Creamy and super buttery homemade vegan butter! Easy 7-ingredient recipe that is spreadable, melts fabulously on toast and is great for baking and frying.
I can’t even tell you how pleased I am about this homemade vegan butter!
It is just perfect! It’s wonderful on bread, for spreading (and melting) on toast, you can use it for baking, for frying, for whatever you would usually use your vegan butter for!
And it’s homemade!
It has a wonderfully buttery flavor and takes all of about 5 minutes to make (a little longer to set 
).
Why make your own vegan butter?
Now you might be asking: why do I want to make my own vegan butter when I can just buy some?
Well here’s the thing – a very common question I get asked on my baked goods that use vegan butter is: ‘Where can I find vegan butter?’ because a lot of countries don’t seem to have great availability for this.
Or it might be that you don’t love all the ingredients in the brands that are available to you, or maybe you’re like me and are just delighted when you can make your own things!
How to use vegan butter
I wanted to make sure that this vegan butter is good for various uses, so I tried it for frying and fried up some mushrooms with some spring onions and it was perfect (and delicious!).
And then I wanted to make sure it was good for baking, so I creamed it up with some sugar and made some vegan oatmeal cookies with it, and they were perfect!
And as you can see I’ve been spreading it on bread and toast and just enjoying it all the ways one tends to enjoy butter!
The one place I didn’t love it was using it in a frosting. This is because it gets very soft/melty at room temperature and very hard in the fridge. This is of course because the base is coconut oil and this is what coconut oil does!
Store-bought vegan butters tend to not get super hard in the fridge, and also tend to not get ultra runny in hot temperatures which is why they work better in frostings. So for this reason it isn’t ideal in a frosting and I’m going to stick with the store-bought variety for that. But you definitely can use this for frostings in a pinch.
And for everything else – this vegan butter works great!
So much buttery flavor!
I mentioned above that it has a buttery flavor, well truth be told I have not tasted dairy butter in a lot of years!
But comparing the flavor to vegan buttery spreads on the market, it compares very favorably. It’s damn good I must say.
The buttery flavor comes about from the vegan buttermilk – apple cider vinegar mixed in with unsweetened soy milk or almond milk, I tested both and both worked great – and a little nutritional yeast.
Refined coconut oil is very neutral in flavor yet perfect in texture, so it enables this vegan butter to take on the other flavors added to it.
How about that texture..
It does get very hard in the fridge, so it’s more like a traditional butter in that sense, if you want to spread it on bread or cream it up with sugar for baking, it’s best to let it soften slightly out the fridge first.
Spreading on toast is of course fine as is and it doesn’t need to soften first.
You’ll also find the texture of it tends towards crumbly when it’s still hard straight from the fridge, but this doesn’t have any impact on the result once spread. And to avoid this, let it soften a bit first.
Homemade Vegan Butter Q&A
How long does it keep in the fridge? This is of course a fresh homemade product, so while the oils in the vegan butter are long lasting (the base of this is refined coconut oil), other ingredients such as the non-dairy milk, are not.
It keeps for up to 2-weeks in the fridge, though it’s at it’s best for around 10-12 days.
Can I freeze it? Yes, if you’re going to want to use it for longer than 2 weeks then freeze the excess and only keep on hand what you are going to use. When you’re ready to use the frozen portion, just pop it in the fridge where it will thaw and get ready for use.
What can I use instead of canola oil? I found the canola oil to have a very neutral taste and to work well for this, but other options are avocado oil or olive oil. If you are going to use olive oil though then don’t blend the olive oil in. Blend everything else and then stir the olive oil in. Olive oil can tend towards a bitter taste when blended too long.
Can I use extra virgin coconut oil instead of refined coconut oil? Extra virgin coconut oil can be used but the flavor just wasn’t nearly so good when I tried it. It ends up with a coconut flavor. And I like coconut flavor, so it’s not like I had something against that.
The blend of flavors wasn’t as nice and it didn’t taste as buttery as it does when you use refined coconut oil. Also after only around a week in the fridge, it had got a sort of whitish look to it, like lard, rather than like butter. You can definitely try that though if you have an issue with using refined coconut oil, just know that the result is not as good.
What is the nutritional yeast for? It adds buttery flavor. However, it’s only used in a small amount so you can omit it if it’s an ingredient you have an issue with. You will lose some buttery flavor but that’s all.
What is the turmeric used for? The turmeric is just for color. So you can omit it, but it’s great to add it for a more buttery look. Make sure you only use a small pinch though. I tried it with a 1/4 tsp and oh my, the color was luminous yellow, like the color of those highlighter pens!
If you love homemade things, then you will love this homemade vegan butter! It is:
- Creamy
- Buttery
- Spreadable
- Melty
- Great for baking or frying
Use it anywhere you would use a vegan butter! Keep it covered in a glass butter dish in the fridge where it will keep for up to 2-weeks – the italics there are because I tested this all the way up to day 15, and it still tasted okay but there was just something in the taste that was saying, hmmm, maybe this is past its best days!
