Last Updated on October 25, 2024 by Kari
I’ve tried buying some of the vegan sour creams on the market, and as someone who loved sour cream before becoming vegan, I can say that they don’t even come close to the taste I expect. Not. Even. Close. But, that’s okay because one glorious day I had some amazing vegan sour cream from a farmer’s market, and I’ve used that ingredient list, along with the following video, to create my own sour cream that is so good I can eat it by itself.
The Basic Vegan Sour Cream Recipe
Following is a basic sour cream recipe. You will get great results from this alone, so try it ‘as is’ if you want to first.
Tips:
- This really does thicken up after time. Play around with the amount of water you add in to get it just right for you. I normally fill up the water to almost the top of the cashews before I start blending as I find it always needs at least that much.
- Make sure you have a tight fitting lid. This seems to help the fermentation.
- Leave some room between the sour cream and the top of the jar because it will rise as it ferments. So if you have it filled to the top, it could explode like lava as you take the lid off. Believe me, I experienced that this morning and had to clean up sour cream from my arm, shirt, and floor. Once you open the lid and give it a stir, it will settle back down to the level it was originally at.
- Give it at least 8 hours to do its thing and then taste as you go after that. I usually end up leaving mine on the counter for about 24 hours to get it to the taste I like.
Extra Ingredients I Add
I’ve tweaked this vegan sour cream to work for me. I don’t measure ingredients when I make it, so I’ll give you some estimates.
First, I add young coconut meat. This is optional and I don’t always use it because I don’t always have coconut meat, but it adds silkiness. I add as much as I feel like at the moment, but I would estimate it to be around 4-6 tablespoons. I get a young coconut, crack it open, drink the coconut water, and then scrape out the white coconut meat inside. This is one of those things I learned from the farmer’s market sour cream. They had ‘coconut’ listed as an ingredient, and after tying different versions of coconut and coconut milk, I found the young coconut meat works the best. It makes the sour cream creamier. And it tastes better. I’ve made plenty of versions without the coconut meat, and I always like it better with the coconut meat included. It’s important to note that I don’t taste any coconut taste in the end result.
I usually add a tiny bit of salt to sour cream. I never used to, but I find it gives a better taste to the sour cream. With or without, I’ve never had any problem with mold or anything like that.
Lastly, I ALWAYS add nutritional yeast. I would say about two tablespoons – sometimes more. I read once that nutritional yeast gives vegan cream a dairy type flavor. I agree. I’ve forgotten the nutritional yeast once and I noticed the difference in flavor big time!
That’s it. It comes out perfect every time, even if I play around with the coconut meat and nutritional yeast measurements, which is why I don’t really feel the need to measure.
My mom, who will make her own non-vegan food on holidays instead of just eating our food, will still reach for this vegan sour cream to put on her perogies. She always says it’s better than her dairy sour cream, so that’s a huge nod to how good this vegan sour cream is.
And with that said, I’m going to go heat myself up some chili and add some of my brand new batch of vegan sour cream in!
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