This creamy and airy vegan lemon mousse is made with simple ingredients and does not need tofu or agar! This bright tasting dessert is elegant enough for a spring party, but it’s great any time of year as well!
I remember when I first had mousse for dessert at an Italian restaurant (back when I didn’t have food allergies), and mousse quickly became one of my favorite desserts.
As I got older, I developed multiple food allergies including dairy and eggs, 2 of the main ingredients in traditional mousse recipes. So several years ago I set out to make an allergy frienldy version that I could have, and this recipe was born.
I originally posted this recipe in March 2018 and decided to revisit it again for spring and make this recipe even smoother, creamier, and more flavorful!
The bright lemon flavors in this dessert make it perfect for spring holidays like Easter or Mother’s Day, but this is also perfect for any time you want a fresh lemon dessert.
Food allergy notes:
- Dairy free
- Egg free and vegan
- Peanut free
Why you’ll love our dairy free lemon mousse recipe
Our creamy and bright tasting recipe for vegan lemon mousse is an elegant dessert to make for dinner party, but simple enough for a weekend treat. And it’s pretty unique in how it comes together.
Typically recipes for egg-free mousse call for gelatin, but this one doesn’t use gelatin, tofu, or agar (which can be hard to find in some grocery stores). Our version is made without those ingredients but you still get an airy and creamy mousse!
How to make vegan lemon mousse
Our version of lemon mousse is very different than a traditional lemon mousse that is typically made with eggs and cream. Since our recipe is egg free and dairy free, we start by making a dairy free lemon pudding and then folding the cooled pudding into fluffy coconut whipped cream.
Once this sets for several hours or overnight, it transforms into a thick, creamy, and airy mousse. The pudding firms up, trapping the air inside from the whipped cream. You don’t even need a stand mixer to make this!
Let’s dive into the steps to make this recipe (this is just an overview of the steps, the full recipe card is at the end of the post):
- In a small to medium-sized saucepan, combine the non-dairy milk, full-fat coconut milk, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and natural yellow coloring.
- Whisk together, add the lemon slices, and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
- Simmer for 5 minutes then remove the lemon slices and discard those.
- Scoop out about 1/4 cup of the hot milk from the pot and whisk the cornstarch into this to create a cornstarch slurry. Whisk this cornstarch mix back into the simmering pot. It will start to thicken immediately.
- Continue to heat and whisk for another minute until it thickens more, making sure to whisk constantly to avoid lumps. This is lemon pudding and we’ll add a couple more steps for lemon mousse.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool in the pan for about 15 minutes.
- Once the pudding has cooled for about 15 minutes, scoop it into a large mixing bowl and cover it with plastic wrap, allowing the plastic wrap to sit directly on the surface of the lemon pudding (this helps prevent a “pudding skin” that can cause lumps when we stir it again).
- Chill in the fridge for about 30 to 45 minutes.
- Remove from the fridge and using a spatula, fold a 9-ounce container of So Delicious Cocowhip (which is dairy free coconut whipped cream/whipped topping) into the pudding until it is all mixed together.
- Leave in the bowl or scoop into individual glass dishes and chill for several hours or overnight until it has set completely. It will transform into lemon mousse when it is completely set!
So there are two parts to this recipe: making the lemon pudding (shown above), then cooling and mixing the pudding with the dairy free whipped cream and chilling it until it firms up and it makes a mousse (shown below).
When I originally created this recipe, I used a So Delicious product called Culinary Coconutmilk, which has been discontinued. But the Thai Kitchen cartons of canned coconut milk are pretty much the same and one of my favorite products for cooking with canned coconut milk.
You can use an actual can of coconut milk in this recipe as well, just make sure that you shake it up if it’s separated and mix it well before measuring for this recipe. The canned coconut milk in this recipe adds thickness and creaminess to the lemon mousse.
To add more lemon flavor to our mousse without adding too many bits of lemon zest, we borrowed an idea out of our lemonade recipes and added some lemon slices to simmer with the milk to add flavor from the lemon rind without too much actual zest in the mousse.
This adds great lemon flavor from the rind without having too many of the lemon zest pieces in your mousse. Our original recipe had zest from 2 lemons, which ended up being a lot of zest pieces in the dessert so we tried out this technique in addition to the zest of 1 lemon. It turned out perfectly!
I didn’t use the lemon slices in our recipe video, so you’ll notice in the video the simmering lemon slices are missing since I didn’t come up with that until after I filmed the video.
Can I use a different brand of dairy free whipped cream?
So Delicious Cocowhip is a dairy free whipped topping made with coconut oil that is typically our go-to when we need whipped cream/whipped topping. It has a great taste and doesn’t taste strongly of coconut at all.
If you want to use something different, you can try using whipped cream made from the Silk heavy whipping cream, but it won’t be as sweet or as airy. You’ll probably need to add a little more sugar to it since the Cocowhip is sweetened and the Silk heavy cream does not have sugar in it.
