After many revisions and refinements, I’m so excited to present the absolute best tasting recipe for vegan butter. Miraculously, it also slices, flakes, melts, and bakes just like the real thing.
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When you want only the cleanest dairy-free butter for freshly baked bread like soft Pull-Apart Rolls, this is the one. Plus, you can use it with confidence in all your finest dishes.
Top tip
Measure ingredients precisely for the perfect balance of flavor and color. Small variances in this recipe will make a big difference.
Why the recipe works
- Pristine buttery flavor
- Smooth creamy consistency
- Pale European butter color
- Hardens for molds or sticks
- Melts at the same temperature as dairy butter
- Browns for sauces
- Can be used in any recipe that calls for butter
- Made with a blender
- Doesn't separate
- Stores in refrigerator or freezer
Not only is this vegan butter substitute indistinguishable from traditional butter in baked goods like Sweet Lemon Blueberry Scones, but I love the fact that it's free from the additives found in vegan spreads at the store.
It's much more convincing than those store-bought butter alternatives that resemble margarine rather than butter.
What does it taste like?
When I was creating this recipe, I would think of the fresh butter I had many years ago in Switzerland. The creamy flavors in this homemade vegan butter are as pure as that indulgence and the pristine alps I remember.
It starts with a hint of sweetness. As the silky butter begins to melt in your mouth, a delicate, fresh, grassy flavor from hemp milk is revealed.
Lactic acid from sugar beets gives that kiss of tang that cultured butter has. Finally, the finish is sea salt vanishing on the tongue.
Ingredients
- Avocado oil - Just the right amount helps butter melt slowly at room temperature.
- Hemp hearts - Key ingredient that naturally emulsifies homemade butter to prevent separation.
- Sustainable palm shortening - Creamy, neutral base essential for the best tasting vegan butter.
- Sea salt - Along with lactic acid and raw sugar, sea salt gives the perfect balance of flavor.
- Lactic acid - Mimics the subtle tang in cultured butter much better than vinegar or lemon juice. Druids Grove lactic acid, derived from sugar beets is vegan, non GMO and gluten-free.
- Raw sugar - Just a little makes all the difference.
- Virgin red palm oil - Super buttery and naturally red, a touch creates that lovely, pale yellow color.
No coconut oil
Are you a butter lover that has been disappointed with recipes for vegan butter that contain coconut oil? Then you’ll be happy to know I have left the coconut oil out.
To me, that was an important choice. That’s because, on my palate, even refined unscented coconut oil leaves a detectable taste.
I love my coconut flavors, but prefer them in curry, homemade coconut yogurt, and desserts. Here, clean-tasting organic palm shortening provides the foundation.
It improves the texture in a way that coconut oil can’t. But most importantly, its neutral quality allows all the subtle flavors mentioned above to take front and center stage.
Sustainable palm shortening
The sustainably farmed vegetable shortening used in this recipe is made from one hundred percent GMO-free pure palm oil. It's also organic and non-hydrogenated.
Because I am concerned about our environment and animal welfare, I searched to find a brand of palm shortening that isn't a threat to orangutans or the forests in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Thankfully, as consumers, we have help from organizations like Rain Forest Alliance and RSPO, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
Today they are working with producers to ensure that the environment, as well as animal and human rights, are protected in the harvesting of palm oil.
Thus, we can look for their certification and labeling when buying pure palm oil shortening. At last, vegan butter substitutes can be a win from every angle.
Make hemp milk for butter
The recipe starts with making milk from hemp hearts. Hemp milk is exceptionally rich in protein and essential fatty acids. I found it helps emulsify the other ingredients in this vegan alternative to butter.
For rich hemp milk, simply blend hemp hearts with water. Squeeze thru a men's handkerchief or tight-weave cotton fabric and toss out the small amount of pulp. Your hemp milk is ready to make fresh vegan butter.
