Creamy and tangy vegan cream cheese frosting made with homemade vegan cream cheese! Smooth and delicious and perfect on vegan cakes or cupcakes.
I have wanted to make some vegan cream cheese frosting for years now!
But I had the issue that I either couldn’t find vegan cream cheese or, on the rare occasions I did find it, I didn’t like the result.
Let me be clear though that I have not had a lot of options for store bought vegan cream cheese over the past few years, so this is not about throwing shade on vegan cream cheese brands, I just didn’t have many options.
But recently I made a homemade vegan cream cheese that we just loved. And I started wondering if I could use it for a cream cheese frosting.
The vegan cream cheese we made has some dried dill stirred into it. So I tried making a batch of it and not stirring in the dried dill and then tried a cream cheese frosting. Well….haha my first try tasted a little bit…yuck.
This was because I left out the dried dill but still used my original vegan cream cheese flavorings like onion powder and white vinegar. This works SO well for a savory cream cheese but is just very incompatible with something sweet!
So then I made the cream cheese again, this time altering the recipe to leave out the onion powder altogether and reducing the white vinegar by three quarters.
A small amount of white vinegar was still needed to create that cheese flavor so that it still tastes like a cream cheese frosting, and not just a frosting with some cashews thrown in!
And then we had it – the most perfect tasting frosting.
How To Make Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
So for this recipe, you make the cream cheese from scratch. You don’t have to, if you have a readymade version that you want to use instead you can do it!
But if you’re doing it like we did, then you start off by making the vegan cream cheese.
You soak raw cashew nuts in hot water for an hour and then drain and add to a blender jug with some lemon juice, coconut cream, salt and a tiny bit (¼ tsp) of white vinegar. Blend until smooth.
This will make around 13-ounces of vegan cream cheese. You’re only going to use 8-ounces in the frosting.
Never fear though, I will show you how to add extra savory flavoring to the leftover cream cheese so that you’ll be spreading it on crackers and bread and bagels and loving it.
So once the cream cheese is made you’ll add 8-ounces (226g) of it – weigh it for accuracy – to the bowl of your stand mixer.
Add in some vegan butter and powdered sugar and vanilla extract and then starting on slow speed gradually increase speed until you have a beautifully smooth frosting.
And your cream cheese frosting is ready to use! Spread it on cakes, cupcakes or cookies!
Tips For The Best Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
Sift the powdered sugar for this frosting. I don’t usually sift powdered sugar for frostings and usually leave it to my mixer to get rid of any lumps, but for this frosting it didn’t work.
I had small lumps of powdered sugar that I couldn’t get rid of. So sift the powdered sugar first.
Weigh out your ingredients for accuracy. Especially since you are not just using all the vegan cream cheese that you make in the frosting, you need to be very accurate with the amount that you do use.
However, you can be a little flexible on the amount of powdered sugar. If you want the frosting thicker, you can use more powdered sugar. However just be aware that…
It thickens up a lot in the fridge. This frosting does thicken up a lot in the fridge. To the point that you need to let it sit on the counter for a bit before it thins enough to be spreadable.
I found it to be perfect to place onto a cake while still quite runny, but then put the whole cake into the fridge for the frosting to harden and set. And then after that, if the cake is at room temperature it will be like what you see in these photos. Fairly soft.
But it is quite ideal for baked goods with a cream cheese frosting to be kept (covered) in the fridge.
If you do want it to be thicker at room temperature you can use more powdered sugar, but the issue is that you do dilute the cream cheese flavor a bit if the ingredient ratio leans more towards the sweetness of the powdered sugar.
You want it to have that signature cream cheese tang.
Ingredient Tips
Use a brand of vegan butter that is more firm. Ideally if you can get a vegan stick butter, like Earth Balance buttery sticks, this will work great. Alternatively if you have a brand of vegan margarine that comes in a hard block then that will also work great.
If all you have access to is vegan butter in tubs, then if you have choices, choose the one that is most firm. If you don’t have choices, then don’t worry about it too much, it’ll be okay anyway!
Recipe Q&A
Can you pipe it? It really depends on the texture you get. As I mentioned above, mine firmed up a lot in the fridge. So I reckon I could have piped it, but then whatever had the piped frosting on it would have had to stay in the fridge. Which is fine too.
