From vegoutmag.com
By Adam Kelton
A methodical investigation into whether plant-based cheese can deliver the platonic ideal of crispy-bread-melty-centre
My partner developed lactose intolerance at 34, which is apparently when your body decides to start making executive decisions about your diet without consulting you. One Tuesday in October, after watching her stare longingly at my grilled cheese for the third lunch in a row, I said the words that would consume the next six weeks of my life: "How hard could it be to find a good vegan cheese?"
Reader, I was naive.
What followed was a systematic testing of every plant-based and lactose-free cheese available within a 20-mile radius of my apartment, plus three mail-ordered because Reddit convinced me they were "game-changers." I ate 47 grilled cheese sandwiches. I took notes like I was defending a dissertation. My local Whole Foods cashier started greeting me as "cheese person."
Here's what nobody tells you about vegan cheese: it's not trying to be cheese. It's trying to be the memory of cheese, the idea of cheese, the Instagram filter version of cheese. Most of it fails because it's solving for the wrong problem. It's optimizing for looking melted in photos instead of actually melting. It's prioritizing "stretchy" over "tastes good." It's performing cheese rather than being cheese.
But one of them works. Actually works. And understanding why required diving into food science papers about protein matrices and lipid structures, which is how I justify spending $247 on fake cheese.
The methodology (or: how to lose friends by making them eat 12 grilled cheeses)
I tested each cheese using the same protocol because I have anxiety and creating systems makes me feel like I have control over an inherently chaotic universe:
- Same bread (Pullman white, because we're testing cheese, not artisanal sourdough)
- Same fat (Earth Balance butter, for consistency)
- Same heat (medium-low, covered for 2 minutes, uncovered for 1)
- Same evaluation criteria: meltability, stretch, taste, and what I called "mouth satisfaction"—that ineffable quality that makes you want another bite
I made my partner and two friends rate each sandwich blind. By sandwich seven, one friend asked if this was "some kind of psychological experiment." It wasn't, but it became one.
The complete disaster tier
Daiya Cheddar Style Slices: Tastes like orange plastic developed sentience and chose violence. Doesn't melt so much as surrender to heat by becoming slightly softer plastic. The aftertaste haunts you like a cursed TikTok audio.
Follow Your Heart American: Achieves the texture of melted cheese by literally turning into oil. I watched it separate into components like a science experiment about emulsion failure. My notes say "existentially disturbing."
Sweet Earth Benevolent Bacon Cheddar: The bacon bits are doing so much heavy lifting here, and they're still failing. It's like watching one player try to carry an entire losing team. Honourable mention for effort, disqualified for execution.
Private label grocery store brand (not naming names, but it rhymes with "Shmader Shmoes"): Twenty-seven ingredients and none of them are working together. This is what happens when food scientists optimize for price point over edibility.
The uncanny valley tier
Miyoko's Creamery Farmhouse Cheddar: So close to real cheese that your brain gets confused. It melts correctly. It tastes... fine. But there's something unsettling about it, like CGI that's 98% realistic. The last 2% is where madness lives.
Violife Mature Cheddar: Europeans are better at vegan cheese because they're not trying to recreate American cheese. This melts beautifully but tastes like what British people think American cheese should taste like—which is to say, unnecessarily complex.
Chao Creamy Original: Made from fermented tofu, which sounds like something wellness Instagram would try to sell you for $47. Actually melts like a dream but tastes like someone described cheese to an alien who took very detailed notes but missed the emotional subtext.
The acceptable tier
Parmela Creamery Sharp Cheddar: Uses cultured cashew milk, which is just expensive nut water but somehow works. Melts properly, tastes like cheese's distant cousin who went to art school. Would eat again if someone else was buying.
Field Roast Creamy Original: Coconut oil-based, which you can taste if you're looking for it, but in a grilled cheese drowning in butter, it disappears. The texture is spot-on. This is the people-pleaser of vegan cheeses.
Good Planet Smoked Gouda: Smoke flavor is doing a lot of work here, but that's not cheating—that's strategy. Melts like actual gouda. Made me briefly consider becoming the person who makes fancy grilled cheeses.
