Review: Violife Flavoured Cheeses

Violife Flavoured Cheeses

Vegan cheese with Olives, Peppers, Herbs or Tomato & Basil. Greek cheese masters Viotros were the first to get a 5 star review for a vegan cheese here on Veganoo. Since the original cheese slices launched earlier this year, the range has expanded rapidly. We picked out four of the new flavoured cheeses for our review:


The distributer for these cheeses is the German firm Veganic. Germany is obviously one on the big target markets for this vegan cheese and all of the inner pack labels are in German. 



These packs are very different to the re-sealable tray packs that we praised in our original Violife review. Gone is the tray and peel-back top, replaced with a simple shrink wrap which needs to be cut open. The cheese is much harder to get out, and the packs can't be re-sealed.


Once open, the cheese slices are the same size and shape. The colour of the cheese varies between the varieties and each is speckled with the added ingredients. This idea of expanding the cheese range through added flavours is quite different to the Cheezly/Sheese approach of mimicking different dairy cheese styles.


These cheese slices are excellent for melting as long as you steer clear of a hot dry oven. They melt on burgers, in paninis, in toasted sandwiches, in jacket potatoes. They dry out in the oven, but gentler forms of heating will give you good results.

Vegan Cheese Fritters

One of the recipe suggestions on the inside of the pack sleeve is for cheese fritters. These are really easy to make - you just take three or four slices (together), wet and flour them, then fry in olive oil for a few minutes. You get deliciously crispy fritters with an oozy vegan cheese middle.

Melting Vegan Cheese Fritters


These flavours make interesting alternatives to the plain Violife cheese. Each is well balanced, with just enough added flavour to enhance, without overpowering, the cheese. Our favourite was the Peppers variety. Viotros have also produced a Cheddar flavour which we haven't tried yet, along with some other vegetable flavours including Mushroom and Hot Peppers. One of the flavours that hasn't made it to the UK is the Smoked Cheese flavour, which we'd really like to see over here.

From the Editor: Cheese reviews are some of our most popular posts here on Veganoo because vegans are looking for good cheese alternatives. Violife has shaken up the vegan cheese scene in the UK. When I went to buy these Violife slices, a customer in front of me picked some up and I casually mentioned to her how good Violife is. She told me she'd never written to a food producer before to praise them for making such a great product - but Violife had given her the urge to do so!

Apart from the new packs, we think these new Violife slices are fantastic. The cheese slices keep really well, and don't go mouldy (like Cheezly) or hard and dry (like Sheese). You can afford to keep several flavours in the fridge for a couple of weeks.... and you should!

Verdict: Cheesetastic


Veganoo Score: ★★★★
Viotros Violife (Dairy-Free Cheese) - various flavours


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Footnote: Ingredients
Here are the ingredients panels from the packs we reviewed.








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8 comments:

  1. You should try the one with the mushrooms! it's AMAZING!!!

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    Replies
    1. Funnily enough we found that one just after the photos were taken - agreed, it's really good!

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  2. Shame about the change in packaging though - I really like the resealable packs

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, these new ones are better suited to the glass fridges in wholefood shops, rather than the display shelves of supermarkets.

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  3. Agree, * * * * *!

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  4. I'm dying to try these, are they available online anywhere? All I can find on the shelves here are cheezly and tofutti :(

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    Replies
    1. Try this:

      http://www.alternativestores.com/ethical-shop/violife-vegan-cheese/brand_91.html

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    2. Thank youu :)

      Delete

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