What Is Vegan Butter? A Guide To Vegan Butter Substitutes

If you pass through the butter aisle, you're likely to notice more and more plant-based butter on
grocery store shelves. This is no passing trend: According to the Plant Based Foods Association,
non-dairy butter sales rose nearly 10% in 2021 while traditional dairy butter saw a 12% decline in
sales.
Vegan food companies have responded to this shift in consumer demand by expanding their
offerings and giving plant-based eaters many animal-free butter options to choose
from—including various flavors, styles, textures, and bases.
Here, we explore the most popular ingredients in vegan butter, which brands the best suit your
vegan butter tastes, and how vegan butter’s carbon footprint stacks up against its dairy
counterpart.
Ingredients in Vegan Butter Many vegan kinds of butter include nuts, such as cashews, for
creaminess. Westend61 / Getty Images
Like other animal-free dairy products, vegan butter relies on plant-based oils to give it the texture
and mouthfeel of dairy butter. In many cases, these oils are emulsified with water or non-dairy
milk and lecithin, a common plant-based food texturizer. Nuts and other plant proteins are often
added to turn the oil into solid, spreadable butter. Add in some seasoning, and you’ve got all you
need for a simple, tasty vegan butter.
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Oil
Oil is typically the first ingredient in plant-based butter. High-fat plant oils popular in vegan butter
include canola, coconut, avocado, sunflower, olive, and palm oil.
Did You Know?
Many vegans express concern over the use of palm oil, even in completely plant-based foods,
because of its connection to habitat destruction and deforestation in some of the world’s most
biodiverse places.
Protein
One popular method to give a creamy texture to the butter is to add some plant-based protein
from nuts, beans, or peas. Although not as common in vegan butter as in vegan cheese, soy
protein—in the form of powder or milk—may also appear in store-brand plant-based butter.
Preservatives
Plant-based lactic acid and citric acid often appear as natural preservatives in vegan butter and
give the butter a hint of sour flavor.
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Natural and Artificial Flavors
Unless the variety indicates so, most vegan butter contains salt. Beyond that, each brand uses a
combination of plant-based spices as well as natural flavors and artificial flavors, both of which
are vegan-friendly.
Coloring
For that classic butter yellow, many store-brand vegan kinds of butter use saffron-hued liquid
beta-carotene—the plant-based precursor to Vitamin A found in red, yellow, and green foods—to
color the butter. Others rely on turmeric or fruit and vegetables to achieve the hue.
Is Vegan Butter Sustainable?
Mint Images / Getty Images
Compared to animal-based dairy, the plant-based ingredients used to make vegan butter use far
fewer resources and release substantially fewer emissions, making it the sustainable choice in
the butter aisle. For vegans concerned with animal welfare and environmental vegans alike,
plant-based butter just makes sense.
Still, it’s worth noting that nuts—one of the most common vegan butter ingredients—are one the
most resource-intensive plant-based foods. A single California almond, for example, requires
more than three gallons of water to grow. Those higher-carbon expenditure ingredients are
countered by the use of beans, which have some of the smallest carbon footprints of all foods.
Vegan Butter Products
As demand for animal-free dairy continues to grow, more innovative products that taste great and
tread lightly on the planet will become available for purchase. For now, here are a few of our
favorites.
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Miyoko’s
Miyoko’s plant-based creamery products are even a hit outside the vegan crowd. The company
now offers several varieties—a stick-style butter with a cashew base and whipped, spreadable
butter with an oat milk base (comes in a single-use plastic tub).
European Style Cultured Vegan Butter Unsalted
European Style Cultured Vegan Butter A Hint of Sea Salt
Spreadable Cultured Vegan Oat Milk Butter
Trader Joe’s Vegan Buttery Spread
Using a blend of coconut, sunflower, and canola oil, Trader Joe’s Vegan Buttery Spread looks
and cuts like an old-school stick of margarine down to its foil-lined wrapper. Try it on a toasted
bagel or pancakes.
milkadamia
Free from palm oil, milkadamia’s Salted Butter Spread uses a blended base of regeneratively
farmed macadamia nuts for its richly flavored vegan butter. This non-GMO plant-based butter
comes in single-use plastic tubs.
Violife
Palm-, soy-, gluten-, and preservative-free, Violife uses fava bean protein to give their stick-style
butter some heft. This European vegan food company adds B12 to all of its delicious vegan
butter.
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Plant Butter Salted
Plant Butter Unsalted
Flora
With its sustainable sourced palm oil and pea protein base, Flora offers consumers another
creamy nut-free, allergen-free vegan butter option. Flora’s paper-wrapped stick butter is also
non-GMO, gluten- and soy-free, with no artificial flavors and preservatives.
Unsalted Plant Butter
Salted Plant Butter
Monty’s
Housed in a sustainable glass jar, Monty’s Plant-Based Butter has four simple, organic
ingredients: coconut oil, almond oil, organic cashews, and sea salt. The result? A thick, slightly
sweet non-dairy delight.
Nutiva
Nutiva’s delicious line of butter-flavored oils provides even more variety in the animal-free butter
aisle, including vegan ghee—a form of clarified butter. With coconut and avocado oil as the
bases, these work great for high-heat (over 400 degrees F) recipes and come in sustainable
glass jars.
Organic Coconut Oil with Non-Dairy Butter Flavor
Organic Plant-Based Ghee
Melt Organic
All of Melt Organic’s vegan butter are plant-based, organic, and Rainforest Alliance Certified,
meaning that the palm oil the company uses is sustainably sourced. Choose from sticks or
plastic tubs for these nut-free allergy-friendly options.
Probiotic Butter Made from Plants
Butter Made from Plants
Salted Butter Sticks
Unsalted Butter Sticks
Frequently Asked Questions
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entire family will love.
Nope! Vegan butter differs from margarine in that it contains no dairy whatsoever. While
margarine and vegan butter are both oil-based spreads by federal regulation, margarine can
contain non-vegan ingredients like whey and slaughterhouse by-products.
As with all plant-based substitutes, some get closer to the taste of butter than others. Some
people think vegan butter tastes more akin to margarine than butter, and even some omnivores
prefer the taste of vegan butter to the real deal.
One month vegan challenge, you'll discover amazing foods, and recipes the
entire family will love