A new take on an American classic: pizza
I tried vegan mozzarella for the first time, and it tasted surprisingly normal
Mindy Long
★★★✩✩
Miyoko’s Creamery
Vegan dairy brand, $
Sonoma, CA
Miyoko’s Creamery, a leading plant dairy brand headquartered in Sonoma, CA, is launching its newest product: liquid vegan mozzarella that melts, stretches, bubbles and browns exactly like conventional dairy mozzarella. This fall, Miyoko’s Creamery embarked on its Mind-Blowing, World-Changing, Phenomenally Vegan Pizza Mozzarella Tour of the East Coast, with stops in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. I recently had the chance to try one of Miyoko’s new vegan pizzas at one of its Boston food truck stops in Boston Common at the Boylston MBTA station.
Miyoko, the creamery’s founder, is a chef and animal sanctuary founder who is dedicated to the vegan movement. In 2014, they launched a vegan dairy company under the name Miyoko’s Kitchen, later renaming it Miyoko’s Creamery. Since then, the company has experienced explosive growth, leading Miyoko to be named one of the inaugural Forbes 50 over 50.
I tried a slice of both the margherita and (vegan) sausage pizzas. At first glance, the mozzarella was barely visible on the pizza as it had a thin texture. Once I took a bite of the margherita, though, I could taste a hint of cheese. Looking more closely, I saw Miyoko’s added salt to the margherita because the cheese was relatively tasteless. The vegan sausage, supplied by Hungry Planet, another plant-based meat brand, compensated for the lack of taste of the cheese on the sausage pizza.
Since this was my first time trying vegan pizza, I can’t rank Miyoko’s compared to other vegan pizzas. I was, however, pleasantly surprised that the pizza tasted normal. If I had not known it was vegan, I would’ve guessed I was eating high school lunch pizza.
Overall, I had an enjoyable experience tasting vegan pizza for the first time. Miyoko’s still has some room for improvement, such as increasing the texture and creaminess of their vegan mozzarella, but that is no small task for a plant-based dairy manufacturer. I’m impressed by how far they’ve come to replicate a typical pizza, and I look forward to their next creations.
The new cashew-based, liquid vegan mozzarella will launch in Sprouts across the country Oct. 18, 2021. Whole Foods will begin carrying the item in January 2022. If you want to see the product on your local grocer’s shelf or in your local pizza shop, let them know by filling out this form.