Dairy-Free Recipes

This page filters for recipes with no milk, butter, cream, cheese or yogurt in them. It overlaps heavily with the vegan listing, though not perfectly: a recipe can be dairy-free and still contain egg, so the two badges are set separately and both are worth checking if you need both.

The interesting part is that most of the dairy-free cooking here is not substitution. Nobody is reaching for a boxed cheese alternative and hoping. The creamy sauces are built from cashews and coconut milk from the start, which is why they behave like what they are rather than like a compromised version of something else, and full-fat coconut milk in particular carries enough fat to stand in for cream in a pan without splitting.

Where a recipe does swap, the order tends to matter. Working fat in before liquid is the general rule, because liquid added first has nowhere to go and turns a mash or a batter gluey, and that is as true with a vegan butter as it is with dairy.

For anything baked, remember that dairy brings browning as well as richness. A little extra sugar or a brush of plant milk on top puts back the color that pulling the butter took away.