Product Review: Vegan Salted Butter Sticks

Especially after determining the best US-nationally available egg replacer, I figured knowing the best US-nationally available vegan butter sticks would empower me to take over the plant-based baking world!

or at least this country.

Why US-Nationally Available Salted Butter Sticks?

US-Nationally Available

Each brand of vegan salted butter sticks herein is found at such widespread chains including Walmart, Target, Aldi, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods Market. Regional and local companies may carry them as well. (Leave a comment if you see one that’s not on this list. I’d love to test it against my winner and update my content!)

Please know I support and shop local when I can. Everywhere I’ve lived – and the number of places is many and growing – I have discovered numerous small companies making fantastic vegan alternatives.

Yet as much as I commend them, they are not the focus of this blog. My goal instead is to curate and present information that travels with me to wherever I go, and then travels again from wherever I am to wherever you are ❤️

Salted

As I prepared this content, only Miyoko’s Creamery offered vegan unsalted butter sticks US-nationally. Her company wins that hypothetical product review by default!

I also chose to test vegan salted butter sticks because I selected a recipe for this post that lists only 3 ingredients: flour, powdered sugar, butter. no salt. And classic home cook wisdom teaches that if there’s no salt in your recipe, then there must be salt in your butter (or, in this case, “butter”).

Butter Sticks

Replacing dairy butter sticks with dairy butter spreads is a crapshoot; replacing dairy butter sticks with vegan butter sticks is even an even bigger one. It stands to reason, therefore, that replacing dairy butter sticks with vegan butter spreads is just senseless.

not that vegan butter spreads would never work! Crumb crusts generally form whether you use dairy products, vegan products, oils – even fruit purées, jellies, or frozen juice concentrates!

Butter cookies are less flexible.

The “Butter”

There are currently 5 US-nationally available brands of vegan salted butter sticks:

• Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks
• Country Crock Plant Butter with Olive Oil
• Miyoko’s Creamery Salted European Style Plant Milk Butter
• Trader Joe’s Vegan Buttery Spread
• Violife Salted Plant Butter

The Cookies

The fewer ingredients in a conventional recipe, the more a plant-based substitution is exposed. Consequently, I chose 3-Ingredient Shortbread Cookies by Georgia Johnson behind the blog The Comfort of Cooking. With only flour, powdered sugar, and butter, the “butter” had to be good for my cookies to have any hope of holding their shapes.

(And I don’t mean a basic shapes! I took this post as an opportunity to use some detailed fruit-shaped cookie cutters my family gifted me a few months ago.)

Indeed, the “butter” was the only variable –

Several elements were controlled including:

• Brand of Every Non-“Butter” Ingredient – I’m not brand-loyal by default, but when I create content, I source US-nationally available products. The following were used for this comparison project:
  • Gold Medal Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
  • Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Powdered Sugar (Wholesome Sweeteners was performing website construction at the time of this writing; I am not affiliated with Amazon.)
• Pan and Method of Preparing It – A Calphalon rimmed nonstick baking sheet lined with a Miu France silicone mat went to work!
• Mixing Bowls, Utensils, and More – In case any “butters” were destined to create a sticky mess, I rolled all doughs between 2 pieces of parchment. Each dough chilled, too, before I cut it with Ann Clark Fruit Basket Cookie Cutters.
• Method of Measuring – Every ingredient was weighed to the gram.
• Appliances – As a business of one, I have only one hand mixer and oven!
• Chill, Cook, and Rest Times – Each batch of dough chilled for 1 hour, baked for 16 minutes, then cooled for another hour before being removed from my baking sheets.
• Temperature Upon Tasting – By the time I started taking bites and notes, all cookies were at room temperature.

Cookie Test

Unlike my “mayonnaise” and egg replacer reviews, this review of vegan salted butter sticks involves a single test: a cookie test.

I only use vegan butter sticks for baking after all. A taste (or any other) test, therefore, was unnecessary – not to mention unappealing – to me. I’ll save eating “butter” alone for my review of vegan butter spreads!

Click to see the pros, cons, and ranking of each brand:

5. Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks

I survived many years of vegan baking convinced that Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks is the best butter substitute available. Supporting my conviction, other vegan food bloggers specify this product in their recipes (including Vegan Paula Deen whose recipe for vegan spritz cookies is so good I’ve been using it annually since 2012).

