First taste test is the Daiya Medium Cheddar Style dairy-free ‘cheese’. Daiya was the first vegan cheese I ever tried. Their mozzarella and cheddar style shreds on pizza is definitely a must try!
I bought this block of vegan cheese at Kardish for $4.99. There was also another brand available (for which I cannot remember at all at this moment) but at $12.99 a pop, so I decided to try the Daiya first.
As you can see from the package, this product is dairy and soy free, contains no casein or cholesterol. Compared to regular cheese that does contain cholesterol, this could be a great alternative.
Taste.The cheese alone does has a cheesy flavour but if you were wishing for an exact match, it does not taste like cheddar cheese. When I first tasted it, I honestly hasn’t a fan. I could eat it but I was trying to find ways to mask the flavour. However, after I tried it again, it wasn’t so bad so I think you can get use to the taste. As for the texture, it was quite similar to cheese.
One things for sure, once it’s paired with something else, like cracker or a tortilla, it was pretty good!
Use. After the initial try, I tried to use the cheese in different variations. First, I decided to make a nacho dip. I used half the block of cheese, 1/2 tbs of cumin and 1/2 tbs of onion powder.
I placed the cheese in a pot for melting. First mistake I made was not putting any butter in the pot before adding the cheese. What happened is that the cheese sticked to the pot. Not fun to clean, let me tell you that! The only way I got the pot cleaned (see below), was to let it soak in water and soap.
Once melted, this filmed formed on top (you may be able to see it in the picture below). It did melt as I was mixing it but I had to make sure I didn’t leave it on the heat for too long. After about 5 minutes, all the pieces where melted.
Once again, alone it was fine, it was sticking to the tortilla chip and taste okay. However, once I added a bit of salsa, it was so much better. It also tasted better served warm.
Making grilled cheese was my second idea to try. Spoiler alert: this one was actually a success.
My boyfriend loved this one and me too! I’m almost certain some people would not be able to tell this was made with vegan cheese!
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Verdict: I can’t say that I loved this product on it’s own but with other food (like crackers or bread), it was not bad. In a grilled cheese, because I got the two thumbs up from the boyfriend, that one was a hit.
To be honest, it’s not a product that I would buy in my weekly groceries. I would buy it in some occasion, especially if we crave a grilled cheese. Because it’s one of the few vegan cheese available in Ottawa, if I decided to make a vegan cheese plater, I would incorporate this cheese but I would make sure there’s various accompaniments (i. e. bread, crackers, olives, pesto, etc) to balance the taste of the cheese alone.
Please note that these are my opinions only. If you enjoy this product, let me know how you use it and I’ll give it a try. It was also give ideas to others! 🙂
Thanks for reading!
ottawa eats vegan 