The Best Dairy-free Cheese (2024)

HONEST REVIEW: 7 DAIRY-FREE CHEESES FOR PIZZA – what is the best dairy-free cheese on the market? Every Friday night is pizza night in our gluten-free, dairy-free household. The question I get asked the most is: what dairy-free mozzarella cheese do you use for pizza? Determined to find the best, we bought (with our own money) and reviewed 7 dairy-free cheeses. All 7 of us reviewed for taste, texture, and melt. This post is 0% sponsored.

NOTE: These reviews are specifically for mozzarella cheese, as Pizza night is a Friday tradition. However, we have had the other flavors of cheese from all of these brands and still would give cheddar and other varieties the same ratings. Violife has continued to be our all-around favorite!

The dairy-free mozzarella cheeses are perfect for pizza night or my Gluten-free Dairy-free Lasagna. And a good cheddar or Mexican cheese is perfect for my Enchiladas or Enchilada Bake Dip!

THE HANDS-DOWN WINNER:

Violife Foods (rating 4.5/5) – Dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, nut-free, and preservatives free (WOW!). This one was the favorite for all but one of us. Very creamy and best melt most similar to traditional mozzarella. Good flavor (doesn’t taste like almond-based cheeses). CONS – One boy thought the creamy texture was “slimy.” Has admittedly a weird smell in the bag, but doesn’t affect taste. Hard to find locally for me, but does have a locator on its website.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

UPDATED Daiya Foods (3.5/5 rating, NEW formula = 4.2/5) – The NEW Oat Milk formula (green bag above) is new and improved and we like it even better! Better melt and flavor and very close second to Violife. Decent in all areas for taste, texture, and melt and accessible to us as it’s sold locally at Winco and Walmart . This is the cheese we buy and use on the regular but I will say if you are new to dairy-free, it takes some getting used to.

Trader Joe’s cashew-based mozzarella (3/5 rating) – Not very creamy, but the favorite of one of my boys. Some thought it had a strange flavor and a bit of an aftertaste, and it does have a unique smell out of the bag.

Whole Foods 365 brand (3/5 rating) – Terrible melt (like the cheese did not change shape at all with heat) and not creamy, but good taste. Side note: their 365 brand dairy-free Mozzarella and Cheddar cheeses are currently the only store-bought brand I know of that is Whole30 compatible!

WOULDN’T BUY AGAIN

So Delicious (2.5/5 rating) – terrible melt and not at all creamy. Just ok on taste.

Follow Your Heart (2.5/5 rating) – We liked that it was finely shredded and the texture that gave it. But the flavor was a bit off (I personally didn’t like the flavor at all).

Trader Joe’s Almond-based mozzarella (2/5 rating) – Not completely DF, just 99% lactose-free. Terrible melt, we weren’t fans of the texture – it was mushy. Wouldn’t buy again.

Oh and what pizza crust do we use? It’s one of our favorite recipes in my cookbook 😉. (Paleo All-Purpose Dough, page 236). Get your own copy here!

Do you agree with these reviews? Drop your thoughts and favorites (or least favorites!) in the comments 👇🏻👇🏻.