I additionally love that this product is divided into sticks! As a US-American cook, I frequently see butter quantities expressed as part or whole “stick(s)”, each one understood to mean 1/2 cup (125 mL) volume, 4 oz (113 g) mass.

Yet the cookies I made with Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks spread more than those with any other “butter”. My fruit shapes were retained well enough, but those widened pineapple fronds suggest any finer details would be lost.

Lastly, and most disappointingly, these cookies tasted like flax oil. I’m all for omega sources (or any nutrition in desserts), but not ones that remind me of my oil painting days…

4. Trader Joe’s Dairy-Free Buttery Spread

The surfaces of the cookies made with Trader Joe’s Dairy-Free Buttery Spread were delightfully smooth. Though I had no plans to decorate them, I instantly recognized these treats as ideal culinary canvases. Yet perhaps the most exciting discovery is…

they taste like real butter cookies too!

Unfortunately, you have to have a Trader Joe’s near you to purchase this product. You also have to trust that, despite its name, Trader Joe’s Dairy-Free Butter Spread is not a spread.

In fact, this “butter” is packaged a 250-g (8.8-oz) block – slightly more than 2 sticks. Such packaging is annoying for US bakers who may find themselves awkwardly measuring, wrapping, and storing that 0.8 oz (24 g) they don’t need.

3. Violife Salted Plant Butter

If Trader Joe’s Plant Butter is appealing but inaccessible, look for Violife Salted Plant Butter instead; it performs practically the same yet is easier to find.

Indeed, when I removed this batch of cookies from my baking tray, I compulsively ensured it remained near a Post-It on which I had scrawled, “Violife”. It looked almost identical to the one with Trader Joe’s!

almost. These cookies sported a few bubbles which may have posed problems if I wished to decorate them. At least they tasted just as buttery!

Additionally, and additionally like Trader Joe’s, Violife Salted Plant Butter is sold as a 250-g (8.8-oz) block. At this point in my journey, that kind of packaging merely annoying –

but I empathize with the kind of kitchen anxiety that arrests executive functioning when the brain reads “sticks” in a recipe and sees a brick on the counter instead. (Thank goodness for accidentally vegan foods in those moments…)

2. Miyoko’s Creamery Salted European Style Plant Milk Butter

I have a memory of Miyoko’s Creamery Salted European Style Plant Milk Butter I cannot erase:

Years ago, I bought and set it on my counter to come to room temperature –

and forgot about it. With dairy butter, no refrigeration for hours is basically a non-issue; Miyoko’s “butter”, however, melted into a puddle of oil dripping down my counter…

Maybe her recipe has changed since then? Maybe I was more attentive as a result of my initial experience? Whatever the case, I didn’t have another another wasted mess and derailed kitchen plan as I prepared this post.

Yet working with Miyoko’s Creamery Salted European Style Plant Milk Butter is still an experience! It’s comparatively expensive, closer to white than pale yellow, and slightly sour in smell from culturing (which is what classifies it as “European”).

Moreover, according to my unsuspecting friend Liz, Miyoko’s “butter” creates baked goods that don’t freeze well. After her son Declan adored my fruit-shaped cookies (made with Earth Balance), I decided to give her more. “He’s going to love these!” I thought as I pulled a container marked “Miyoko’s” from my freezer; “They may be my winning batch!”

But they were gummy once thawed…

That said, these cookies are undeniably gorgeous. Not even the finest details spread or browned! Plus, their flakey texture and subtly nutty flavor are on par with dairy-bearing shortbread.

Miyoko’s Creamery Salted European Style Plant Milk Butter, therefore, has a place in my kitchen. For those times when someone orders intricate cookie shapes with (vegan) royal icing, this “butter” may be worth its cost.

1. Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks with Olive Oil

Rather ubiquitous and reasonably priced, Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks with Olive Oil became my go-to “butter” after these tests. The color, workability, texture, and flavor of these cookies is closest to what I remember from my omnivore days of yore.

Yet I can’t deny it made my fruit-shaped cookies spread a little. And in order to ensure doneness, I was forced to accept a little extra browning on details like stems and leaves.

keyword: little. For a name-brand “butter” that costs as much as my regional store-brand “butter”, Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks with Olive Oil is tops for me.