This vegan cream cheese frosting will blow you away! No one will know that it's not the real deal! It's perfect to top your vegan carrot cakes, pumpkin bread, and muffins, cinnamon buns, or just lick it off your finger! I've been vegan for over 20 years and I've never had a more authentic tasting dairy-free cream cheese frosting!
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❤️ Why you will love this recipe
- It is simply the most authentic tasting vegan cream cheese frosting you can make!
- It's gluten-free, dairy-free, and nut-free too!
- You can make it without store-bought vegan cream cheese.
🗝️ Keys to great frosting
For the best tasting frosting, use my homemade vegan cream cheese. It only takes about 5 extra minutes to make your own, but it's totally worth it! (Plus you'll have leftover cream cheese to spread on bagels or make my homemade no-bake vegan cheesecake)! My homemade cream cheese is made with tofu, refined coconut oil and some seasoning for an amazing authentic cheesy flavor.
Another ingredient that is essential for making the frosting taste authentic is apple cider vinegar. For some reason, apple cider vinegar alone in frosting gives it a cream cheese flavor.
Tip: If you want to make super easy cream cheese frosting without vegan cream cheese, you can simply use my vegan buttercream recipe and use apple cider vinegar in place of the plant-based milk.
🧾 Ingredients and substitutions
- Vegan Cream Cheese - I highly recommend that you use my homemade, but you can use a store-bought brand like Tofutti.
- For my homemade cream cheese recipe you will need:
- A block of extra firm tofu
- Refined Coconut Oil
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- Nutritional Yeast
- Salt
- For my homemade cream cheese recipe you will need:
- Vegan Butter - I also highly recommend that you use my homemade vegan butter for the frosting, but you can also use Earth Balance or Miykao's vegan butter.
- Apple Cider Vinegar - for an authentic cream cheese flavor.
- Vanilla Extract - for flavor.
- Powdered Sugar - for creamy sweetness.
- Salt - to balance out the sweetness.
🥄 Instructions
- Beat softened vegan cream cheese and vegan butter with a mixer for 2 minutes until combined and fluffy.
- Add the apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, salt, and a cup of powdered sugar and blend.
- Add the remaining powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, blending well between each cup until the desired consistency is reached.
👩🏻🍳 Pro tips
- Make sure the butter and cream cheese are soft, but not melted. If it is too warm, you will have runny frosting. If it's too cold, you will have chunks of unblended cream cheese or butter in your frosting.
- You can add slightly more or slightly less powdered sugar to adjust it to the sweetness and consistency that you desire.
- Store in the fridge for up to 1 week. *Since the cream cheese is made with tofu and other perishable ingredients, keep the frosting refrigerated.
📝 A note about the consistency
Cream cheese frosting has a stickier softer consistency than traditional buttercream. It will not pipe the same as other frosting made for cake decorating. If you want a drippy frosting like in the picture, frost your cake or bread when it's still slightly warm. If you want a vegan cream cheese frosting that will keep its shape and hold when piping, make my vegan buttercream frosting and add 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar instead of the plant-based milk. This will give you a fluffy buttercream with the flavor of cream cheese.
🏪 How to use store bought cream cheese
You can use store-bought cream cheese if you want. I prefer the Tofutti brand or the store brand from Trader Joe's or Aldi.
As I mentioned above, if you don't want to use cream cheese at all, you can use the best vegan buttercream recipe and swap out the plant milk for apple cider vinegar.
🧁Uses for the frosting
- Vegan Carrot Cake
- Healthy Vegan Muffins with Hidden Veggies
- Vegan Pumpkin Bread
- Vegan Pumpkin Muffins
- Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
📌 Be sure to follow me on Pinterest for new vegan recipes!
An authentic tasting cream cheese frosting made with homemade vegan cream cheese.
- 1 cup vegan cream cheese
- 1/2 cup vegan butter
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
-
Beat softened vegan cream cheese and vegan butter with a mixer for 2 minutes until combined and fluffy.
-
Add the apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, salt, and a cup of powdered sugar and blend.
-
Add the remaining powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, blending well between each cup until the desired consistency is reached.
- Make sure the butter and cream cheese are soft, but not melted. If it is too warm, you will have runny frosting. If it's too cold, you will have chunks of unblended cream cheese or butter in your frosting.
- You can add slightly more or slightly less powdered sugar to adjust it to the sweetness and consistency that you desire.
- Store in the fridge for up to 1 week. *Since the cream cheese is made with tofu and other perishable ingredients, keep the frosting refrigerated.
Note: Cream cheese frosting has a stickier, softer consistency than traditional buttercream. It will not pipe the same as other frosting made for cake decorating. If you want a drippy frosting like in the picture, frost your cake or bread when it's still slightly warm.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Leave a comment and starred review! I would love to hear from you!
This was a good recipe! I didn’t notice at all a difference in taste and look to the non-vegan version. The next time I would also adjust and add more cream cheese and way less sugar. Over recent months, I’ve cut back significantly on sugar, so I found the end product a bit too sweet even though I still reduced the sugar by a half cup.
I'm glad the recipe worked for you! 🙂
Good but I would have preferred more cream cheese than powdered sugar so it tastes more creamy than sugary. In the future I will need to work out the ratios.
This frosting was amazing! I used your homemade cream cheese to make it. I love that I didn't have to buy the processed crap at the store and I could make it from scratch.
I'm so happy that you liked it, Carry! It is so nice to make it from scratch. 🙂