The Best Vegan Substitutes

If you are looking for the best vegan substitutes to your favorite products then this is what you need. We cover more than 2 dozen vegan alternatives to make veganism easier.

If you ask someone that has been vegan for more than 10 years, they will tell you that the number of vegan products available today is insane compared to 10 years ago.

Given that that are so many products in today’s market, it can be simply overwhelming.

Today, we are breaking down our favorite products in every major category that most people grocery shop for that isn’t produce.

We will be covering all the best vegan substitutes in each of these categories.

Don’t forget to watch the video that accompanies it below!

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Watch our video on the best vegan substitutes:

Best Vegan Milk Alternatives:

These are the vegan milk alternatives that we use the most. If you are looking for something for your cereal, something to drink or even dip your cookies in, then these are great.

Unsweetened Original Almond from Good and Gather (this is Target’s store brand) is our favorite everyday use milk. We also like their oat milk when we want that instead.

For a chocolate milk vegan substitute, we really like Aldi’s Chocolate Almond milk.

When you are cooking or baking, you may want something thicker. The best canned coconut milk is Target’s Good and Gather Organic unsweetened coconut milk.

Many canned coconut milks are inconsistent with how much fatty/solid part is on the top. Target’s brand is a lot and very consistent.

Best Vegan Egg Substitutes:

Eggs were not an easy substitute for us and it’s one of those things that grew on us over time.

If you need convenient, Just Egg wins. Their bottle for scrambles or their box for folded eggs. It it however, much more expensive their our other alternative.

You can also use tofu to make a great vegan scrambled egg. Try our easy vegan tofu scramble recipe.

One thing to mention is that in order to have a really close taste no matter which you pick you need black salt also called kala namak. 

Best Vegan Substitute for Bread:

For convenience and cost, we usually grab Aldi’s L’oven Fresh Split Top Wheat bread. It tastes just like any other loaf of bread and it’s great.

If you are looking for a healthier, seeded bread, then you can’t go wrong with any option from the Dave’s Killer Bread line. The one we normally grab is 21 Whole Grains and seeds. It’s available many places, but also available at Walmart.

Best Vegan Cheese Substitutes:

Woo. This category is a doozy. If you are newly vegan we actually recommend waiting a month before doing any cheese swaps because you’ll just hate them all and you need you taste buds to not remember the taste (so serious).

We actually like quite a few in these categories but these are the ones we grab all the time.

Shreds: For vegan cheddar and mozzarella, we recommend Daiya Cutting Board Blend (DO NOT MISTAKE THIS FOR DAIYA ORIGINAL). See other vegan shredded cheeses that we like.

Blocks: Violife makes really great blocks of cheese, especially their Epic Smoked ones.

Parmesan: Violife again makes a vegan parmesan wedge that is terrific.

Slices: We couldn’t pick just one here. Chao Original is great for classic American style cheese. But the Follow Your Heart Smoked Gouda is to die for. It’s so good. New to us, the Violife Smoked Provolone Slices are incredible.

Soft Cheese: If you like soft, spreadable cheeses before going vegan, then the Treeline brand is a must try!

Cream Cheese: Wayfare brand is our favorite. In the photo it’s sour cream from their brand because we our store was out when we went to buy to shoot the video.

Vegan Butter Substitutes:

Earth Balance and Country Crock have a really great taste. We feel like if non-vegans did a blind taste test they would fail at being able to tell the difference. Both these brands have a variety of bases to accommodate your needs.

Some other honorable mentions are Flora Plant Based Butter and Miyokos.

Miyokos is fantastic but it’s pricey. Flora is new to the US and up and coming. It’s currently only available at Kroger stores and online.

Best Vegan Chocolate Chip substitutes:

Enjoy Life was our go too and we still love them, especially for a mega chunk size chip or mini size.

However, Walmart recently released dark, semi-sweet and white chocolate baking chips that are vegan friendly.

It’s hard to find vegan white chocolate and these do an amazing job.

