2 Vegan Butter Brands That Make The Best Pie Crust

Incredulous dairy eaters will say there's no replacement for butter in cooking, but the vegan food industry begs to differ. Vegan butter brands are coming out with amazing products that you can use in pie crusts, recipes famous for depending on dairy butter for their taste and texture. In an interview with Tasting Table, Sabrina Rudin, recipe developer and founder of the Spring Aspen Cafe weighed in with her go-to vegan butter brands that make the best pie crust.

"For a traditional double pie crust a [vegan] butter substitute is the best option because it tends to cool and melt similarly to real butter. My two favorite brands are Monty's and Miyoko's". If you've perused our ranking of vegan butters, Miyoko's Creamery European style plant milk butter, comes in at number one. Made of a blend of cashew and coconut oil, the Miyoko's brand offers the perfect balance of richness with subtle notes of salt and bitterness. Monty's uses a similar blend of cashews and coconut oil along with almond oil for a slightly sweeter flavor that's every bit as creamy and buttery as the real thing. Both of these dairy-free butters are widely available at grocery stores and online.

While vegetable shortening like All-vegetable Crisco, sold on Amazon, is a longstanding plant-based alternative that will work in a vegan pie crust, Rudin asserts that "it's better to use plant based butter because it will more closely mimic the flavor and texture of a traditional flaky pie crust."

Now that you have two excellent options for vegan butter, Sabrina Rudin has also shared best practices for pie crust making, other butter swaps, and things to consider about the ingredients in your vegan butter. Luckily, the vegan butter swap is simple and many of the same tips apply to vegan butter as they do to dairy butter.

If you're using this flaky pie crust recipe, Rudin says that "most butter substitutes work very well in a vegan pie crust, and work as a 1 to 1 substitute." She also says to, "remember that if you use coconut oil or coconut based plant butter the flavor will transfer a bit to the crust." Since both of the recommended vegan butter brands contain coconut oil, you might note a hint of nuttiness. Still, this could be advantageous to many fruit and cream pie fillings, not to mention nut fillings like pecan pie. For that matter, Rudin thinks that "if you're making more of a crumb topping or a nut-based single pie or tart crust, you can easily substitute coconut oil or olive oil for butter." You can still use vegan butter in the pecan filling and swap eggs for flax eggs, using this Bob's Redmill ground flaxmeal and water.

It's also important to use cold vegan butter for your pie crust, cut into small squares, "because that is what creates the "flakiness" in the finished dough," says Rudin. You'll see that same requisite for dairy pie crusts, too.