Vegan Sour Cream Recipe: Best Dairy-Free Alternative

If you’ve found your way to this post, you’re probably looking for a vegan replacement for traditional sour cream. While there are plenty of vegan sour cream brands that you could be buying from your local grocery store, we think you’re browsing homemade vegan sour cream recipes because you are the kind of person who would rather make your own. So we’re going to share with you our favourite vegan sour cream recipe for the best dairy-free alternative to the real thing. Plus we’ll offer a couple of alternatives for you as well.

Regular sour cream is made with dairy products, usually milk from dairy cows. But being vegan, we choose not to drink cow’s milk and actively avoid anything produced by the dairy industry. Sour cream is made by fermenting un-soured cream with a certain type of bacteria. Specifically lactic acid bacteria, which then thickens the cream and also gives it that sour cream taste. 

So it’s important that any vegan versions of real sour cream still have the same natural flavour, and don’t end up with a thinner consistency, all while using dairy-free milk products only. Well, good news because we’re really happy and pleased with the outcome of this recipe. We’ve kept that sour cream taste and texture and lost the dairy.

Our Favourite Vegan Sour Cream Recipe

For this recipe, we are going to use coconut cream. The good thing is there are loads of off-the-shelf double-cream vegan alternatives to the dairy version and from a whole range of different brands. We favour the ‘Wonderfully Whippable Double Cream’ from the Coconut Collab. Not only is their coconut milk based cream delicious and perfect for making a plant-based sour cream substitute, but they’re an ethical company. Responsible farming and fair wages are part of their core ethos. But I’m sure that there are plenty of other equally great vegan food brands making a plant-based cream alternative we could use as well. 

We recommend using a fresh lemon, but you could use lemon juice made from concentrates like Jif. If you have a small hand-operated citrus juicer then that’s all you’ll need to extract a tablespoon of zesty lemon juice from one half of a lemon. If you don’t have a juicer then we suggest that you squeeze a half lemon in your hands and into a glass, then you should pour this through a sieve or strainer to remove the bits and seeds before measuring out 1 tablespoon into the sour cream mixture. The lemon juice is what’s going to give our cream its sour taste.

Apple cider vinegar has a strong flavour, it’s a pungent tangy vinegar with an apple taste and almost woody aftertaste. It’s the unique tang this vinegar offers that we want to take advantage of though for our sour cream. The potency of apple cider vinegar means that we don’t need to use much to complement the acidity of the lemon. Both are achieving the same thing, adding a sour taste to our cream while also having a curdling effect, they’re just contributing different flavours. 

Apple cider vinegar is made by fermenting apples, so is unlike any other vinegar, but there are alternative vinegar you can use if you don’t have any in the cupboard. White vinegar is stronger than brown vinegar and is not so sweet. It’s also more acidic than brown malt vinegar, so while you may not use it on your fish and chips, it’s better suited to this recipe and can work as a substitute for apple cider vinegar. 

We’ve included a pinch of sea salt in this recipe as well. You will find an amount of sodium in any sour cream and we love to use sea salt because it’s less processed than other salts, retaining more of its original minerals and flavour. This is why we have just said to include a pinch only as it’ll be stronger than other table salts. You can adjust this to your taste, but just a small amount stirred into the sour cream provides another layer to the flavours of this sour cream, salt is simply a great flavour enhancer. 

Our Favourite Vegan Sour Cream Ingredients

1 cup vegan double cream

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar)

Pinch of Fine Sea Salt

How to Make Our Favourite Sour Cream

In a medium-sized bowl add a 1 cup scoop of vegan whipping cream.

Cut a lemon in half and squeeze out 1 Tbsp of juice, separating any bits and seeds from the juice before adding this to the bowl along with the cream.

Measure out 1 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar and pour it into the bowl as well, with a pinch of fine sea salt.

Using a whisk, mix the ingredients until they are well combined and you can see that the cream is starting to aerate and thicken slightly. The cream will continue to thicken a bit further after whisking in the lemon and vinegar until you have a nice creamy texture.

More Vegan Sour Cream Alternatives

It just wouldn’t be right for us to only offer you the one plant-based alternative to a regular sour cream. If you have an adversity to coconuts, lemons or apple cider vinegar for some reason then you might want to try out one of the following recipes instead. 

Vegan Cashew Sour Cream Recipe

The first replacement for our coconut cream recipe uses cashews instead of cream. Using a cup of raw cashews, some hot water and a high-speed blender (just like in our vegan queso sauce recipe), and then the same ingredients as our favourite recipe you can make another deliciously creamy vegan sour cream. So if you have cashews in the cupboard and don’t want to head to the store for a heavy coconut cream then this is the recipe for you.

Vegan Cashew Sour Cream Ingredients

1 cup raw cashews

1/2 cup hot water

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar)

Pinch of Fine Sea Salt

How to make a Vegan Cashew Sour Cream

Start by heating up a 1/2 cup of water to nearly boiling in a kettle or on the stove (considering that some will boil off so heat up more than you need)

Add all of the cashews and hot water to a small blender, then blend them together until you have a smooth creamy consistency

You can adjust the thickness of your queso quite simply, just add another 1/4 cup at a time of water, blend again and continue until you’re happy with it

Vegan Coconut Milk Sour Cream Recipe

So this was our original sour cream recipe that we were using for years with nachos etc until off-the-shelf coconut cream options became available. We would always buy a can of coconut milk and then separate out the cream from the water by placing the can in the can in the fridge overnight. If you open the can up after it’s been in the fridge all that time you can simply pour away the water and you are left with a thick white cream that thins out nicely when mixed with a tablespoon of lime juice.

We recommend using a can of full-fat coconut milk though, we’ve tried this with a light option before and it just didn’t work out, the cream did not separate. The only reason we moved away from this recipe was because of having to remember to put the coconut milk into the fridge and the fact you need to wait for several hours for the cream and water to separate. 

Vegan Coconut Milk Sour Cream Ingredients

1 can of coconut milk (400 ml)

1 Tbsp lime

Pinch of Fine Sea Salt

How to Make Vegan Coconut Milk Sour Cream

Take the can of coconut milk and place it in the fridge overnight so that the cream and the water can separate

​The cream will sink to the bottom and the water will be on top so if you just open the can and pour away the water you can then scoop out the cream (which should be a little under a half can of cream)

In a bowl add 1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lime juice to the coconut cream and using a fork mix the two, whipping the cream until it is smooth

Add a pinch of fine sea salt and stir it into the tangy cream

What can I use Sour Cream for?

We imagine that you’ve probably already decided what you will do with your tangy vegan sour cream. But just in case you haven’t here is some inspiration: one great option is as a salad dressing. It can be a refreshing topping on a fresh crisp bed of lettuce and pepper for example.

What about adding a dollop on top of a meatless chilli-con-carne-covered baked potato? It’ll be especially tasty if you follow our recipe for the perfect baked potato too, if we don’t say so. 

A couple of our favourite dishes to add some delicious plant-based sour cream to are vegan tacos, and a vegan mushroom stroganoff. You can probably imagine how to use sour cream with vegan tacos, it’s just a classic topping, along with guacamole or diced tomatoes.

But perhaps you’re new to a mushroom stroganoff. Picture frying sliced mushrooms in plant butter with minced garlic, some salt and pepper, and then pouring in some vegetable stock and letting it all simmer. Then to give it a nice creamy texture, and an even richer flavour, just stir in a portion of sour cream and serve on pasta such as farfalle.