Best Vegan Yogurt Substitute:

We had tried so many vegan yogurts and been so so disappointed.

Luckily, Yoplait came out with their dairy free oui brand and it’s fantastic. It is on the sweeter side and coconut based. They have vanilla, strawberry and mango flavors.

Best Vegan Ice Cream Substitutes:

This category is rapidly expanding what seems like almost monthly and we are just continuing to win by this growing.

VanLeeuwen’s is the best out there I our opinion. The flavor combos are terrific and the texture is spot on. Downside is that it’s very expensive, around $7-8 for a pint.

Another great brand is Nadamoo. It’s so creamy, has many flavors and is more widely available than VanLeeuwen’s.

Lastly, you can’t go wrong with Ben and Jerry’s. It’s the best priced one out of the three we are sharing and it’s almost the one with the most and easiest availability.

Not shown in the photo but non-dairy Magnum bars are incredible as well.

Best Vegan Hot Dog Substitute:

We absolutely love the Field Roast Classic Smoked Plant Based Frankfurters (aka vegan hot dogs).

They have a solid texture that holds up well and doesn’t get or stay super soft like some other versions.

We will say that our kids love the Aldi meatless hot dogs (while we very much don’t), but those are much better price wise, so we do get those for them.

Best Vegan Burgers:

We’ve tried a lot of vegan burgers and we’ve liked a lot of them; however, we keep going back to these frozen burgers from Gardein.

These are Gardein’s Ultimate Plant-Based Burger.

They are thick and meaty and the flavor is spot on. We will say that is textures being close to non-vegan food bother you then you may want to skip these because they come so close!

Best Vegan Chicken Nuggets Substitute:

Our kids ask for these often! Morningstar Farms vegan chik’n nuggets come shockingly close to the real ones. There is an original and spicy version and both are great.

New this year Morningstar Farms released Disney shaped nuggets which are amazing for vegan kids who don’t normally get fun shapes and characters.

Best Frozen Vegan Brand:

If we had to recommend one overall brand it would be Gardein. There’s been 1 or 2 out of like 2 dozen things from them that we didn’t like but so many amazing things they have are so good.

Especially as a new vegan and not knowing what to make they really help fill in some of the gap.

Definitely try their meatless ground crumbles, chick’n strips, mandarian crispy chick’n, chicken tender, burgers, beefless tips, and mini crabless bites.

Vegan Breakfast Sausage Substitute:

This is a very new to the market product. Beyond Meat’s Breakfast Sausage. They make a spicy and an original flavor.

They are very small in size so keep that in mind, especially for the price. But they are really good. Find them in the frozen section.

Another brand to try that’s good would be Gardein’s.

We will also preface this with a lot of Beyond’s products seem to bother our bodies, but these breakfast sausage don’t.

Vegan Ground Meat Substitute:

They are plenty of frozen meatless ground crumbles; however, the vegan market really just started getting vegan ground meat alternatives.

This one by Lightlife has been our favorite that we have tried so far for taste, texture, and ingredient list.

We found this one at Target.

Best Vegan Frozen Pizza Substitutes:

We also recommend making your own pizza from scratch. Maybe we’re old school like that. Get our classic vegan pizza dough recipe but also check out the other pizza recipes on our site! We have more than a dozen now.

That being said, we are really loved the Daiya Pizza’s. Best of all they are gluten free for our friends that need that too without being overly chewy or gummy.

They have a few different versions and taste great.

The Best Vegan Deli Slices Substitutes:

To be quite honest, this is a slam dunk category. We do really like their pepperoni, but the deli slices are just okay. There’s also Tofurkey brand for turkey deli slice alternatives that’s okay.

These are both from the Yves brand.

We think this category has a long way to go and we hope there becomes more competition in the near future.

Let us know if you have a recommendation for us to try!

We hope that these vegan substitutes help you on your vegan journey! If you have any questions, comment below or shoot us an email!