I tried the original Daiya mozzarella shreds year ago and they were disgusting! They tasted like rancid margarine when melted and I didn’t have much hope for ever having a good cheezy pizza ever again. Thankfully, there are much better options now! I recently tried six vegan cheese options for pizza to see which had the best meltability, texture, flavor, and appearance. The only one I didn’t like at all was the Trader Joe’s vegan mozzarella. The flavor was ok but it got way too melted and gooey in a bad way that stuck to your mouth, so I didn’t include it in this review.
I started out with the new Daiya cutting board mozzarella shreds and Violife mozzarella for pizza:
The Violife mozzarella shreds beautifully and looks just like dairy mozzarella:
This pizza has the Daiya cutting board on the left and the Violife mozzarella on the right:
The Violife doesn’t look as melted, but it was actually very gooey and a bit too much so:
The Daiya cutting board shreds melted quickly and evenly, but did not get too gooey:
Both were easy to slice:
The Violife had great flavor, looked good, and melted well. It did get a little too gooey, though:
The flavor, meltability, and texture of the Daiya cutting board shreds are all fantastic! The appearance is not quite as good as some of the others, but the other features make up for it.
Next, I compared the Daiya cutting board shreds to Violife Gouda for pizza, So Delicious Shreds, and Follow Your Heart block mozzarella:
Both the Violife Gouda and the Follow Your Heart shredded really nicely:
Here is what they all looked like before baking:
In the oven:
Melted:
The So Delicious had a nice flavor, melted well, and browned the best. It got too gooey, though, and was my least favorite of these four:
The Violife Gouda melted well, had a lovely flavor, and did not get too gooey. It is too yellow to look like mozzarella, though, so lost a few points on appearance:
The Follow Your Heart also had good flavor and melted well. It looks great, but it also got just a bit too gooey, though not as much as the others with this issue:
The Daiya cutting board shreds performed as well as before, with the only issue being that they aren’t quite as pretty as some of the others:
All of them cut well:
Before I give my final ranking, I wanted to show what happened when I mixed all five together. I needed cheese for my pizza crust and roasted garlic and tomato sauce recipe posts, and I didn’t have enough left of any one kind. So, I combined all of the bits I had left and it worked really well!
My final rankings are:
1) Daiya cutting board mozzarella & Violife Gouda for Pizza
2) Follow Your Heart block mozzarella & Violife mozzarella for pizza
3) So Delicious mozzarella shreds (would not buy again unless none of the above were available)
4) Trader Joe’s vegan mozzarella (would not buy again at all)
Next, I am going to try a number of combinations of the Daiya, the two Violife, and the Follow Your Heart. Once I do, I will update this post with the new results. (I also want to try Miyoko’s mozzarella and see how it compares to all of these.) It is wonderful to have so many great vegan mozzarella options! Please comment below if I missed any that you really like!
Thank you for doing this experiment! I really enjoyed reading and have something new to try👍🏾👍🏾
Thank you, Wendy!
Thank you for doing such a comprehensive taste test! (It’s such a burden to sample pizza, isn’t it? lol) For my two cents, I love Follow Your Heart- it tastes good and also seems like a really environmentally friendly company. Unfortunately, from what I read, Daiya was acquired by some huge Japanese pharmaceutical company that test on animals, so they are off my shopping list for now.(That’s a tough decision though, because successful vegan products encourage companies to create more vegan products.) Grrr, pizza should nor be complicated!
I’m so glad you like the post, Peachie! It is difficult sometimes to choose which companies to support, and each person has to weigh the pros and cons of each product. I agree with you that successful vegan products encourage companies to produce more vegan products. I personally feel that the only way veganism can become the norm in society is for large companies to invest in vegan products. I don’t like it when vegan companies sell to non-vegan corporations that test on animals but it does help to increase vegan product availability and will eventually result in lower prices as well. This will make veganism much more accessible and mainstream. Also, every time someone buys a vegan product instead of one with animal products, it reduces animal suffering. I like this video from The Vegan Zombie and I think he has a lot of good points: https://youtu.be/kYSHLoOHyjk This video is specifically about Daiya and also brings up some interesting things to consider: https://youtu.be/JRq4dQjNotU
Can’t wait to try the Violife gouda. And I’ll give Daiya a try again, now that they’ve improved. Thanks for the review!!!!
The Violife Gouda is great on sandwiches and crackers too, and I also love their cheddar and provolone! Please let me know how you like the new Daiya shreds!
I haven’t seen Violife cheese in any of my local stores. I’ve heard raves about it. Our local organic grocery has just changed hands to a Wild Roots franchise, and I hope they’re going to carry more vegan goodies for us mountain folk. 🙂
It really is fabulous, Monica! Violife has a store locator: https://violifefoods.com/us/where-we-are/ If there aren’t any stores near you that carry it, you can order online from Vegan Essentials: https://store.veganessentials.com/mobile/cheese-alternatives-c6.aspx