Review: Violife Dairy Free Cheese

Art of Zen foods have started distributing their Violife dairy free cheese in outlets in Ireland. They sent us some to try. I was delighted to finally have some dairy free cheese for my boys to try.

My 5 year old went dairy free around the age of 2 and he was a huge cheese fan before then. My 2 year old has never had cheese. The texture of the cheese is similar to normal cheese, and it grates really well. We tried the pizza cheese and the regular one. The pizza cheese grated and melted really well when I made homemade pizza and lasagne. Both worked well for toasted cheese sandwiches. My five year old was delighted, he said he wanted to have it in his sandwiches for school lunches, and was delighted to have some to sprinkle over pizza and pasta dishes. The 2 year old found the texture weird, he wasn’t very impressed. I tried him a few times but he isn’t a fan. It tasted a lot better than I was expecting for something that isn’t real cheese. I think if you were dairy free and really missed cheese it should definitely make it into your shopping basket.

Violife cheese is vegan, dairy free, lactose free, soya free, gluten free and contains no palm oil. It is becoming more widely available in Ireland by the week. It comes in several flavours and varieties – cheddar flavour, original, original slices, cheddar slices, violife peppers, violife smoked, creamy original and creamy herbs. Here is the current list of stockists.

To conclude, this cheese is definitely good for anyone who is dairy free and is missing cheese. For my son who has never had cheese before, he found the texture funny and there is no real nutritional reason to give it to him. My other boy enjoys having it on his sandwich every now and again. And it definitely adds the finishing touches to lasagne and pizza.

Disclaimer: Although I was sent the cheese samples to try, I was not paid for this review and all views are my own.