Vegan butter is a beautiful thing. Many will argue that a tub of plant based margarine simply can’t compete with a standard block of golden dairy butter, and while that’s a perfectly valid stance to take (dairy butter is a beautiful thing, too), anyone following a strict plant based diet really isn’t missing out too much. The best vegan butter really does hold a candle to the real stuff! After several taste tests of it, we’re more sure than ever.
How we found the vegan butter brands
Lots of brands are recreating the flavor and texture of good butter without dairy. Doing so certainly isn’t as hard as, say, trying to make melty, cheesy, vegan mozzarella. Or trying to engineer plant-based hot dogs that taste like all-beef hot dogs. No, margarine made from vegetable oil has existed for years. You don’t need to go to specialty stores to find them (though Sprouts does have a lot of interesting options), they’re everywhere. Since many environmentally conscious shoppers also try to avoid palm oil due to its impact on tropical forests and pollution, we also made sure to include vegan butters without palm oils, too.
How we taste-tested each plant-based butter
We tried each vegan butter straight off the spoon (it’s just our way, okay) and then, because we’re not totally insane, we spread them over a neutral-tasting white bread—untoasted and toasted, to get a feel for their textures on both forms. While we don’t have time to try these in baking recipes, we did take note of how they melted and held up with heat, which gives a decent sense of how they might perform in cooking or baking.
What we looked for in the best vegan butter
The best vegan butter should be smooth, rich, salty, creamy, and, most of all, it should taste like butter—delicate, sweet, and fatty. Plant based butter doesn’t have to taste like vegetable margarine. Vegan butters that include almond milk, coconut oil, or olive oil are completely welcome here. Butter is a concept, man. It’s a fat-and-water emulsion. So, that fat can be literally anything, just as long as it’s plant-based. There aren’t as many rules to vegan butter as you might think—we just want it to taste good.
Best Vegan Butter, Ranked
- Violife Salted Plant Butter
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Violife products usually hit for us here at Sporked. They really understand how to mimic the delicious qualities of cheese and butter without using dairy products. This big brick of butter is salty, creamy, and delicious. It’s made with canola oil and sunflower oil, but thankfully doesn’t taste like low-rent margarine. I really like the aesthetic of a big brick of vegan butter, too. It’s good to cook with, or to spread on toast or a freshly cooked ear of corn. It’s margarine adjacent, but tastes better than the cheap stuff. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Full Circle Market Butter Sticks with Coconut Oil
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These sticks of coconut butter have a wonderfully pronounced coconut flavor. Full Circle Market isn’t as smooth and spreadable as some other plant-based butters, but it does have a rather unique flavor that’s mellow and almost fruity. Plus, studies show that coconut oil is pretty good for you, too. I think this butter is best to cook with. If you’re making any vegan sauces or curries at home, melt a few cold tablespoons of Full Circle Market’s coconut oil butter into the sauce at the end. It’ll up the richness factor without adding dairy, that’s why it’s the best vegan butter to cook with. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter It’s Vegan
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Another spreadable plant-based butter, this one made from soybean and palm oil. I Can’t Believe It’s not Butter’s vegan vegetable oil spread is very salty and extra smooth. It mostly tastes like margarine, but for those who don’t like the pure taste of olive oil, coconut oil, or almond milk, this has a more classic flavor to it. I personally think it’s not as tasty as the top two, but it’s still rich, smooth, and salty. It’s hard for this to taste bad when the product achieves those three things. Plus, there is something so undeniably, pleasantly smooth about I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. It’s just so damn spreadable. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Miyoko’s Creamery Salted Oat Milk Butter
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In true pick-me fashion, I’m an oat milk girl through and through. Oat milk is the GOAT milk, if you ask me—but rarely, rarely have I enjoyed an oat milk-based vegan ice cream, dessert, or yogurt. It’s great for coffee and cereal, but I’ve always found it distracting as an ingredient in vegan food. But this salted oat milk butter from Miyoko’s Creamery has such a lovely, bright flavor with just the lightest touch of oat. The whipped texture is extra silky—it’s probably some of the creamiest vegan butter I’ve tried to date, and it spreads so easily over untoasted (and toasted) bread. I could see it fluffing up a buttercream frosting beautifully. Plus, it doesn’t contain palm oil, if that’s a concern for anyone searching for the best vegan butter to buy. The main downside here is that the tub expires pretty quickly; it’s typically only good for two weeks after opening. Not a problem if you plan to use it for baking, which we definitely recommend! It’s probably one of the best vegan butters for baking to buy. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Target
- Country Crock Dairy Free Plant Butter with Avocado Oil
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If you ignore the way it melts much quicker in your mouth than dairy butter (which, c’mon, who cares), this Country Crock plant based butter is a dead ringer for the real thing. Country Crock’s olive oil version (see #1) has a slightly more neutral flavor, while this avocado oil spread leaves more of a lingering buttery tang. It’s all down to preference, but for the bolder flavor alone, this is what I’m putting on my sourdough toast in the morning. I’ve been buying Country Crock margarines over dairy butter for about a decade, and for the sake of my dairy-sensitive stomach and my highly critical taste buds, I’m never going back. They’re known for vegetable margarines, but they definitely make some of the best vegan butter around, too—and usually at a more affordable price than other brands. —Ariana Losch
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Kite Hill European Style Plant-Based Butter Alternative
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Coconut oil is the first ingredient listed here, then almond milk. Naturally, this European-style plant-based butter tastes the most like those two things, and it’s quite delicious. The coconut oil is smooth and mellow, but the nuttiness of the almonds shines brightest. Kite Hill is creamy, salty, sweet, and absolutely delicious. In my opinion, the best plant based butters should taste like something other than vegetable oil; Kite Hill’s European-style butter is loaded with extra flavors. It’s the best vegan butter with an almond taste. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Country Crock Plant Butter with Olive Oil
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Country Crock’s Plant Butter with Olive Oil is salty, spreadable, and deliciously rich. I took this product home with me to experiment with, and I’ve been cooking eggs in it all week. The olive oil flavor is slightly bitter and deep, unlike vegetable oil. Because it’s spreadable butter, it will also go great on toast—think something sturdy and chewy like sourdough. Every so often I’ll dip a cracker in this olive oil-based plant butter; that’s how good it is. This also has monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which I hear are actually good for you. The taste, flavor, and texture here are just spot on. It’s pure decadence. That’s why it’s our best vegan butter. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
Best Brick
Best Stick
Best Creamy
Best Creamy
Best Dairy Dupe
Best Almond Taste
Best of the Best
Other vegan butters we tried:
Earth Balance Soy Free, Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, Myokos European Style, Myokos Hint of Sea Salt, Land O Lakes
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