This recipe for dairy-free Parmesan Cheese is super easy! You don’t even need a food processor for this one, yay!
You only need 4-5 ingredients and 2 minutes to make this vegan Parmesan!! Insane, isn’t it?? You will never ever want to buy it in the shops ever again (it’s waaaaay too expensive, my friends, for what you actually get)!
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And do you know, you only need ingredients that are, most likely, sitting in your pantry—especially when you’re on a paleo or gluten-free diet?
Okay, let’s take a minute before we start and picture a plate full of yummy, creamy pasta (like the one below👇). All you want to do now is sprinkle some Parmesan cheese over it, right?
Why? Why do you? No, seriously, try answering that question. Is it for the cheesy taste? The extra salt and seasoning? The texture of those “crumbs” that stick to your pasta?
Answering this question will help you a bit later to decide which ingredients you want to use.
What is dairy-free Parmesan cheese?
This Parmesan cheese recipe is a plant-based, or vegan, substitute for the original (dairy) Parmesan cheese. But rather when it’s grated, not as a block! Other than most vegan cheese substitutes, this one cannot melt—it stays crumbly even on hot pasta.
So, it’s only grated Parmesan (similar to Parmesan crumbs) that you can sprinkle over your spaghetti (vegan) bolognese or whichever pasta dish you’re making.
This recipe uses almond meal and coconut flour to create this consistency and garlic, onion and salt for flavouring. Now, some of you love the cheesy taste of Parmesan, right? Nutritional yeast can do that for you. In fact, it’s the most used ingredient to create dairy-free cheese!
This recipe, however, does not use or need nutritional yeast. I’ll talk about the why later on! Of course, feel free to use them! I’ll let you know how much you can use in the ingredient section!
How to use this dairy-free Parmesan cheese?
You can use this cheese substitute for extra seasoning and texture over your pasta or even on pizza.
This cheese does NOT melt though and can therefore not substitute Parmesan in recipes where this is required (like in the cheese sauce for lasagne, cheese crackers or chicken (or tofu chicken, lol) parmigiana).
What are the ingredients?
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For this recipe, I’m using 5 ingredients—2 for the right consistency and 3 for flavour. If you have any allergies or would like to swap one or the other, I also provide a few ideas you could try out!
Almond flour
As this is a blender-free recipe, I’m using almond flour (or meal). Of course, if you do own a food processor or blender, feel free to make your own (it’s cheaper)! Almond flour is technically our base for this dairy-free Parmesan cheese.
We want to create grated Parmesan or crumbs, right? So, here we are. It’ll also add a bit of a crunch because Parmesan is a rather solid cheese (compared to others).
What can I use instead of almond flour?
If you don’t like almonds, you could alternatively use other nuts like raw cashews or Brazil nuts. You can either buy cashew flour online (but not Brazil nut meal/flour) or you can to make it yourself at home (which means, you need a food processor or high-speed blender).
In some supermarkets here in Australia, you can also buy macadamia meal. It’s however quite oily and not as dry as almond flour. Preferably, you look for macadamia flour which is
If you do decide to make your own cashew (or whatever nut) flour, make sure you only pulse blend the raw nuts and wait for a few seconds in between each time. This will ensure that the nuts aren’t releasing any of their oils. Blending non-stop will raise the temperature and the nuts will start to extract the oils.
Nut-free & dairy-free Parmesan cheese
First nut-free option: just use coconut flour instead. It only won’t be that crumbly then and rather fine.
Second nut-free option: use sunflower seed flour, pepitas/pumpkin seed flour or hemp seed flour instead. If you can, make it at home yourself (in a blender or food processor, it saves you money) and stop processing until you have the right size. See "What can I use instead of almond flour?" above to learn how to make your own flour.
Coconut flour
Coconut flour is our second ingredient for the right consistency. You know, I love Parmesan cheese when it sticks to my pasta and kinda coats it. Since coconut flour is a bit finer than almond flour it clings to anything a lot easier.
Also, I find that coconut flour adds flavour to this dairy-free cheese. I almost want to say cheesy flavour, but that’s just my personal opinion.
What can I use instead of coconut flour?
If you don’t like coconut, you can use more almond flour (or its substitute) instead. However, I highly recommend using coconut flour as it adds not only the right texture and feel to your dairy-free Parmesan cheese but also some extra, almost cheese-like, taste (again, that’s at least what I think).
