BUTTA

If you’re really ambitious, you can try to make your own plant-based butter. Definitely more work, but easier on the arms than churning…

Oh man. Butter. Seriously it’s in everything. I love the show Chopped, even though there has been literally 1 vegan episode, and on that episode one of the judges said she thinks the world revolves around eggs and butter - sooo the culinary world isn’t loving the idea of removing them from the traditional classics. For this site, my inspirations so far have been Joy of Cooking, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, The Edna Lewis Cookbook and their wonderful recipes are chock full of dairy and eggs. After studying up, I’m excited to undertake some of the more ambitious preparations, like souffles and such, without these items. That said and even though I’ve been plant-based for many years, I still miss butter.

I am a former user of bread as a vehicle to get butter into my face. A big fat pat all over that toast, drippy and fabulous. So salllllllty and delicious. Even unsalted - I’m down! When I was little, my sister and I were standing on a rolling chair in the kitchen eating butter off the counter and I got off while she was still on it and it flipped, smashing her little baby finger flat as a pancake (mmm, also good with butter). She’s ok. Her finger is still cute.

Now, it goes without saying that substitutes don’t always cut it and - sorry fam - vegan butter is one of them. However, you can still have a happy buttery existence if you use commercial vegan butters for different things depending on what you’re trying to do.

Miyoko’s cultured butter is good for eating kinda straight, like on bread or a potato or something. I can only find this at Trader Joe’s but it is the BEST. Cashew and coconut oil base and delicious. Toast please!

Nutiva butter-flavored coconut oil is good for some cooking when olive or grapeseed oil won’t do, or I use this to make seitan extra juicy and magical. It can kind of make things taste like movie popcorn, which is good or bad depending.

Earth Balance original is good-ish for baking, because it’s the least expensive, you tend to have to use a lot, and it’s not the primary flavor you need. I do hate that it uses palm oil (the poor orangutans) and I really can’t wait for more alternatives to come out. This used to be my favey for bread but I’ve swtiched to Miyoko’s for nutritional value and orangutan value. It is the easiest to find, though.

I just wanted to write this post to point out that if in a recipe I recommend a specific brand of butter, it’s for a reason. Feel free to do your own thing, but I generally find that plant-based butters perform in specific ways based on their ingredients and some work better that others depending on what you’re trying to do.

Hit me up if you ever want to troubleshoot which one to choose for something you’re trying to revise.