We love vegan cheese, it's cheese and it's vegan, what is not to love.
It comes in all shapes and sizes and made from an incredible array of ingredients.
As well as an array of ingredients used to make them, there are also a number of names that are used instead of "vegan cheese".
Some vegan cheese makers had never made cheese before, whilst others transitioned from dairy cheese making to vegan cheese making.
The artisans, vegans who eat vegan cheese and everyone in-between all have many different names for vegan cheese and below we'll go through some of those other terms.
Dairy Free Cheese
This list is not in any specific order, but we have placed this phrase here due to its history.
Potentially one of the biggest terms used to name vegan cheese after being used for many years, even decades for those who were not vegan but could not consume any dairy products and still wanted to enjoy a dairy cheese alternative.
Every vegan cheese that we have on our vegan cheese discovery tool is also dairy free, because dairy free means it is free from animal products.
Plant Based Cheese
Many of the artisanal brands we have added to our vegan cheese finder tool also use this phrase to describe their own cheeses.
Plant based cheese sounds great to say and you may be inclined to think you are getting a healthier cheese too.
This may not always be the case, but if its plant based cheese, you'll be sure that it won't have any animal ingredients inside.
Vegan Cheeze
Some brands use mis-spellings of the word cheese so that they can get around legalities in their countries about food and what they are allowed to call it.
You will find a few variations of "vegan cheese" in this list.
Vegan cheeze, cheese with a Z is one of the most common spelling changes used and its simple to understand that you are still getting vegan cheese.
Gary
Coined by Sainsburys when they first released their own brand vegan cheese range about 5 years ago.
They even labelled their cheeses with this name for a while before reverting back to a more traditional term and name for it.
We are unaware of how this name came about, but it definitely happened.
Che*se
Another popular mis-spelling of cheese, a simple one without the words vegan or plant based used before or after and is used to represent the word cheese but show that it is not dairy cheese.
They simply put an asterix instead of the letter "e" to get around the legalities of using the word cheese if they are not a dairy cheese.
This depends on the brand and what country they are producing their cheeses in. Its simple enough to understand that they are still creating cheese but they wont be affected negatively by any naming laws their country might have.
Cheese Alternative
Many vegan cheese will not have the phrase vegan cheese or plant based cheese but instead say the family name and style of the cheese, followed by "alternative".
- Brie alternative
- Cheddar alternative
- Greek alternative
You can see above some examples of how some companies name their vegan cheeses.
Not Cheese
Similar to the above "cheese alternative", "not cheese" gets the vegan cheese makers around the legalities of their naming process.
- Not brie
- Not cheddar
- Not greek
Some will even go as far as saying "this is not cheese". Such as the Willicroft brand.
Chease
Chease is a common term used, it's even used as some brands name, such as Tyne Chease which are based in the United Kingdom.
Do you know of any other vegan cheese names that brands use or that people use around the world to describe this wonderful industry?
