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.
Servings: 2 cups
Calories: 163
Equipment
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
Instructions
- In a blender, combine the almond flour, water, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, kosher salt and garlic powder.2 cups almond flour, 3/4 cup water, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/8 teaspoon 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!
Video
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 brand, and Anthony's brand.
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.
Freezing: 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.
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.
Nutrition
Serving: 0.25cup | Calories: 163 | Total Carbs: 5g | Protein: 4.3g | Fat: 5g | Fiber: 2.5g | Net Carbs: 3g