I would say it has a fridge life of up to 14 days but really it is at its best for around 10-12 days. If you know you won’t use it that fast, then keep around only what you’ll use right away and freeze the rest.
This vegan butter would be great in these recipes:
- Vegan Garlic Bread
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Pound Cake
- Vegan Bread Pudding
- Vegan Apple Crisp
- Vegan Cinnamon Rolls
So what do you think of this vegan butter? Let me know in the comments! And if you make it, let me know how it worked out! And please rate the recipe as this is super helpful.
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Homemade Vegan Butter
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Total Time: 5 mins
- Yield: ~275g/9.7oz Block of Butter
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Creamy and super buttery homemade vegan butter! Easy 7-ingredient recipe that is spreadable, melts fabulously on toast and is great for baking and frying.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (240ml) Refined Coconut Oil (Melted)*
- 2 Tbsp Canola Oil* (See Notes)
- 1/3 cup (80ml) Unsweetened Soy or Almond Milk
- 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 tsp Nutritional Yeast
- Small Pinch Turmeric
- 1/2 tsp Salt
Instructions
- Add melted refined coconut oil to the blender jug along with the canola oil.
- Add the apple cider vinegar to the unsweetened soy or almond milk and stir in so that it curdles into buttermilk and then add it in.
- Add the nutritional yeast, small pinch of turmeric and salt.
- Blend very well until smooth.
- Pour out into a butter dish and refrigerate until set.
- Remove from the fridge to thaw for a few minutes if using on fresh bread or creaming with sugar for baking.
Notes
*Must be refined coconut oil not extra virgin coconut oil.
*Avocado oil is a great option to use instead of canola oil. Olive oil also works but bear in mind that high speed blending can cause olive oil to become bitter. If using olive oil, add it in at the end and mix in without blending.
*Lasts up to 2-weeks in refrigerator. If you need it to last longer, freeze the excess and only keep what you will use within 2-weeks in your fridge.
*Inspired by Fork and Beans.
- Category: How to, Gluten-Free
- Method: Blend
- Cuisine: Vegan
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 tsp
- Calories: 39
- Sodium: 22mg
- Fat: 4.1g
- Saturated Fat: 3.1g
Keywords: vegan butter
would you say this can be used as replacement for butter in baking??
Yes it can. 🙂
Do you think this would work with plain ol vegetable oil? And thanks for the recipe can’t wait to try it!
Hi Marlo, to replace the canola oil, sure. But not to replace the coconut oil as the coconut oil is the crucial ingredient here allowing this to set. 🙂
Will try using cashew milk.
Has anyone tried this with canned coconut milk?
And if so, did it taste coconutty?
(I don’t like the coconut flavor, but normally when cooking with coconut milk the flavor goes away (but this is not cooked, so I’m concerned). Mom can’t have soy or almond milk and the canned coconut milk stays fresh longer.)
Lovely and tasty.
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Thanks Jane! 🙂
Hi would oat milk work?
Hi Katherine, I don’t think so, from other comments it seems it might cause the butter to separate.
I made it – and it was good, the only problem it separated on the bottom when sitting in the fridge = did I do something wrong? Thanks
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Hi Leeanna, it needs to blend very well preferably at high speed if you have that setting on your blender. Other commenters have noted that using a more powerful blender prevented this issue from occurring. You can definitely still make it even without a high speed blender, but that might cause the separation issue. Another possible reason is using something like oat milk. From other comments it seems oat milk may not be a good fit.
I have one small problem with this recipe. It’s the over whelming vinegar smell. Is there anyway to change that? Like lemon juice instead?
I have never noticed that! But you can try lemon juice instead. 🙂
Thank you for that. I can now give the butter a try! I have spent an hour though just searching for my glass butter dish, and of course it was in the last place I looked!! Never made anything with coconut oil and stuff, so have been getting in supplies. I am vegetarian but have a lot of issues with allergies, just found your site a few days ago and I am overwhelmed with all the lovely recipes, I just need to get started.
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So glad you found our blog! Hope you’ll get lots of ideas here, and hope you’ll love the vegan butter! 🙂
How do I melt the solid coconut oil from the jar/tin please? Can I use Sunflower oil instead of Canola oil? Thank you.
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Hi Linda, if you just stand the whole jar of coconut oil in a bowl of hot water that should melt it pretty easily. Sunflower oil should be fine instead of canola. Hope you like the recipe! 🙂
Which refined coconut oil do you use?
We have a link in the recipe card to a Nutiva brand, but you can really use any brand so long as it is solid coconut oil. Refined is optional but removes the coconut flavor so works best. 🙂