Salt
Well, Parmesan cheese is salty, right? So we absolutely need salt for this recipe! You can’t skip it. You may want to adjust the amount which is fine, but leaving it out… is not a good idea.
I recommend using fine rock or sea salt. Or if you like, you could also use garlic or onion salt! Simply leave out the garlic or onion powder depending on which salt you choose.
Garlic and Onion powder
These two flavours are more or less what makes this cheese taste like cheese without the help of nutritional yeast. I’m not a big fan of it and like to experiment with rather “natural” ingredients to create a similar taste.
With these two, I highly recommend you try out different variations. For me, it’s perfect when I use ¾ onion and ¼ garlic. Half/half is also okay. More garlic than onion does taste good but not as cheesy anymore.
What else can I use for a cheesy flavour?
You can definitely use just one of them or play around with the amounts a bit so it’s perfect for you.
But if you really don’t want to use any of these, you can definitely substitute them with nutritional yeast. I reckon up to a tablespoon should be plenty in this recipe!
Is nutritional yeast good for you?
There are quite a few myths going around on the world wide web about nutritional yeast, also called Nooch, whether it’s good or bad for us.
👉Heads up: I won’t talk about it in detail—you could write a whole article just on this topic—but will link a few throughout this chapter if you wanna learn more.
Most articles state that it’s indeed very healthy and contains many of the B vitamins (NOT vitamin B12 though, unless added!!), minerals and protein. Sounds great, right? This was a relief to read that (at first) because how else would we on a plant-based, dairy-free or paleo diet get this yummy cheese flavour?
However, there is some concern about nutritional yeast containing glutamate or MSG (=monosodium glutamate).
Now, MSG doesn’t have the best reputation, right? It’s a neurotoxin, causing diseases, migraine, obesity, etc. Interestingly, MSG is actually one of the most researched food ingredients. Studies apparently found no concerns and claim it’s actually safe to consume.
It very much depends on how it is produced. If I were you, I would only buy organic nutritional yeast because any industrial and highly processed MSG is forbidden. You’d be on the safe(r) side!
Still, safe or not, I’m just not the biggest fan of nutritional yeast and only use it very occasionally.
Even though I was reading article after article and each of them is saying it’s safe to consume, I still remained sceptical. Maybe it’s my intuition, I don’t know. I reckon for me it’s just the way the food industry produces it. It’s processed food and I eat as naturally as I can, (almost) always avoiding processed food.
I think you can create the cheesy flavour with garlic and onion powder just as well—especially for dairy-free Parmesan cheese, I find.
By the way, nutritional yeast is not raw vegan, in case you’re on that diet. Also, I read that it’s not paleo as well (a German article stated that because it’s processed and not natural anymore), but when I googled it in English, everyone says it’s paleo.
If you like to read more about the topic, I recommend this article (pro nutritional yeast) or this article (kinda pro but also against nutritional yeast).
How to make dairy-free Parmesan cheese?
My recipe for a vegan Parmesan cheese substitute is super easy! As I mentioned initially, you won’t need a blender or a food processor. Because most likely, when you’re travelling and/or camping, you don’t have that machine with you.
Mix equal parts of almond and coconut flour, add salt, onion and garlic powder. Taste and adjust if needed. DONE! That took, what? 1-2 minutes?? I told you it’s super easy!!
I remember sitting in front of my bowl of yummy pasta and missing Parmesan. How good it’d taste with it! Not only did I crave the extra seasoning, but I also missed the crumbs that would stick to the pasta.
So, one day, I mixed my first batch of cheese, experimenting with garlic only at first as I didn’t have any onion powder in my pantry. The consistency was really great but the taste wasn’t good enough. Only when I added onion powder, it changed. It was perfect! Of course, I had to share it with you and here’s the easy peasy recipe:
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon almond flour or meal
- 2 tablespoon coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon salt fine rock or sea salt
- ¾ teaspoon onion powder see notes
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine all ingredients.
- Adjust taste if needed (more salt, onion or garlic powder).
- Store in an airtight container or a small jar.
Notes
- The amount of onion and garlic powder is just to give you an idea. Feel free to experiment with it!
- Add up to a tablespoon of nutritional yeast flakes for a cheesier flavour, if you prefer. Simply leave out onion powder.
- I store my dairy-free Parmesan cheese in the fridge as Australia is just too hot and the almonds may go bad. But you can simply store it in your pantry, if you live in a moderate to cold climate!
