Welcome to the world of Trader Joe’s Vegan Mozzarella Style Shreds, where cashews dream of becoming cheese and dairy-free fantasies come to life. As a product that boldly claims to replicate the beloved mozzarella experience, these shreds have taken on a challenge akin to climbing Mount Everest in flip-flops. With an ingredient list that reads more like a chipmunk’s dream and less like a recipe, one can’t help but wonder: will it melt gracefully atop a pizza or sulk in the corner of a lasagna? Let’s embark on this taste-testing journey to see if these cashew concoctions truly capture the essence of mozzarella, or if they’re just nuts pretending to be something they’re not.
Let me say upfront that I am not Vegan but as you know, Trader Joe’s sells a ton of vegan products, including several cheeses that have gotten pretty high ratings from people online. This Trader Joe’s Dairy Free Mozzarella Style Shreds, Cashew Cheese Alternative (ok, let’s just call it Vegan Mozzarella from here on out) has been on the shelves for a couple of years. I have not been a fan of vegan cheese in general because it’s just not in the same league as real milk cheese generally.
In order for me to do a thorough taste test, I decided to bake a vegan pizza using Trader Joe’s vegan mozzarella and Trader Joe’s new Vegan Pepperoni on Trader Joe’s pizza dough and Trader Joe’s Marinara as the sauce.
I followed my normal routine when making the pizza except instead of regular whole milk mozzarella and Volpi Pepperoni, I used the vegan alternatives. I was making several pizzas for friends and family and we all had a bite (sorry if the pizza looks a little burnt on the crust, I left it in a smidge too long but it didn’t effect the taste of the cheese).
As you can see from the picture below you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between this pizza and a regular non vegan pizza just by looking at it. The pepperoni and the cheese look almost exactly like what you would find on a regular pizza and while baking it smelled just the same. The cheese performed almost exactly the same as regular shredded mozzarella.
Tasting Trader Joe’s Vegan Mozzarella
As a taste test, I tried them two ways. Right out of the bag into my mouth and then baked on the pizza.
Visually, these “shreds” look almost exactly like the grated mozzarella you would buy at the store. The color is a little off, too white, but the shape and feel of them are almost exactly the same. I tasted them right out of the bag with a small handful. The first reaction is that they are a little chalky but have a very similar texture when you chew them, maybe not as chewy as regular cheese but it’s really close. The flavor is again close to regular cheese. It does have a nuttiness to it but it’s very slight. I am missing the tang that really good mozzarella has. I don’t think I would put this on a salad. I think there are better vegan cheeses for that. I have had some of the competition’s vegan mozzarella and some are good and some bad and this is in the middle of the pack. Not the best but not the worst by any stretch.
Then we built our pizza and baked it. It melted like mozzarella and looked very similar. But I think the general consensus was that it was decent but not close to real milk mozzarella. If I gave someone this pizza and told me what they thought about it without telling them, they could tell the difference. The cheese was a little gummier than regular cheese which is stretchier (if that is a word). It was missing that sour tang of regular cheese. The whole pizza flavor and texture reminded me of eating Totino’s pizza at the ice rink when I was growing up.
Final Thoughts
If you are avoiding dairy for whatever reason, allergies or being vegan, this isn’t a bad product. (I might find a better fake pepperoni product, but see my review) It performed similarily to real milk cheese and flavor was mostly there but missing a few aspects of real cheese. I would drown this pizza in olives, veggies and mushrooms and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, frankly. But as a plain cheese pizza or fresh from the bag, I would give it a 6 out of 10 Bells! It’s OK, not great.
Ingredients
CASHEW BASE (WATER, CASHEWS), COCONUT OIL, POTATO STARCH, MODIFIED CORNSTARCH, SEA SALT, NATURAL FLAVORS, YEAST EXTRACT, CULTURES, ANNATTO EXTRACT (FOR COLOR).
- CONTAINS CASHEW COCONUT.
