back to basics - vegan sour cream

A few days ago I read a comment on another blog that vegan sour cream was hard to locate for the author. Whether you have easy access to vegan sour cream or not, this recipe, another one that didn't make it into my cookbook, Everyday Vegan Eats, is the perfect vegan sour cream recipe for any number of reasons: lack of availability or a need-to-know the ingredients in your condiment.

I did a lot of research into what makes dairy cream turn into dairy sour cream and I am here to share the delicious news.

Dairy sour cream is made by culturing cream. Dairy yogurt is made by culturing milk. The difference between cream and milk is the fat content. Cream is much higher in fat and therefore, dairy sour cream is higher in fat. Milk is lower in fat and therefore yogurt is lower in fat. 

It stands to reason that the difference between sour cream and yogurt is the fat content. This is the key to making homemade vegan sour cream taste delicious! Stirring vegan butter (homemade or store-bought) into homemade vegan yogurt adds much needed richness to the yogurt, which is easily made at home, and thus results in vegan sour cream. Add a little more tang to the yogurt and behold: homemade vegan sour cream. 

The tang is the next challenge. Yogurt has some of its own tang, but to make sour cream we need to add just a tad more. Most vegan sour cream recipes use lemon juice to achieve that tang, but adding just lemon juice is not enough - another dimension is needed since lemon juice alone leaves the typical homemade vegan sour cream flat.

This is where lime juice is useful. Lime juice is tangy, but since it is slightly different from lemon juice, it layers the tangy goodness, and thus offers another needed dimension of flavor without adding any unusual acid, such as vinegar.

You must use homemade vegan yogurt for this (link to yogurt making steps and recipe). All store-bought yogurt tested in this recipe did not taste good. In fact, your own homemade yogurt cultured with your own homemade yogurt is the very best! The only exception might be, which I haven't tried, yet, is Whole Soy, which has been off the market for a while, but is now back on the shelves.

Make sure that you drain your yogurt for four hours before making the sour cream. Use cheesecloth layered 8 times or a nut milk bag. Set the yogurt in the cheesecloth, set the cheesecloth in a strainer and set the strainer over a bowl. 

Now you can make your own creamy, dreamy, tangy vegan sour cream at home, in a few easy steps.

STEP 1: ASSEMBLE INGREDIENTS

INGREDIENTS: VEGAN YOGURT, VEGAN BUTTER, SILKEN TOFU, LEMON AND LIME JUICE, SALT

STEP 2: BLEND ALL THE INGREDIENTS AND CHILL TO THICKEN

VEGAN SOUR CREAM PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE

Speaking of Everyday Vegan Eats, 

Vegan Crunk of Cookin' Crunk, reviewed Everyday Vegan Eats and I deeply appreciate it. She made this Creamy Macaroni Salad from EVE. Thank you, Bianca!

The Vegan Cookbook Aficionado by Maggie did a bang up job of reviewing the book, complete with gorgeous photos, such as this one of the Deli Reuben:

Photo by Maggie Muggins of Vegan Cookbook Aficionado

And in case you have't seen the recipe for Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Chic Vegan has posted it:

From around the web, a few other bloggers have taken precious time and energy to review Everyday Vegan Eats, such as another one of my fabulous testers, Claire of Great Vegan Expectations, who has this great photo of Flaky Buttermilk Herb Biscuits.  Thank you, Claire!

And VegBlogger, who reviewed the book and made my kids' favorite dish: Tater Tot Casserole. Thank you for your review and kind words!