Best Vegan Sour Cream Recipe (Nut-free) - The Fiery Vegetarian (2024)

This gorgeous thick creamy vegan sour cream recipe is the best and the only plant-based sour cream recipe you’ll ever need! Even better, in addition to being dairy-free, it’s also soy-free and nut-free, and comes together in just a few minutes!

I do love tofu but tofu-based sour creams have quite a claggy flavour, and nut-based ones can be complicated and expensive to make and a lot of people have nut allergies.

So this tasty vegan sour cream is made using an unexpected main ingredient – white beans! You can use either cannellini (white kidney) or navy beans.

When combined with a bit of coconut milk and other ingredients you have a thick creamy vegan sour cream substitute on your hands in minutes – no soaking needed!

I love to add some probiotics and leave this sour cream overnight but you can omit the probiotics and add extra vinegar instead for more tang if you prefer a more “instant” sour cream substitute. Either way, both options are included in the recipe below.

If vegan creaminess is your thing I’d recommend having a gander at my 1-hour vegan goat cheese recipe, or if you’ve tried this recipe and are now hooked on how tasty creamy white-bean based recipes can be, try my white bean sauce pizza!

How to make it

A super easy vegan sour cream recipe to make, just grab your ingredients, pop them in a food processor or high-powered blender, whizz it up and then add a little water, and whizz it some more.

Let’s get into the details. Get all your ingredients together. The white beans should be cooked and soft. Canned, jarred, or cooked from dry is fine as long as they are rinsed and drained.

Although you can use either cannellini or navy beans, I do have a preference for cannellini as the final result has a less “beany” flavor, but you do you.

Chuck the beans, lemon juice, vinegar, coconut milk, sunflower oil, salt, probiotics (optional, make sure to open the capsules and empty the contents in, don’t throw the capsules in!), and garlic (if using) into the food processor/blender (image number one below).

Note that if you are not adding probiotics, you should add between one to one and a half tablespoons of vinegar to taste. I find that about one and a quarter is the sweet spot for me but do add with caution as too much will ruin the taste for you.l

If you are adding probiotics I recommend just adding half a tablespoon, then tasting it the next day after it has cultured a bit, and seeing if you need to add more.

Process or blend until as smooth as possible, it should take roughly two minutes (image number two above at one minute and image number three at two minutes). Next grab a quarter cup of water and stream in while blitzing the mixture again, until at your desired consistency (image number four).

If you have a really great blender or processor you may not need to add water at all. On the other hand you may want to add a little more if you want a “pourable” or salad-dressing like consistency, it’s really up to you.

If you added lactic acid probiotics (which I highly recommend), decant your yummy vegan sour cream to a container with a tightly fitting lid, cover, and leave somewhere warm and dark overnight.

You can culture your sour cream for up to two days but I find one night is enough. Taste to see if it needs more vinegar, and transfer to the fridge.

If you didn’t add probiotics, taste to see if more vinegar is needed and transfer to the fridge for at least half an hour.

While not strictly necessary and if you want to you can use the sour cream straight away, chilling will give the flavors a bit more time to develop and also be a bit more realistic as when have you ever eaten warm sour cream?

Tips

The garlic is optional – it gives a really nice flavor but it’s true that it’s not really a “sour cream” flavor then if you add it.

If you don’t have sunflower oil you can use any flavorless oil such as canola oil, for example. As always, I recommend using full-fat coconut milk.

White wine vinegar can be substituted with red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar.

Instead of sunflower oil, any flavorless oil such as canola oil may be used.

I cannot recommend enough that you use probiotics in this recipe, it gives the most AMAZINg tang and is a real game changer.

Storing it

You can store this vegan sour cream for up to five days in the fridge. It’s also suitable for freezing but you may have to process it a little again after defrosting to get the consistency back to being as creamy as before.

Serving suggestions

This vegan sour cream totally yummy enough to eat by itself with a spoon but after you get sick of doing that (I had to keep remaking this recipe because I ate it before photographing it, so no judgement here!) you might want to try it:

• On baked potatoes.
• Mixed with onions and chives for a vegan sour cream and onion dip.
• As a dip for tortilla chips.
• Combined with the best chunky salsa to top your favorite Tex-Mex dishes.
• Swirled through some vegan chocolate Guinness chilli.
• Thinned with some water and used as a salad dressing.
• With a packet of ranch seasoning mixed in for a tasty dip.
• As a pasta sauce or base for a pasta recipe – it would be perfect instead of the soy cream I normally use in my creamy pumpkin pasta recipe.
• Drizzle on top of cooked pizza (especially spicy pizza).
• Paired with some good vegan pierogi.

Did you make this recipe? Let me know how much you loved it with a star rating in the recipe box, review, or comment below.

Or take a picture and tag me on Instagram (@the_fiery_vegetarian), I love seeing all your creations!

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