What to do with the leftover 5-ounces of cream cheese? Oh yes, so glad you asked. Take the leftover cream cheese (which will be roughly 5-ounces) and add ¼ teaspoon distilled white vinegar and ¼ teaspoon onion powder and ⅛ teaspoon dried dill and stir it in. It will take it from a plain cream cheese to a flavor sensation cream cheese! It lasts about 5 days in the fridge so enjoy it spread on crackers or bagels or toast!
Storing and Freezing
Keep it stored in the fridge and consume within 5 days.
It’s freezer friendly up to 3 months. Let it thaw in the fridge and then whip it up again in your mixer before using.
Want Vegan Cakes For Your Frosting?
Well, if you were wondering about the delicious cake we have featured in these photos then I can’t wait to tell you! It’s our vegan carrot cake. And this frosting is definitely divine spread on top of carrot cake.
It would also be super good on our vegan carrot cake cupcakes.
A vegan red velvet cake or vegan red velvet cupcakes also work great with a cream cheese icing and I’m thinking it would be pretty great on our vegan banana cake and vegan pumpkin cake too.
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
For the Vegan Cream Cheese:
- 1 ½ cups Raw Cashews (225g) soaked in hot water for 1 hour
- 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
- ½ cup Coconut Cream (120ml) Canned, Full Fat, Unsweetened
- 1 tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Distilled White Vinegar
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces Homemade Vegan Cream Cheese (226g)
- ¼ cup Vegan Butter (56g)
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar (480g)
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- To make your vegan cream cheese, soak the raw cashews in hot water for 1 hour. Add the cashews to a bowl, pour boiling water from the kettle over it, cover with a cloth and leave to soak for 1 hour.
- Then drain the cashews and add to a blender jug with the lemon juice, coconut cream, salt and white vinegar. Blend. If you have a stick attachment for your blender then use this to push the mixture down onto the blades as you blend for easier blending. If you don’t have this attachment, then just be patient, and stop regularly and scrape down the sides, give it a stir and carry on until you have a smooth texture.
- Transfer the cream cheese from the blender to a storage container.
- Now you’re ready to make your cream cheese. Weigh out 8-ounces (226g) of the cream cheese and place it into the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Then add the vegan butter, sift in the powdered sugar and add the vanilla extract.
- Starting at slow speed gradually increase speed until the frosting is thick and smooth.
- Place the bowl of frosting in the fridge to firm up before using, or use it right away and then place the cake into the fridge for the frosting to firm up on top of the cake. The frosting is a little on the soft/runny side when first made but firms up a lot in the fridge. You can also add more powdered sugar if you want to, but this will effect the flavor balance.
Notes
- If you don’t want to make your own vegan cream cheese first, and have a store-bought brand that you like then you are free to use that instead (in the same quantity). It’s better not to let your mixer go to top speed if you’re using a store-bought brand as it can cause it to get too runny. But with the homemade cream cheese you can go at top speed without an issue.
- With the leftover cream cheese that is not needed for the frosting (you’ll have around 5-ounces leftover), add in ¼ tsp white vinegar, ¼ tsp onion powder and ⅛ tsp dried dill and stir it in and use this to spread on crackers or bagels or bread.
- You might be wondering why we can’t just make a batch of vegan cream cheese that is the perfect amount for this frosting and have nothing left over? It’s actually hard to make too little as it gets very hard to blend if you make too small a batch of something, so just make the full batch and enjoy the leftovers savory style!
- There is enough frosting here to frost a 3-layer 6-inch cake or a 2-layer 7-inch or 8-inch cake. For a larger cake you may want to increase the recipe or it might just be a thinner layer of frosting.
- The prep time does not include the time spent soaking the cashews or any time for the frosting to firm up in the fridge.
- The homemade cream cheese recipe is an adaptation from our recipe for vegan cream cheese. The cake featured in these photos is our vegan carrot cake.
Hi there, can you sub apple cider vinegar for the vinegar in the vegan cream cheese? Thanks!
You can, but it’s not quite as good as white vinegar for flavor.
