Best Vegan Butter of 2024

Whether you’re a vegan, following a dairy-free diet, or just want to mix things up, there is now a plethora of vegan butter options to choose from.

Gone are the days of weird margarine spreads loaded with trans fats and questionable ingredients, as we’ve now entered a new era where everything, including butter, can be vegan-ified—and it can be tasty, too. 

Let’s check out the top four vegan butter options we vetted and tested in 2024. 

Our Insider Picks

Best Overall Vegan Butter: Miyokos European Style Salted Plant Milk Butter → Go to Review

Runner-Up Best-Tasting Vegan Butter: Violife Salted Plant Butter → Go to Review

Best Spreadable Vegan Butter: Miyokos Salted Oat Milk Butter → Go to Review

Most Affordable Vegan Butter: Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread → Go to Review

Why Trust Our Reviews?

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Our content dives deeper than surface-level branding and marketing claims, providing you with value-added “industry insider” information. For more information about how The Nutrition Insider conducts its reviews and other aspects of our business, please feel free to read our Editorial Policy.

1. Best Overall: Miyokos European Style Salted Plant Milk Butter (A)

Miyokos earns an A for the overall best-tasting vegan butter with the best ingredients—specifically the Miyokos European Style Salted Plant Milk Butter. The eponymously named brand was founded by Miyoko Schinner in 2014, and she has been cranking out non-dairy options ranging from cream cheese to cashew mozzarella to butter ever since. This European-style vegan butter has a superior taste and the best ingredients we’ve come across in plant-based butter. The main things keeping it from an A+ are the steeper price tag and the fact that it looks more like coconut oil than yellow butter.

Nutrition & Ingredients

Most plant-based butter alternatives will have pretty similar nutritional profiles. However, Miyokos is more similar to real butter because its first ingredient is coconut oil, which is predominantly saturated fat. 

Per 1-tablespoon serving, this vegan butter contains:

• 90 calories
• 10g fat
• 8g saturated fat
• 2g unsaturated fat

As with all fat-based foods, you won’t find carbohydrates, fiber, sugar, or protein in this, so we won’t mention those macronutrients. 

All vegan butter alternatives are made from plant-based oils, and most use vegetable and seed oils. We love that Miyokos uses coconut oil and cashew milk as the base instead. While they do include high-oleic sunflower oil, it’s probably the best seed oil that could be used.

High-oleic sunflower oil is a bit different from regular sunflower oil as it’s been grown to have higher levels of oleic acid. Oleic acid is a monounsaturated fat (the same one predominantly found in olive oil). Therefore, high-oleic sunflower oil, while still a processed seed oil, is lower in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats. 

The ingredients of Miyokos European Style Salted Plant Milk Butter are:

Organic coconut oil, organic cultured cashew milk (filtered water, organic cashews, cultures), filtered water, organic high-oleic sunflower oil, organic sunflower lecithin, and sea salt. 

As you can see, the ingredients are pretty minimal, which impressed me.

Uniquely, Miyokos uses cashews in this butter. They mill the organic cashews in-house, then culture and churn the milk with special vegan cultures. This fermentation process makes their vegan butter a little tangy, reminiscent of real cultured butter.

Cultured butter is a prominent feature of European-style butter. As the name suggests, it uses a culturing process, has less water, gets churned for longer, and typically has a higher fat content. 

As a bonus, this combination of ingredients means that you can actually make browned butter from it. Most vegan butter is primarily canola or soybean oil, which will burn before it browns. 

Product Experience

Miyokos European Style Salted Plant Milk Butter comes in a large block, which makes it easy to use for cooking or baking. 

The main downside of this product is that it doesn’t look much like real butter—its whitish appearance definitely resembles hardened coconut oil.

However, that did not detract from the flavor. I really enjoyed the taste of this vegan butter, which had a great mouthfeel and salty buttery flavor. 

It did take longer to melt (on toast) than the other brands, but it spread easily and did melt after a minute or two.

Lastly, the wrapper around the butter was a bit hard to rewrap successfully, but that’s not a huge deal as it has an outer cardboard box to store it in.

Transparency and Sustainability

As a Certified B Corporation, Miyokos meets the highest standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. 

Miyokos has a page dedicated to their ingredients, what they are, and some details about sourcing—which is more than can be said for many food brands. For example, their organic cashews are sourced from a single farm in the Vietnam rainforest that meets SMETA (Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit) standards for Ethical Trade.

