Vegan Cheese Ball Recipe (2024)

A vegan cheese ball is an easy, tasty appetizer! It’s a dairy-free appetizer with vegan cream cheese, nuts, and herb. It’s a quick and easy vegan party food that looks gourmet but takes minutes to make. Cheese balls are served with crackers, vegan cheez-its, or small slices of toast.

I love making easy vegan party appetizers like Vegan Queso served with Air Fryer Tortilla Chips, Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes, Stuffed Dates, or Cauliflower Wings.

Combining creamy and savory makes the best snack. Especially when you add some crunchy toasted pecans into the mix. This plant-based cheese ball combines the perfect flavors to make an outstanding snack!

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What Makes This Recipe Shine?

Key Ingredients

You can find the full printable recipe, including ingredient quantities, below. But first, here are some explanations of ingredients and steps to help you make this recipe perfect every time.

• Pecans — You’ll need 3/4 of a cup of pecans. You can find these in the baking section of most grocery stores, but I buy them in bulk during my Vegan Shopping Trips at Costco.
• Vegan butter — I recommend Earth Balance, Miyoko’s, or homemade vegan butter, but you can substitute tub margarine for this recipe.
• Fresh sage leaves — Fresh sage is great, but if you don’t have that handy, dried rubbed sage works.
• Garlic — You’ll need a couple of cloves of garlic.
• Vegan cream cheese — You can find vegan cream cheese in health food stores or the health food section of many major grocery stores.
• Vegan Cheese — I prefer Daiya blocks for this recipe because they have a great firm texture. You can use any of their flavors, cheddar, Monterey jack, jalapeño Havarti, or smoked gouda.
• Green onions — One or two stalks of green onions or spring onions should give you enough for this recipe. Don’t have green onions? Here are some spring onion substitutes to try.
• Salt — You can use plain table salt or sea salt.

How to Make Vegan Cheese Balls

It’s so easy to make a vegetarian cheese ball recipe:

1. Toast pecans in the oven.
2. Cook sage and garlic with vegan butter.
3. Add the vegan cream cheese, vegan cheese, butter, sage, and garlic to a food processor and pulse it all together.
4. Wrap it in plastic and place it in the fridge to firm up.
5. Prepare the topping by chopping toasted nuts and adding remaining chopped green onions.
6. Press topping ingredients into the chilled cheese ball.
7. Serve immediately with crackers.

Here are more detailed step-by-step instructions:

Step One: Toast Pecans

Toasting the pecans brings out their nutty flavors and adds a bit of crunch to this recipe.

1. Place pecans on a prepared pan, spreading them about.
2. Bake for approximately 5 minutes, until the nuts are toasted.
3. Watch them closely, as nuts can burn easily.

Step Two: Sautée Herbs and Garlic

1. Cook fresh sage leaves (or dried sage) in a skillet with melted vegan butter.
2. Toss and cook the leaves until crispy.
3. Reduce heat to medium-low and add chopped garlic.
4. Cook for approximately 1 minute until tender. Remove from heat.

Step Three: Prepare the Cheese Ball

1. Pulse vegan cream cheese, chopped or shredded vegan cheese, salt, contents from the skillet, and a couple of the toasted nuts in a food processor.
   
2. Use a spatula to push down ingredients and to break up any large chunks. Repeat until the mixture is combined and mostly smooth.
3. Add 1/3 cup toasted pecans and half of the chopped green onions and pulse again until broken down, leaving bits throughout the mixture.
   
4. Use a spatula to transfer ingredients from the food processor onto a piece of plastic wrap.
5. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Step Four: Add the Topping

1. Place the remaining toasted pecans on a chopping board and chop them into fine bits.
2. Add remaining chopped green onions.
3. Remove the chilled cheese ball from the fridge, peel off the plastic wrap, and place it on a serving dish.
4. Use your hands or the back of a spoon to shape it into a ball.
5. Press the topping into the cheeseball.
6. Serve with crackers.

Storage Tips

Cover any leftovers in an airtight container or with foil and refrigerate. It will keep in the fridge up to 5 days.

Marly’s Tips

Reader Reviews

More Vegan Appetizers

If you love this vegan cheese ball, you’ll be itching to try even more vegan appetizers. Here are some favorites:

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