
Hi Marti. The coconut oil is essential as it makes the butter set. I’m not sure what other oils you could use, as we’ve only tested the recipe with coconut oil.
Hello Alison,
I would love to try this recipe but I’m not too fond of refined oils. Could you explain why I cannot use extra virgin coconut oil? And would there be an alternative such as cocoa butter?
Thank you very much
Natascha
Extra virgin coconut oil can be used but the flavor just wasn’t nearly so good when I tried it. It ends up with a coconut flavor. And I like coconut flavor, so it’s not like I had something against that.
The blend of flavors wasn’t as nice and it didn’t taste as buttery as it does when you use refined coconut oil. Also after only around a week in the fridge, it had got a sort of whitish look to it, like lard, rather than like butter. You can definitely try that though if you have an issue with using refined coconut oil, just know that the result is not as good.
I made this just now using equal parts of refined organic coconut and avocado oil. I followed your instructions to the T, however I still see the curdled soy milk butter. I used the Vitamix blender for a good 1.5 minutes at high speed. Is the mixture supposed to look very smooth before going into the fridge?
You need to blend the ingredients for longer, closer to 5 minutes, for it to be blended properly.
After blending my butter, it still has curdles in it kind of like its separated. After chilling, it looks smooth but it remains hard/chalky texture of coconut milk even after leaving at room temp. I have a vitamix so I feel like I blended it enough. Any thoughts?
Doing it right now. How much time in the blender? Cause everything is separated.
Can you use extra virgin olive oil?
Olive oil also works but bear in mind that high speed blending can cause olive oil to become bitter. If using olive oil, add it in at the end and mix in without blending.
Epic recipe – thank you so much 🙂 Made this for the first time yesterday and turned out amazing, never buying butter again!
Yay! Thanks so much Airica!
Would a mini food processor work for this recipe? My blender just broke 😢
Hi Tina. Yes that should work, you would just need to process it for longer.
Hi Allison, your Vegan page looks delicious, can’t wait to try out the choc.cake, carrot cake, butter Mac and cheese and the rest. it’s nearly Christmas not a lot of stock in our supermarket at the moment, we live in Gran Canaria. but will be stocking up after Christmas. Hope you have a very Merry Christmas. look forward to trying all the recipes.🍾🥂🍰🥧🎇🎂☃️🌲
Amazing!!! I did not foresee this coming out the way it did, but once I opened up my blender, I was astounded… incredibly perfect!!!!! The consistency, the taste, well done!!!!
That’s great! Thank you so much for your great review!
Hi Allison, I came across loving it vegan today when checking out your YouTube videos. So glad I found your work! Everything looks amazing and doable, thanks so much for sharing your recipes with us as it’s still kind of hard to find vegan recipes that works well.
I am looking to make vegan butter which I can use for buttercreams, will this recipe without nutritional yeast work for that purpose?
Thanks so much Krupa! And no, we do not recommend using this homemade vegan butter for buttercream frosting.
why is my butter separating? I put everything in the blender & blend. Sometimes it doesn’t separate though.
What am I doing wrong? Excellent recipe!
Hi there! You need to blend it very well before putting it in the fridge. Maybe you didn’t blend it for long enough?
This recipe is awesome Im cooking for a person who is gluten, dairy, soy, most nuts (thankfully not coconut) allergic. Do you think another milk (like flax or hemp) would work well?
We haven’t tested this recipe with those milks before. I’d say if they can curdle to make a buttermilk consistency, then it should work fine.
Thank you, thank you for sharing! My son in law is Vegan and I am trying so hard to accommodate his diet into my Christmas baking and cooking, this will be a GOD SEND! So much cheaper overall than store bought!
Awesome! Glad we could be of help Beth!
This is a simple easy tasty recipe. I cook for dairy free and vegan families. This is your solution! I added extra nutritional yeast, apple cider along, and olive oil! The recipe by itself is great I just wanted more! Love it! Oh and way more turmeric just because it’s good for the body.
So hapy to hear you enjoyed the recipe Kris! Thanks so much for your wonderful review!