They also do not use palm oil in any of their products, which is notorious for its negative impact on deforestation and animal habitats. Some of their environmental or sustainability practices include adopting restorative agricultural practices, donating to farm animal sanctuaries, creating impact labels to educate consumers about the impact of their choices, and managing waste through composting and recycling programs. They also partner with Replate to donate surplus food from their operations to non-profit organizations.

Value

At $5.99 for an 8-ounce block or $0.75 per ounce, Miyokos is definitely not inexpensive. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. I believe that the superior ingredients and taste, commitment to better agricultural practices, and sustainability efforts make this vegan butter worth it.

2. Best Spreadable Vegan Butter: Miyokos Salted Oat Milk Butter (A)

Miyokos does it again with their Miyokos Salted Oat Milk Butter, earning a spot for the best spreadable vegan butter. Although it sounds odd, cultured and churned oat milk has a surprisingly similar flavor profile to tangy, cultured butter. The ingredient list is a little longer and more processed than their European Style Vegan Butter, but their spreadability, user accessibility and lower price point led them to still earn an A from us.

Nutrition & Ingredients

Per 1-tablespoon serving, this vegan butter contains:

• 80 calories
• 9g fat
• 4.5g saturated fat
• 4.5g unsaturated fat

The ingredients of Miyokos Salted Oat Milk Butter are a bit more processed than their other blends, including being comprised of predominantly high-oleic sunflower oil (instead of coconut oil). That said, the ingredients are still mostly of high quality and don’t include artificial preservatives or additives. As mentioned in the previous section, high-oleic sunflower oil has fewer omega-6 fatty acids than regular sunflower oil or other seed oils, making it less inflammatory.

Organic High Oleic Sunflower Oil, Organic Cultured Whole Grain Oatmilk (Filtered Water, Organic Oats, Cultures), Organic Coconut Oil, Contains Less Than 2% of: Organic Sunflower Lecithin, Sea Salt, Mushroom Extract, Natural Flavors, Organic Fruit and Vegetable Juice (Color), Organic Turmeric (Color).

Because they use high-oleic sunflower oil first instead of coconut oil, this vegan butter has much less saturated fat than the Miyokos European Style Plant-Based Butter. 

Product Experience

I was a little wary of trying this vegan butter—after all, butter made out of oats doesn’t sound too appetizing. However, I was pleasantly surprised. The cultured and churned oat milk actually has a tang very reminiscent of real cultured butter.

It also has great spreadability and melts very easily, with no trouble getting a knife into the tub at all. As it comes in a tub form, this vegan butter would be better used for cooking or topping toast with (rather than baking, which requires more precise measurements).

I also liked that this Miyokos butter looked more like butter, which has to do with added turmeric and fruit/vegetable juice for color.

Transparency and Sustainability

As a Certified B Corporation, Miyokos meets the highest standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. 

Miyokos has a page dedicated to their ingredients, what they are, and some details about sourcing—which is more than can be said for many food brands. 

They also do not use palm oil in any of their products, which is notorious for its impact on deforestation and animal habitats. Some of their environmental or sustainability practices include adopting restorative agricultural practices,  donating to farm animal sanctuaries, creating impact labels to educate consumers about the impact of their choices, and managing waste through composting and recycling programs. They also partner with Replate to donate surplus food from their operations to non-profit organizations.

Value

At $6.29 for a 12-ounce tub, this butter costs $0.52 per ounce—a quite reasonable price that is less expensive than Miyokos Euro Style and Violife. It’s likely less expensive than the other Miyokos butter because it uses predominantly high-oleic sunflower oil, a cheaper oil than coconut oil.

3. Best Vegan Butter for Baking: Violife Salted Plant Butter (B)

Violife Salted Plant Butter (formerly Flora Professional Plant-Based Butter) is a great vegan butter for baking, but we had to dock a few points for their use of canola oil, sunflower oil, and natural flavors. It’s also a bit expensive for being predominantly seed oils.

