Vegan ricotta cheese is a delicious, creamy addition to lasagna and stuffed pasta shells. It’s also terrific spread generously on crackers.
It’s made with 6 ingredients in the food processor. And it comes together in only minutes. Vegan and nut-free.
Want something creamy, protein-packed, and delicious to add to your layered pasta dishes or comforting stuffed shells? Make a batch of vegan ricotta!
This simple dairy-free cheese recipe is inexpensive, convenient, and so tasty.
Vegan ricotta has umami-richness from miso paste, tang from lemon juice, cheesiness from nutritional yeast flakes, and a fatty edge from tahini.
Plus, thanks to the food processor, it takes less than 10 minutes to make. Gotta love that!
In this post:
Why readers love this recipe
“This is very easy, delicious and versatile!” – Shell
Ingredients
Here are the ingredients you will need to make this recipe.
Tofu: Look for vacuum-packed super firm tofu. Because it isn’t packaged in water, you don’t have to press it before using.
White miso paste: This mildly flavored fermented soybean paste adds umami and saltiness. Look for it in the refrigerated section of the grocery store near the tofu.
Nutritional yeast: This inactive yeast is what gives the vegan ricotta its cheesy flavor. It’s often sold near the flour in the grocery store or in the health food area. (You can learn more about it in this post, “What is nutritional yeast?”)
Lemon juice: Freshly squeezed is a must for the best flavor. Bottled just can’t compare.
Tahini: Tahini is like peanut butter, but made with sesame seeds instead of peanuts. It adds nutty richness & fattiness to this vegan cheese.
Look for it in the Mediterranean section or with other nut & seed butters in the grocery store. My favorite brands are Soom and Seed + Mill.
Salt: Cheese is salty, so don’t forget it to make the flavors pop.
Step by step instructions
This section shows how to make this recipe at a glance with process photos of the steps. For complete ingredient amounts & instructions, keep scrolling to the recipe card below.
Add the following to a food processor:
- Super firm tofu
- Miso paste
- Nutritional yeast flakes
- Lemon juice
- Tahini
- Salt
Turn the food processor to low and let it blend. Then stop and scrape down the sides to incorporate anything that's sticking. Process for a little while longer.
Blend until it’s mostly smooth, but still a little crumbly. (If it starts rolling itself into a ball in the food processor, it’s probably ready.)
Make it your own
It's easy to adjust this dairy free ricotta to suit your preferences.
Adjust the flavors to suit your tastes by adding:
- Fresh or dried basil
- Minced garlic or garlic powder
- Granulated onion
- Italian seasoning blend
- Black pepper
- Sun-dried tomatoes
Serving suggestions
This vegan ricotta can be used many different ways. Here are a few ideas:
- Use it as layers of a vegan lasagna along with noodles, spinach, fresh basil, zucchini, and/or vegan sausage
- Use it to stuff pasta shells
- Spread it on crackers or toast (It’s especially good with grilled artichoke hearts, olives, olive tapenade, pickled onions, or avocado.)
- Add dollops to pizza (It doesn’t melt, obviously. But it gives body to pizza with added creaminess and cheesy flavor.)
- Use it as a filling for dairy-free quesadillas
- Use your hands to roll vegan ricotta into balls. Then turn it into a snowman cheese ball or vegan cheese balls holiday wreath
Storage instructions
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It will keep for about 4 days.
It also freezes well in a freezer-safe container. When you’re ready to use it, move to the refrigerator to thaw.
More easy vegan cheeses
Looking for more vegan cheese recipes that are easy to make?
Try these on for size:
If you try this recipe and love it, let me know! Leave a comment and ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the comment section below. It truly makes my day and is such a help!
📖 Recipe
Easy vegan ricotta
Ingredients
- 16 ounces super firm tofu in vacuum packaging
- 4 teaspoons white miso paste
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast flakes
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 Tablespoons tahini
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Use your hands to crumble tofu into food processor in chunks. Then add the remaining ingredients.
- Process at a low speed until everything is evenly incorporated. Stop once or twice to scrape down the sides, so that all of the ingredients get mixed into the ricotta. The texture doesn't need to be perfectly smooth. Time will vary depending on your food processor. However, you'll likely only need about 30 seconds.
- Remove from food processor. Use right away in pasta dishes, on pizza, or spread on crackers. Or move the tofu ricotta to a covered container, and refrigerate until you're ready to use it.
Shell
This is very easy, delicious and versatile!
Cadry
Thanks, Shell!
Susan
Oh, the old days of veganism! We had this tube of cheese you could get in supermarkets and it was… well, what it was. LOL Now there are so many other options! But when it comes to ricotta, I love a good solid tofu version. Easy to make and oh so tasty.
Cadry
Haha! Yes, if only we could use a time machine to go back to those days, and give ourselves some seitan bacon or cashew cheese… Admittedly, there are probably more advantageous ways of using the powers of a time machine. But none more satisfying to the palate!
I’m glad you agree with me on the joys of tofu ricotta. Easy, fast, tasty, and inexpensive! Some of the classics pass muster.
Pixie A Vincent
“Come sit with me around the fire as we talk about the old days of veganism.” lol I could tell some stories, as well! One of my nursing babies couldn’t tolerate me consuming dairy at all in 1994. I was already vegetarian, but now I had more things to figure out. Silk brand didn’t even exist in our grocery stores – in fact, I’d never seen it anywhere, or heard of it before a new refrigerated shelf showed up with White Wave products in it years later. The aseptic packages on the shelf of soymilk were so thick and strong tasting that I couldn’t stand them on cereal and would put apple-berry juice on it instead for the first year or so. Eventually, we discovered that if you thinned it with water half and half that the flavor was okay. The “cheese” available was so awful that I chose to go without anything that needed it. And recipes? Vegan cookbooks were not in mainstream bookstores. Internet and blogs? Nope. We didn’t even have dial up at our house until 1999! Even if we had, there weren’t blogs yet. I found a few plant-based cookbooks at a Christian bookstore. Most of the recipes were labor intensive and weren’t amazing for all of that work. It was out of this culture that I learned I had to think outside of the box and not follow the “rules” home ec. class had demanded were unassailable, creating my own recipes. My family deserved it. This is the culture that allowed people to invent cashew cream, tofu ricotta like this recipe, and more, and eventually things such as aquafaba of all craziness! lol The inner cry for tasty, exciting food and sharing the new recipes birthed vegan recipe blogs. I’m thankful for your blog, Cadry, and all the good stuff you share with us!
Cadry
Thanks, Pixie! It is truly amazing the strides that have been made – especially in recent years. Now there are so many vegan products on the shelves, there’s no hope of even trying all of them. And like you said, we’ve all learned so much about what a person can do with cashews & aquafaba, it makes home cooking a lot more interesting. Who knows what more will be discovered!