What Makes Cheese Rennet Vegan?

What Makes Cheese Rennet Vegan? 

 Traditional rennet, derived from the stomachs of unweaned calves, is animal-based. This makes many classic cheeses unsuitable for vegans. However, thanks to modern food technology, there are vegan-friendly alternatives to rennet that allow cheesemakers to produce cheese without any animal-derived ingredients.

Understanding Cheese Rennet

Rennet is an enzyme complex used to coagulate milk during cheesemaking. Its main enzyme, chymosin, separates milk into curds and whey, forming the structure of the cheese.

Animal rennet comes from calf stomachs, but vegan cheeses rely on non-animal sources of coagulating enzymes, including:

1. Vegetable Rennet

   • Extracted from plants such as thistle, nettles, or fig sap.

   • Works naturally to curdle milk (or plant-based milk) without harming animals.

2. Microbial Rennet

   • Produced by certain fungi or bacteria.

   • Often used in commercial cheeses. It mimics the coagulation effect of animal rennet.

3. Fermentation-Produced Chymosin (FPC)

   • Genetically engineered using microbes to produce chymosin identical to calf rennet.

   • No animals are used in the production, making it vegetarian or vegan-friendly, depending on labeling standards.

How Vegan Rennet Works

Regardless of the source, vegan rennet functions by breaking down milk proteins (or plant proteins in vegan cheeses) to form curds. This process mirrors traditional rennet coagulation but eliminates animal involvement entirely.

Benefits of Vegan Rennet

• Ethical production: No animals are harmed.

• Sustainable: Often requires fewer resources than traditional rennet production.

• Allergy-friendly options: Plant-based rennets can be used with non-dairy milks like soy, almond, or cashew.

• Wide culinary application: Works in soft, hard, and aged cheeses.

Examples of Vegan Cheese Made with Vegan Rennet

• Nut-based cheeses: Cashew or almond cheeses.

• Soy cheeses: Tofu-based or soy milk cheeses.

• Plant-based aged cheeses: Some artisanal vegan cheddars use microbial or vegetable rennet to achieve traditional textures.

Key Takeaway

What makes cheese rennet vegan is its source. By replacing animal stomach-derived rennet with plant, microbial, or fermentation-produced enzymes, cheesemakers can create fully ethical, animal-free cheeses without compromising texture or flavor.

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✅ Fun Fact: Many “vegetarian cheeses” sold in stores today use microbial or fermentation-produced rennet, making them suitable for both vegetarians and vegans, depending on the milk used.

OTHER SOURCES

There are two alternatives to animal rennet that can make cheese rennet vegan. 

There is vegetable rennet, which is made from enzymes found in safflower, melon, fig leaves or thistles, and there is microbial rennet, which is made from mold cultures or bacteria or are created artificially in a lab. 

These enzymes work to separate the milk in a similar fashion to how yogurt is made. 

More specifically, they digest the sugars in the milk and produce lactic acid, which makes the milk curdle and solidify, just like animal rennet does. 

 All types of vegan rennet are usually listed on product labels as either enzymes or vegetable enzymes, without any further detail. 

The words vegetable enzymes are a guarantee that the rennet is vegan, but enzymes is generic enough term that it can refer to both animal and vegan sources. 

It requires the diligent vegetarian or vegan to make a call to the manufacturer’s customer service line to double check. Some companies will use the term vegetable rennet, although it is not that common.

 It’s interesting to note that vegan rennet is not rennet at all, since the word rennet refers to an animal’s stomach lining. 

Manufacturers have just adopted the term to denote the similar purpose. Cheese Rennet... 

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What Makes Cheese Rennet Vegan? Video