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Dairy-free recipes

These dairy-free recipes contain no milk, butter, cream, cheese or yoghurt from animals in any ingredient you need. Much of the world cooks this way by default, reaching for oil, lard or coconut milk where others would use butter, so nothing here is a reduced version of another dish.

The collection covers weeknight dinners such as pad thai and bulgogi, slower projects like tacos al pastor and phở bò, and even a cake: bolo de cenoura, the Brazilian carrot sponge made with oil. Choose a recipe, set the number of people, and the ingredients you still need land on your shared shopping list.

242 recipes

What dairy-free means on this page

A recipe is tagged dairy-free when none of its required ingredients is milk, butter, cream, cheese or yoghurt from an animal, or something made from them, such as soured cream or condensed milk. A knob of butter to finish a sauce or a spoonful of cream stirred in at the end rules a recipe out just as firmly as a cheese topping.

Some ingredients sound as if they should count but do not. Mayonnaise is egg and oil, so ensaladilla rusa keeps the tag. Anything marked optional is ignored too: advocaat keeps the tag because the whipped cream spooned on top is optional.

Cuisines that rarely cook with dairy

East and Southeast Asian cooking uses almost no milk or butter. Chinese stir-fries such as beef and broccoli and kung pao chicken rely on soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and a very hot wok, phở bò and bún chả are built on broth and fish sauce, and bulgogi and bibimbap on soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic.

The Philippines and Latin America follow suit. Chicken adobo is braised in soy sauce, vinegar and garlic, bicol express simmers pork belly in coconut milk, and feijoada cooks black beans and pork for hours until the beans collapse. Tacos al pastor are finished with pineapple, onion and coriander rather than cheese or cream.

What replaces butter and cream

Oil does most of the work. The potatoes in tortilla española are poached slowly in olive oil, focaccia is drenched in it before baking, and bolo de cenoura uses vegetable oil in both the sponge and its chocolate glaze.

For richness, coconut milk and coconut cream take the place dairy cream would have elsewhere, as in Thai green curry and bicol express, and coconut milk goes into the batter for bánh xèo. Argentinian empanadas get a short, tender pastry from lard, and chicken shawarma is served with a sauce of tahini, lemon and garlic rather than yoghurt.

Frequently asked questions

Are eggs dairy?
No. Eggs come from birds, and dairy means milk and anything made from it, so eggs do not affect the dairy-free tag. Tortilla española, egg fried rice and bolo de cenoura all contain eggs and are tagged dairy-free. If you avoid eggs as well, look at the vegan recipes, which leave out both.
Is dairy-free the same as lactose-free?
No. Lactose-free milk, cheese and yoghurt are still dairy: they are made from cow’s milk with the lactose broken down. A recipe tagged dairy-free here contains no milk, butter, cream, cheese or yoghurt at all, lactose-free or otherwise. Bought products such as sausages or bread can still contain milk powder, so check the labels.
Is ghee dairy-free?
No. Ghee is butter cooked until its water evaporates and the milk solids can be strained off, so it is still made from milk, and a recipe that needs it is not tagged dairy-free here. Indian dishes on this page, such as aloo gobi and baingan bharta, are cooked in vegetable oil instead.
What is a quick dairy-free dinner?
Drunken noodles take about 25 minutes: wide rice noodles stir-fried with pork, holy basil, chilli and garlic. Chicken teriyaki, crisp-skinned thighs in a glaze of soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar, and kung pao chicken each take about 30, and egg drop soup is on the table in 15.

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