I bought some Daiya Vegan Cheese from Veganessentials.com and I have to say it is the closest to the Holy Grail of Vegan Cheese I've ever tasted. It is made from Fermented Cassava root.

I've always been critical of vegan cheeses, b/c pretty much all of them

1) try to be healthy or healthier than dairy cheese.
2). try to mimic dairy cheese without fermentation.

Dairy cheese is not very healthy. It is a solid brick of protein and saturated fat.

Fermentation adds all kinds of flavor from the burping of microbes, particularly the short chain fatty acids. This give cheese it's distinct complex flavor. Fermentation also creates the denatured entangled proteins that allow dairy cheese to melt.

Most vegan cheeses I've tried tend to melt like candle wax than like cheese. They spread out into a thin puddle, rather than a gooey mound.

Daiya cheese melts like cheese and tastes like cheese, though it only has one taste (like cheddar) and is absolutely awesome on Mexican food recipes, like quesadillas and tacos.

It's great on pizza, but you need a lot which makes it cost prohibitive ($9/lb).

I am wondering how they get it to melt so wonderfully without a lot of protein. Oats and Fava beans have a casein analog. (avenum & Legumin, respectively), so I'm wondering why they didn't use them.

Anyway, it is the best vegan cheese I've ever had. I'm hoping they are paving the way for more vegan cheese makers to come up with other fermented cheeses.

jv

I recently tried it on pizza twice and was disappointed. I've been reading the rave reviews and was SURE that the holy grail has been discovered so perhaps my expectations were set too high. The texture wasn't that stretchy and it kinda stuck to my teeth. It was pretty damn good in a raw or semi melted form which would be good as a topping but other than that I wasn't that impressed.

My next great hope is that Cargill comes through: Cargill creates breakthrough for dairy-free analogue cheese production with Lygomme™ ACH Optimum functional system

Thanks for the review. I have heard more and more about Daiya cheese. I'll order some to try. Being soy free is nice. How does it compare (taste/meltability) to Teese?

Thanks for the review. I have heard more and more about Daiya cheese. I'll order some to try. Being soy free is nice. How does it compare (taste/meltability) to Teese?

In my taste test we had Teese and Daiya side by side. Daiya won in taste and texture just by a little. Teese is harder to work with as it a has small window where it completely liquifies where Daiaya acted more stable like dairy cheese. If Daiya and Teese were side by side in a store and cost was the same i'd go with Daiya. But for now it's hardly worth the cost and effort. FollowYourHeart is still my pizza cheese of choice.

Look at this news at http://www.vegan.com/... Maybe we will have real taste cheese soon and at low cost too. Dairy cheese industries seem to switch to vegan cheese soon. What great news!

I just finished up a few bags of the Daiya both flavors. I live near Vegan Essentials so I went to pick it up the day they got it in. My first project was a Chi-town style Deep Dish (being a Chi-town native I definately miss this) - I had some Chicago style Deep Dish Spice so it was perfect - oh, to smell that deep dish smell again! Ahhh. Anyhow, the Daiya melted very well IMO and I have tried almost every vegan cheeze out there. It melts better than Follow Your Heart but probably not better than Teese - but I hate to say it - I HATE Teese - it gets all weird right after you remove it from the heat and it honestly does not taste good to me (esp. the Cheddar - did they taste test this - it was so yuck - I could hardly finish the tube). It is definately more of a sauce cheese.

Daiya tastes good to me. I tried it on other things like for cheezy garlic bread and it didn't melt as well - hmm, not sure why but I consider it vegan "pizza only" cheese for me. I would buy it again but probably not a regular basis because of the price. But this made a semi-thick Chicago style deep dish a possiblity for this vegan and I was happy with it. It did stretch for me but not majorly like Dairy. I like that it didn't get all grossy right when I took it from the oven - it still stayed melted and smooth. I suggest using it within a few weeks of opening the bags because mine did get some mold in the mozzerella flavor. But that was my fault because I forgot about it. :)

Is it really sad that I am more excited that it's fermented cassava than that its a cheesy thing? But then i make my own sourdough, sauerkraut, and kimchi...

And EvilChemist, i am in awe of your post. I didn't know about those casein analogues. Does that mean that oats or fava beans block the action of capsaicin the way casein does? I had to treat a 'burn' from cutting too many habaneros without gloves and didn't have a good vegan treatment.

Finally tried Daiya and was also dissapointed. I made quesadillas with both italian and cheddar style (maybe I had too much italian and too much in general)..it was very GOOPEY almost to the point of nausea. Taste was slightly better than teese, which made me want to vomit. Tonight i'm going to make a baked mac and cheese and see how the cheedar tastes in a baked food. Hopefully yum!

If that Cargill product works out..whoa what a breakthrough.

Check out their edit to the press release, addressing the concerns of pissed farmers..ha:

Editor's Note:
Cargill's recent launch of an ingredient for use in making analogue cheese, per the below press release, has raised concerns by some in the U.S. dairy industry that it will hurt dairy producers. We want to clarify that the product, Lygomme™ ACH Optimum, functions as a casein replacement for analogue cheese applications. It meets a specific nutritional need for those who have dairy allergies, and helps food manufacturers address challenges within the current casein supply chain, which in the U.S. is largely imported. Lygomme™ ACH Optimum is one of a wide array of food innovations developed by Cargill to meet specific customer needs.

Has anyone in Chicago tried the Ste Martaen brand cheese? I live in Seattle now and am wondering if it's worth the shipping charges...It looks delicious in the photos.....

Ste Martaen cheese is pretty good. They were selling it at the Chicago Vegan Fest, and I bought the Gouda, Muenster, and Olive varieties. Awesome! They even melted when I made grilled cheese!