The shocking winner
Boursin Dairy-Free Garlic & Herbs
Plot twist: it's not even marketed as a grilling cheese.
Here's what happened. I was testing the spreadable cheeses as a wildcard category because my methodology had become increasingly unhinged. I spread a thick layer of dairy-free Boursin between two pieces of bread and grilled it like a regular sandwich, expecting disaster.
Instead, I achieved grilled cheese nirvana.
The Boursin doesn't melt—it transforms. The inside becomes this creamy, garlicky, herb-flecked situation that's essentially a sauce. The oils in it help the bread crisp perfectly. It's not trying to be a grilled cheese in the traditional sense. It's creating a new category: grilled cheese that happens to be vegan rather than vegan cheese that's trying to be grilled.
The garlic and herbs aren't covering up an inferior base—they're the point. This is the difference between a cover song and a completely new arrangement. It's not pretending to be something it's not. It's confidently being what it is.
The science bit where I justify reading 47 papers about protein matrices
Traditional cheese melts because casein proteins create a matrix that softens with heat while maintaining structure. Vegan cheeses use various proteins (soy, nuts, coconut) plus stabilizers, emulsifiers, and what the industry calls "functional ingredients" (aka chemicals that make things act like other things).
Most fail because they're trying to replicate mozzarella's stretch or cheddar's sharp bite while also melting at precisely 140°F. It's like asking someone to juggle while solving calculus—technically possible but probably not worth it.
Boursin works because it's not trying to replicate aged cheese structure. It's essentially a flavored fat emulsion, closer to cream cheese than cheddar. In grilled cheese application, you don't need stretch. You need fat, flavor, and creaminess. Boursin delivers all three without apology.
The coconut oil base (yes, I emailed them to ask) has a melting point of 76°F, which means it's basically pre-melted at room temperature. Add heat and it becomes liquid gold. The garlic and herbs aren't suspended in a protein matrix—they're in an oil emulsion, so they distribute evenly as it warms.
This is accidentally genius food science. Or maybe it's on purpose and Boursin's R&D team deserves a Nobel Prize.
The part where I admit something problematic
I don't need vegan cheese. I'm not vegan, lactose intolerant, or even particularly healthy. I started this project for my partner but continued it because I became obsessed with the puzzle: could plant-based cheese deliver the specific dopamine hit of perfect grilled cheese?
The internet has opinions about people like me—tourists in the dietary restriction space, treating veganism like a hobby instead of an ethical position. There's a valid criticism there. I spent more on vegan cheese last month than some people spend on groceries, turning necessity into entertainment.
But here's what that tourism revealed: most vegan cheese is bad because companies assume vegans have forgotten what cheese tastes like. They're creating products for people they imagine are desperate, who'll accept any approximation. It's insulting.
The best vegan products aren't apologizing for what they're not. Boursin Dairy-Free isn't pretending to be regular Boursin—it's its own thing that happens to be vegan. It assumes its audience has standards, has options, has taste memories that deserve respect.
The three-week epilogue
My partner has made Boursin grilled cheese four times a week since I discovered it. She adds tomato sometimes, caramelized onions when she's feeling fancy. She stopped mentioning her lactose intolerance as a loss and started talking about "her cheese."
Last week, I made regular grilled cheese with actual cheddar. It was fine. Good, even. But it felt boring, one-note, like a song that only has a melody. The Boursin version has become our default, not because we have to eat it, but because we want to.
This is the future of alternative foods: not sad substitutes but parallel innovations. Not "I Can't Believe It's Not Cheese" but "This Is Something Else Entirely and That's Why It's Good."
The dairy-free Boursin costs $7.99 for 5.3 ounces, which is objectively insane. That's $24 per pound for spreadable cheese. I've decided not to calculate the per-sandwich cost because some knowledge is too dangerous.
But every Tuesday, my partner makes lunch and doesn't stare longingly at anything. She makes two sandwiches, one for each of us, and we eat them standing at the kitchen counter like we're at a restaurant we invented.
That's worth $24 per pound. That's worth 47 test sandwiches. That's worth becoming "cheese person" at Whole Foods.
Sometimes the best solution isn't trying harder to replicate the original. Sometimes it's accepting that the original is gone and making something new that's worth wanting instead.
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