How do I get vegan "cheese" to melt?
I sometimes cook for someone who needs to avoid milk products, so I got some plant-based "cheese" (listed as cultured vegan cheese) to use instead of the real thing. I'm having trouble getting it to melt properly; is that just how these imitation cheeses are, or does it require a different technique or temperature?
I first tried melting it on sandwiches (veggie burgers). For real cheese, if I'm warming up the burgers in the microwave, I can add cheese slices for the last minute of cooking time and I get nicely-melted cheese on the patty. With this cheese, after a minute it was warm but no less rigid, and after two minutes it was barely getting soft. At that point I was overcooking the burgers, so I stopped.
I then tried using it in an omelette. Mindful of the sandwich disappointment, I added the cheese, in small pieces, to the skillet before the eggs. (Heated oil, sauteed onions, added cheese partway through, and when the onions were soft I added the eggs and proceeded as usual.) Some of the cheese was melted, some wasn't. It didn't taste bad, but I was surprised that some bits of cheese were still more toward the solid end of the scale.
Is vegan cheese just not expected to melt well, and I should be focusing on ways to use it cold? Or is there a trick I'm not getting right? Or are there differences in vegan cheeses and I bought one that's not good for this purpose?
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I believe you will find this article both entertaining and useful: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-vegan-nacho-sauce-as-good-as-the-real-thing-recipe-vegan-experience
(the recipe alone is at https://www.seriouseats.com/gooey-vegan-nacho-cheese-sauce-recipe-food-lab )
It documents the process of developing a vegan cheese sauce suitable for nachos, burgers, potatoes, mac-n-cheese, and so forth.
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This very much depends on what sort of vegan cheese you're using.
Personally, having only used store-bought name-brand vegan cheese, I find that Violife shreds are easy to melt between bread slices in a sandwich press (for grilled cheese). For cheeseburgers, Violife and Aldi brand slices have to be left out of the fridge for a few minutes prior to being placed on top of the patty. Daiya slices don't melt well. I haven't tried other brands or home-made cheese.
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Vegan cheeses, as already mentioned, vary considerably in melting characteristics.
All the various ones I have experience with do not melt at similar temperatures to cow cheese, or to the same extent at the same time/temperature profile anyway. The Violife is the best (at melting) we have found yet, as well; usually the "cheddar-like shreds" (even on pizza.) It can be a bit like the way chocolate melts, in that it will melt while holding its shape, but can be smeared around physically as melted.
In the context of Not Superheated pizza (thus, not pizza at all for the folks that won't cook one below 900°F/482°C) as done in a normal oven to serve people who are happy enough to call it pizza anyway at 450°F (232°C), I have found considerable benefit to turning the broiler element on (supposedly "low" rather than "high" for whatever that might be worth) in the already hot oven for a brief period - 2-3 minutes as the pizza bakes and I watch carefully though the window. This is not a step I need to take for dairy cheese.
I would expect the broiler trick to help with cheeseburgers as well, since it applies heat preferentially to the cheese on top.
Update: in late 2024 or early 2025 a new "reformulated" Daiya product hit our store, with a claim of "Melts like Dairy" on top and "Made from Oat Cream" on the bottom. It does seem to melt pretty well - better than the previous best from Violife - no need to turn on the broiler or extend the time on a pizza .vs. a dairy cheese pizza in the same oven at the same time.
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