Nutrition & Ingredients

Per 1-tablespoon serving, this vegan butter contains:

• 100 calories
• 11g fat
• 6g saturated fat
• 5g unsaturated fat

The ingredients are:

Blend of Plant-Based Oils (Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, and Canola Oil), Water, Salt, Glucose, Sunflower Lecithin, Faba Bean Protein, Citric Acid, Natural Flavor, Beta Carotene (color)

This vegan butter contains more seed oils than Miyokos, including canola and sunflower oils (with no mention of whether it’s high-oleic). It also uses glucose for some reason (although it does not add any sugar or carbohydrates to the final product) and natural flavors. The faba bean protein also does not add any significant amounts of protein, which may be used as a stabilizer or natural preservative (in addition to citric acid).

Overall, the ingredients of this vegan butter are quite what you’d expect in a plant-based butter.

Product Experience

Violife is a great-tasting vegan butter that is great for baking due to its stick form and easy-to-cut-through texture. It also has little measuring marks like you’d see on a regular stick of butter. The marks are measured in increments of both 50 grams (as they are a European company) and 1 tablespoon. 

The packaging is your typical stick of butter “wrapping paper,” but I had a hard time keeping it closed and wrapping it tightly. As it doesn’t have an outer box, it seems like a lot of the butter would get exposed to refrigerator air. 

Regarding taste and appearance, it closely resembles a stick of non-grass-fed butter with a pale yellow color. It also has a great taste, melts well, and spreads easily.

Transparency and Sustainability

Violife has a study comparing the environmental impact of some of its vegan products (specifically, vegan cheese) to that of regular cheese.

Other than that, I don’t see any mention of environmental or sustainability efforts. They also do not say much about how their vegan butter is made, where any ingredients are sourced from, or what kind of practices they use (e.g., organic, regenerative, ethical farming, etc.).  

Value

At $5.69 for 8.8oz or $0.65 per ounce, I think this vegan butter is a bit expensive for what it is. With a predominance of vegetable oils, natural flavors, non-cultured oils, no organic ingredients, and no mention of environmental practices, I would expect this to be a bit less pricey.

4. Most Affordable Vegan Butter: Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread (B-)

If you were eating dairy-free or vegan in the 90s or 2000s, you know Earth Balance. As one of the O.G. vegan brands, Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread has been around since 1998 and was the only plant-based butter that I could find on the grocery store shelves during my vegan college days in the 2010s. Now, Earth Balance has improved its ingredients a bit, but they are still largely based on seed and vegetable oils and palm oil, which is detrimental to the environment and orangutan habitats. That said, it’s an affordable brand and probably the most widely accessible, which is why I included it on this list.

Nutrition & Ingredients

Per 1-tablespoon serving, this vegan butter contains:

• 100 calories
• 11g fat
• 3g saturated fat
• 7g unsaturated fat

The ingredients of Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread are: 

Natural Oil Blend (Palm Fruit, Canola, Soybean, and Flax Oils, Filtered Water, Contains Less Than 2% Of Olive Oil, Pure Salt, Natural Flavor (Plant Derived From Corn, No MSG, No Alcohol, No Gluten), Pea Protein, Sunflower Lecithin, Lactic Acid (Non-Dairy), And Naturally Extracted Annatto For Color.

While they do put olive oil in this product, it’s only used as less than 2% of the ingredients, meaning that the majority of the fat in this butter is from palm, canola, soybean, or flaxseed oil. 

Earth Balance contains more processed ingredients than Miyokos, but its ingredient list is pretty much on par with that of Violife.

Product Experience

Earth Balance admittedly tastes pretty good. However, their product page does have several very recent reviews saying that the formula changed and now tastes rancid and downright awful. While it appears I got one of the old formulations, as mine still tasted pretty good, I’d be curious to see how Earth Balance responds to this.

Other than that, this vegan butter melts well, although it is a bit harder to spread straight out of the fridge than Miyokos Spreadable Oat Milk Butter.

Transparency and Sustainability

Earth Balance is owned by Conagra Foods, which has a 2030 science-based climate change goal validated by the Science Based Target initiative.

Some of their initiatives include reducing absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030 and making 100% of their plastic packaging renewable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.

However, I don’t see any information about their use of palm oil. While there are responsible and ethical sources of palm oil that don’t harm the environment or endangered species like orangutans, Earth Balance does not appear to be using it.  

Value

At $5.99 for 15oz or $0.40 per ounce, Earth Balance is the most affordable vegan butter—and it’s also the most widely available at typical grocery stores around the country. If you’re vegan and don’t have much access to health food stores, this will be your best bet. Although it has some less-than-ideal ingredients, it does have great value with wide accessibility.

Vegan Butter FAQs