Made with store bought vegan cream cheese and subbed vegan butter with coconut cream and it turned out amazing! Equal amounts coconut cream as you would vegan butter. Also yummy with lemon, especially paired with the carrot cake!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing Anne-Marie!
Oh this is soooo yummyyyy, I just made it and am loving that there is extra to snack on! Dipping steamed broccoli in the savory version as I prep my cupcakes! 😀
Awesome Kim, I’m so pleased to hear that! Thanks so much!
Is there anything I can substitute for the coconut cream? I really want to make it but coconut milk is kinda expensive where I live.
H Avril, you could try a different vegan cream or vegan milk but it may not be as thick.
Excellent and easy! used earth balance stick and added lemon juice and rind instead of the vanilla for the vegan carrot cake and cocoa for the non-vegan chocolate cupcakes.
I haven’t made the cupcakes yet, but they sound delicious. I am new to vegan cooking, but I would like to cook with very little or no sugar.
Would the vegan cream cheese frosting without sugar taste okay? Also, I have an apple tree. Could I add apples to the recipe?
Thanks. Jean
Hi Jean, I’m not sure which cupcakes you’re referring to. Our vegan apple muffins have whole apple pieces in them and are totally delicious, and you could definitely try reducing the sugar in them. I’m not sure what you would use as a sugar substitute in this cream cheese frosting, so it might be better to look for a sugar free frosting recipe and see what you find. An alternative is just to use vegan whipped cream as a topping.
How long will it last in the freezer ?
Up to 3 months. 🙂
Hi Alison, I love your recipes and have tried many of them. I just wanted to know, what size cake can be frosted with this amount of vegan cream cheese frosting?
Hi, this amount of frosting will be enough for a three layer 6-inch cake or a two layer 7-inch or 8-inch cake, but any larger and you would likely want to increase the recipe.
Hi Alison,
Do you think I can use cocoa butter instead of vegan butter. There are no brands of good vegan butter where I stay.
Thanks!
Hi Sonia, that doesn’t work well as a replacement. You can try it with homemade vegan butter. 🙂
Awesome flavor and easy to make
Thanks Kay!
This is the ONLY vegan frosting that is a perfect replica of traditional frosting. I, as well as my partner who doesn’t really like most vegan food, are amazed right now and licking our forks with glee!!!
P.S. this is the GREATEST vegan website I’ve ever used. Your cornbread is orgasmic.
Thank you so much! SO awesome to read your comment. 🙂
I thought I’d try this recipe for my daughter’s birthday cake since she wanted carrot cake but she has dairy allergies. Honestly, I didn’t have a lot of faith that it would be good, but I was pleasantly surprised! Vegan cream cheese isn’t readily available where we are, so we made it out of the cashews as explained above, and used vegan butter available at our local grocery store. When paired with our favorite carrot cake recipe it was amazing! We could not even really tell the difference when paired with the cake. Carrot cake is my husband’s favorite, and we all decided to keep our “secret” from him to see his reaction when he took his first bite. We couldn’t believe that he didn’t notice the frosting was different from the typical cream cheese frosting I usually make. (My husband has no food allergies and is basically anti-healthy anything. LOL) Afterwards, I told him and he just laughed and said we could use this recipe for her sake from now on.
That’s brilliant Lori! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you SO much for this recipe. we have been so disappointed with vegan frosting to date. They don’t have the structure and body to hold up well to cakes and piping. This recipe was remarkable and will be our go to for frosting for the rest of our lives. Prior to my daughter being a vegan and then being diagnosed Celiac I used to love baking and felt such satisfaction in my efforts.
The journey to learn an entirely new landscape and understand how the elements work together (or sometimes work in opposing directions) has been humbling.
I feel like we have a part of our lives returned to us, we are so grateful to you! Thanks Alison and best wishes.
Thanks so much for sharing Aileen! So glad it was a success. 🙂
Hi, can this be frozen? Looks super yummy, thanks ????
Yes it’s freezer friendly.
I haven’t made this frosting before and I am planning to use this frosting on my daughter’s birthday cake.Would it work?Is it thick enough to cover her cake?
Can I make the cream cheeze ahead a day before i want to make the icing?
Thank you!
I would definitely test it ahead of time to make sure it works with the cake you have in mind. It can be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge.