Dairy Free Ricotta Cheese Substitute
This easy & delicious 5-minute dairy free ricotta cheese substitute is vegan, keto, and tastes just like the original! Creamy, tangy, perfect ricotta! Use this tasty “cheese” in your favorite Italian recipes.
Table of Contents
What Makes This Recipe Great
To make dairy-free ricotta, you typically need blanched whole almonds, but I didn’t have any on hand. As I was thinking about it, I realized that almond flour is exactly that, super fine blanched whole almonds!
So, making it even easier for you, I have created the yummiest dairy-free ricotta cheese recipe using the almond flour you probably already have in your pantry! Add in just a few more ingredients, blend them up, and that’s it!
Use this ricotta substitute in your favorite recipes like Dairy-Free Keto Lasagna, this delicious Whipped Ricotta dip, or any other recipes that call for ricotta cheese!
Recipe Highlights
- 5 Minute Recipe
- Only 5 Ingredients
- The perfect ricotta cheese substitute
- Dairy-Free & Keto
Ingredient Notes
Almond Flour: Make sure you’re using almond flour, and not almond meal. Almond meal is made from whole almonds with the skin still on. All almond flour is made from blanched almonds. My favorite almond flours are the Costco Kirkland brand, Thrive Market, and Anthony’s.
Lemon Juice: You could use white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or lime juice in place of lemon in a pinch. Same quantities. I prefer lemon juice.
Nutritional Yeast: Nutritional yeast gives that “cheesy” flavor to this ricotta substitute without adding any dairy. No substitutes for this sadly. If you don’t have it, you can leave it out. Won’t have as much of a cheesy flavor, more of a neutral, mild flavor.
Recipe Step by Step
- In a blender, combine the almond flour, water, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, kosher salt, and garlic powder.
- In your high-speed blender, blend on high for 60 seconds. Stop, scrape down and blend again.
- If needed, add up to another 1/4 cup of water (or more) to get your ricotta substitute to a smooth consistency. All almond flour moisture levels vary a bit. You want the consistency to be smooth and creamy like real ricotta cheese.
Expert Tips
How to Serve: Use as a 1:1 substitute for regular ricotta cheese. I love it on my keto dairy-free lasagna, or dolloped on top of pasta, as a dip, or dolloped on top of dairy-free pizzas. So many possibilities!
Storage: Transfer to an airtight container and store in the refrigerator. Use within one week.
Heating: You can heat this in the oven as I do in my dairy-free keto lasagna!
Blender: I love my Vitamix. You *could* use your food processor, but it may take longer to blend and get it extra creamy.
Recipe FAQs
I tried freezing this, and after thawing it was more crumbly. Wasn’t as smooth. But still edible! Worked fine with I made and froze a dairy-free lasagna using this ricotta substitute.
Yes! All ingredients in this recipe are vegan, so this is a great vegan ricotta cheese substitute.
Yes! There are just 2.5 net carbs per serving of this dairy free ricotta cheese substitute!
More Dairy Free Recipes
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Dairy Free Ricotta Cheese Substitute
Ingredients
- 2 cups almond flour
- 3/4 cup water, or more to desired consistency
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice, from roughly 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste
- 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
Equipment
Instructions
- In a blender, combine the almond flour, water, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, kosher salt and garlic powder.
- In your high speed blender, blend on high for 60 seconds. Stop, and scrape down and blend again.
- If needed, add in up to another 1/4 cup of water (or more) to get your ricotta to a smooth consistency. All almond flours moisture level varies a bit. You want the consistency to be smooth and creamy like real ricotta.
- Transfer to an airtight container. Will keep in an airtight container for 1 week.
- Use as a 1:1 substitute for regular ricotta cheese. I love it on my keto dairy free lasagna, or dolloped on top of pasta, or as a dip, or dolloped on top of dairy free pizzas. So many possibilities!
- As always, lots of tips, FAQs and substitution info in the Recipe Notes!
37 Comments on “Dairy Free Ricotta Cheese Substitute”
I’m excited to try this! But I only have rice flour on hand. Can I use it and throw in some ground almonds with it? Not an experienced cook so that may be a kooky idea. : )
Thank you!
This was great, I made this in baked ziti and you couldn’t even tell it was dairy free
can i use this in baking a cake?
I don’t think this would work for that. It has a similar flavor to ricotta cheese, but not the same structure that would give it the same baking qualities. Maybe use a dairy free sour cream instead? Forager makes a great one!
Could you substitute another flour for the almond flour? My son is allergic to almonds
Darn, I don’t know of another that could work. Possibly soaked cashews? You would need 1-1/4 cup of soaked cashews that have soaked in water for 24 hours. Drain the water, then used the soaked cashews in replace of the 1 cup of almond flour. Soaked cashews are more of a “sticky” consistency, but would be the best option in place of almonds to avoid an almond allergic reaction.
Seems perfect for our dairy free gluten free needs. However, I didn’t see the amount of each ingredient. Did I miss something?
It would be! All the of the measurements are listed in the Recipe Card under ingredients! I attached a PDF of the recipe card for you in case it’s more helpful. Hope you love it as much as I do!
This is amazingly like ricotta cheese.
I left out the nutritional yeast (don’t like that) and substituted lactic acid for the lemon juice. As long as your almond flour is fine, it will take very little blending.
Thank you, Katherine! Love your swaps too! So glad this recipe turned out well for you- makes my day!
Would you beat in an egg when using for lasagna?
I don’t! Here’s my lasagna recipe where I use this ricotta:
https://www.tasteslovely.com/dairy-free-keto-lasagna/
How do you think this will taste in a baked pie? Mixed with confec sugar and choc chips in a crust? Its an Easter tradition but many in the fam are dairy free now!
It *should* work! I’ve never done it, but would imagine it would be great! I’ve cooked it in a lasagna and it is still good heated. Maybe test it out before making it for company to be sure? I’d love to hear how it works!
Wow, super surprised at how good this is! Despite the note by the author not to use almond meal, it’s all I had in my pantry (and needed to be used) and it turned out beautifully. Unless you have a reason to use milky white ricotta, it just has the brown flecks in it but the texture and taste is great. I will suggest if you are making it for a dessert recipe, you might eliminate the garlic powder.
I am so glad you liked this recipe and that the almond meal worked for you! Agree that the garlic should be eliminated for dessert! Thanks for commenting!
Amazing recipe!! So simple and easy to make!! Love it!! So excited to make a dairy free lasagna with this!
Thank you! I am so glad you like it! It’s amazing how easy it is! I have a great Dairy-Free Keto Lasagna recipe you should try: https://www.tasteslovely.com/dairy-free-keto-lasagna/. Can’t wait to hear what you think!
Made this and didn’t miss the old ricotta one bit! Thank you!
I LOVE to hear this! It’s amazing how much this ricotta tastes like the real thing!
This was delicious and it worked very well with my Lasagna Rolls. This will be my go to recipe for ricotta. Thanks for the recipe.
Love to hear this! I bet those lasagna rolls are divine!
Saved my 4 yo’s Christmas dinner. She wanted lasagna like everyone else instead of noodles and sauce like I had planned. I had all the ingredients on hand, it came together beautifully, and it tastes delicious! Thank you!
Aww, this makes me so happy! So glad it came together so well! Hugs!
Mind blowing and amazingly delicious! What kind of sorcery and magic made these simple ingredients taste better than actual cheese? I will be going through all my old recipes with ricotta and seeing which ones I can now recreate dairy free! I felt super accomplished and proud after what felt like a science experiment making my own “cheese;” thanks so much for the fun recipe!
Omg. This is the best comment ever! Thank you so much Ashley! I am so honored!
Easy instructions as well as easy to find ingredients.
The two most important things! Love this! Thank you, Kristen!
This recipe is great. Made my homemade lasagna with the palmini noodles and it really was perfect with this ricotta.
Yum! So happy to hear this!
This made me so so happy! It made up so fast and I used it with baked chicken, rice pasta for the non-keto crowd, and marinara. It changed the meal from good to incredible.
Hi Amy! I absolutely love hearing this! I am so happy you loved this recipe!
So…we have dairy allergy, nut allergy but no gluten issues. Can I use regular flour instead of almond? Just plain unbleached APflour?
Oh my goodness! This is amazing! It’s similar to a recipe I was already using with almond flour, but blending it is SUCH a game changer!!
Btw, I used this for my Lasagna Love delivery today for a vegan lasagna, I love that more people are learning about Lasagna Love!
Isn’t it crazy how similar it is to Ricotta? Mind blowing! I love hearing about Lasagna Love and how my recipes are being shared! Thank you!
This is brilliant! I am a volunteer for Lasagna Love, and we often get requests to make it dairy free. Can’t wait to try this! And can’t wait for you to share your lasagna recipe. So thankful for all your hard work in helping me eat and feed my family healthy food!!
Hi Vanessa! I love this! I can’t wait to hear what you think about the Ricotta and the new Lasagna recipe! Lasagna Love sounds like such an amazing organization! Hugs to you!