February 1, 2026

Homemade Cultured Vegan Butter

If you’ve been on the quest for the perfect, spreadable vegan butter, look no further. This is a recipe I’ve been sitting on and tweaking for a long time, until I recently shared it on Youtube. And it’s not because I wanted to gatekeep, but it’s because I wanted to make sure it was ready before I shared it. And it is- this spreadable vegan butter is ready/ It’s one is rich and creamy, with a subtle tang from the cultured almond milk and the perfect level of salt. You can make a big batch at home that will last for ages (especially if frozen). Unlike most store-bought varieties, it’s palm oil free (which is so important for orangutan safety). It’s solid at room temperature, spreads easily, and melts beautifully on your warm toast.

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What is Cultured Butter?

Cultured butter is more of a European style butter than an American one- it’s made with live bacteria that gives your butter a slight tang as well as a deeper and more complex flavor. It’s going to be a bit of a personal preference, but personally I think that cultured butter (cultured vegan butter, of course) is much tastier than a “sweet cream” style butter, which has very little flavor and instead is just the texture of fat. I love spreading cultured vegan butter on toast, and topping with nutritional yeast for a piece of bread that is salty, savory, tangy, and rich all in one. And while cultured vegan butter does take longer to make than a non-cultured vegan butter, it’s fairly hands-off. Firstly you have to make almond milk- all you need for that is a high-speed blender and a nut milk bag- and then you add a mesophilic culture to it. After only 24 hours of letting it rest at room temperature, it will have a great tang that will greatly improve the flavor of you butter. After that it’s just vegan butter as usual!

Looking for Vegan Spreads? Try one of these!

Got some More Almonds? Try one of these Almond Recipes!

Prefer to Watch? Here’s our Video How-To!

Cultured Vegan Butter Tips and Tricks

This is not meant to be a baking butter, as it has too much liquid and is too soft to replace dairy butter in baking recipes. Instead it is meant as what I call a spreading butter, or a toast butter.
I would not encourage you to try making a cultured milk from storebought almond milk, as they often have added ingredients to help preserve the milk or improve the texture that could interfere with the fermentation.
For this recipe you will only need 1 cup of cultured almond milk, but our recipe makes around 4 cups. You can freeze the remaining milk in 1 cup quantities for later batches, or you can use it similarly to buttermilk in baking.
Don’t throw away your almond pulp, you can use that! I have a recipe for an almond pulp cheese, and there are also plenty of ideas in this video.
We use a mesophilic culture to make our cultured almond milk. These can be bought at specialty cheesemaking shops, or (more commonly) online. It is an especially good idea to shop online to get a vegan mesophilic culture, as many contain milk. You only need very small amounts to make this butter, and they last in the freezer for a long time. If you are unable to get a mesophilic culture, you can use the powder in 2 probiotic capsules instead.
Although in general I would choose cotton over a synthetic fabric, I prefer to use a nylon nut milk bag for straining, as it lasts much longer than the cotton ones and is not as prone to developing small leaks along the seam line.
Blend the oils and vegan milk together longer than you think is needed to get it well emulsified. It also helps to pop it in the freezer so it sets quickly before it can try and separate. If you do have issues with separation, you can always use an immersion blender or stand mixer to reintegrate the ingredients once cool.
We add lecithin to our vegan butter to help the ingredients emulsify. You can get lecithin from soy or sunflower seeds at health food stores or online. While it helps emulsification, you should still be able to make this vegan butter without it, especially using the tips above.
You can use any
Coconut products, including this butter, are susceptible to Penicillium roqueforti. It is a harmless bacteria that is also found in blue cheese, rye bread, and is commonly in the air. While it might not be dangerous to consume, it does make your butter taste like blue cheese. Because of that I like to keep most of my butter in the freezer, and only have the tub I’m currently using at room temperature.