How To Make Vegan Butter Spreadable And Butter Sticks

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.

Why you will love this recipe

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

Watch how to make vegan butter

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.