How to make vegan butter
If you've ever made homemade mayonnaise, you'll find this recipe easy to understand. The technique is similar and with four quick steps, your dairy-free butter recipe is ready to pour into any molds or containers you choose.
- Gently warm pure palm oil shortening and stir with avocado oil to a pourable consistency.
- Blend hemp hearts with water and squeeze through a cotton handkerchief to make milk.
- Rinse blender and blend hemp milk with salt, sugar, lactic acid and virgin red palm oil for color.
- With blender moving, pour melted oils into flavored hemp milk. Butter comes together quickly and you're done!
FAQ
Lactic acid is a naturally occurring compound found in dairy foods. It's responsible for a characteristic flavor in milk, yogurt, and cheese. It can also be grown by fermenting non-animal food sources like corn, beets, and cane sugar.
Yes. In spite of the misleading name, when lactic acid is derived from sugar beets as with Druid's Grove lactic acid, it is entirely vegan. Even though it doesn't contain any lactose or dairy, it has a distinct sour flavor just like many dairy foods. One can lasts indefinitely and can be used to make all sorts of vegan cheeses.
Organic, virgin red palm oil is nutrient-dense and uniquely derived from the red fruit of palm trees. It's very high in antioxidants, vitamin E, A, and K. It's been used medicinally in Africa for centuries and is the preferred cooking oil in many Nigerian specialties.
Virgin red palm oil has a rich buttery flavor that compliments the recipe as well as adds color. Rather than substitute other foods that will change the taste of this vegan alternative to butter, I recommend just leaving it out. I think white butter has an elegant look all its own.
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📖 Recipe
Ultimate Recipe For Vegan Butter
Ingredients
- 2 cups sustainably farmed, non-hydrogenated pure palm oil shortening
- ¼ cup expeller pressed avocado oil
- 2 TB hemp hearts
- ¾ cup filtered water
- 1 ½ tsp. raw sugar
- 1 ½ tsp. sea salt
- ½ tsp. Druids Grove lactic acid powder
- ¼ tsp. unrefined virgin red palm oil
Instructions
Melt Oils
- If palm oil shortening is semi-solid, place it in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. Let it soften while making and flavoring hemp milk. Don't let it melt completely or get warmer than room temperature.
- Stir palm oil occasionally until it is soft enough to pour. Use a spoon to whip avocado oil into softened palm oil shortening until the mixture is smooth.
Make Hemp Milk
- Place water and hemp hearts in a blender. Blend on high for 1-2 minutes. Lay a large handkerchief or square of thin cotton fabric over a bowl. Pour hemp milk in, and carefully gather top. Squeeze and wring until all the liquid is extracted. Toss out pulp.
Flavor Hemp Milk
- Rinse and drain blender. Return hemp milk to blender. Add salt, sugar, lactic acid, and red palm oil. Measure accurately for optimal flavor. Blend briefly on medium speed until color is uniform.
Create Butter
- With blender running on medium speed, pour the whisked oils into the center of hemp milk. As the mixture thickens, turn blender speed up. Stop as soon as all the ingredients are mostly mixed.
- Take a spatula and scrape sides of butter mixture towards center of blender. Blend briefly a final time on high speed until butter is uniform. You will have a spoonable, fluffy, pale yellow butter.
- Scoop butter into silicone molds or serving dishes and cover. Glass containers with snap-tight lids are also handy. Place immediately in refrigerator or freezer until firm enough to slice.
Store
- Keep homemade vegan butter for 10 days to 2 weeks in the refrigerator. Butter can also be frozen for 6 months.
Notes
- The virgin red palm oil is optional in this recipe but adds a beautiful color and extra buttery richness if you use it.
- Measure ingredients precisely for best tasting butter.
- Soften palm oil shortening until it can be stirred with avocado oil. Take care not to melt shortening to a liquid state.
- Pour or spoon finished butter recipe into dishes or molds and refrigerate or freeze immediately.
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