I don’t recommend using the dairy free Reddi-wip since it deflates pretty quickly and won’t add the air bubbles you need to make your mousse airy. Anytime we’ve used the dairy free Reddi-wip it usually will not hold its shape, so it’s not a good option for this mousse or our cheesecake where we use it as well.
Check out our recipes for dairy free, no-cook strawberry mousse and blueberry mousse!
What we changed with this updated recipe
I have a passion for creating amazing food, and when I revisit some of our older recipes, I find that some of them need a few adjustments to make them even better. Our tastes have changed over time, as well as my toolbox cooking, and I’ve found few of our older recipes just need some adjustments.
I recently made our older recipe for lemon mousse again and thought it could be improved, so I revamped the recipe to add more flavor to this mousse but I used all the same ingredients as before. So the ingredients haven’t changed at all, just the amounts have changed a bit for better flavor and texture.
This post was also originally a sponsored post for So Delicious but we swapped the ingredients a bit with the remake so we removed some of the sponsored post language as well since some of the products we were highlighting are now discontinued, too.
We also have a chocolate mousse version of this recipe that I’ll be revisiting/making tweaks to as well soon!
Here are some of the photos from our original post below:
Easy Vegan Lemon Mousse (Gluten Free)
Ingredients
- 1 cup full fat canned coconut milk (I use the Thai Kitchen coconut milk)
- 1 cup dairy free milk, such as oat milk or almond milk
- ⅓ cup + 1 Tablespoon unbleached cane sugar (I used Zulka)
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice (add an additional tablespoon if you want more tartness)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 dash salt
- zest of 1 lemon
- 3 slices fresh lemon
- natural yellow food color (I used Simple Truth natural food coloring)
- 4 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 9 ounce (1 container) So Delicious Cocowhip coconut whipped cream*
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, combine the coconut milk, dairy free milk, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla, natural yellow coloring, and salt and whisk until combined.
- With the food coloring, add a few drops to start and add more to get the color you want. The yellow color of the mousse will be lighter since it will be folded with the coconut whipped cream.
- Add the lemon slices to the saucepan in the coconut milk and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat until simmering.
- Simmer with the lemon slices for 5 minutes, then remove the lemon slices. Continue to cook the coconut milk mixture. The lemon slices help to add flavor from the lemon rind without adding too many lemon zest pieces in your mousse.
- Scoop out about ¼ to ⅓ cup hot milk into a small bowl and whisk the cornstarch into the small bowl to create a cornstarch slurry.
- Pour the corn starch-milk slurry back into the saucepan, whisking constantly. It will start to thicken immediately. Continue to cook and stir with a whisk or spoon constantly for about another minute until it is thickened and until it is mixed well and there are no lumps. You've made lemon pudding! One more step to make our mousse.
- Remove the lemon pudding from the heat, and cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then scoop the lemon pudding into a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and lay the wrap directly on the surface of the pudding (this prevents the thickened "pudding skin" on top that can create lumps when you mix it again).
- Chill the lemon pudding in the fridge for about 30-45 minutes. It doesn't have to cool completely, we just need it to cool enough to mix with the Cocowhip.
- Once the lemon pudding has cooled a bit, uncover it and fold in the container of Cocowhip with a spatula until well mixed.
- You can leave it all in one bowl or scoop the mousse into small glass dishes or ramekins, cover, and chill for several hours or overnight.
- Top with berries and more Cocowhip if you like before serving!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie which she founded in 2011. Sarah is based in Wyoming and has been managing food allergies for herself and her 2 children for over 20 years. Sarah was also a certified personal trainer for 12 years, as well as a group fitness instructor, health coach, running coach, and fitness nutrition specialist.
When do you add the lemon juice?
Hi Marianne, you’ll add the lemon juice with the coconut milk and sugar before cooking it in the pan. I must have forgotten to list that in the recipe instructions, I’ll fix that right now.
Hi there! I am making this recipe with some students and I’m wondering if we could make the pudding portion one day (Tues) and let it chill until the next day (Wed) and add the cocowhip then? We wouldn’t be serving until the Thursday. Do you think it would be ok and not go watery?
Hi Lisa! You could let the pudding set in the fridge overnight before mixing, however I think it mixes together with the cocowhip better when it’s not completely chilled, but only partially chilled. However you can give it a try still, I’d just keep the plastic wrap on top of the pudding to prevent that pudding skin and stir the pudding well before folding in the cocowhip. Let me know how it goes for you!
I used turmeric for more yellow color and lactose free whipping cream.
My guests loved it. I served it in a small pretty glass on top of home made lemon curd with a mjni gluten, dairy and egg free shortbread cookie.
Great idea serving with lemon curd, thank you for sharing!
Hi, could this be made into a pie filling, say a graham cracker one than topped in cool whip Non dairy and than topped with fruit?
Hi Kim, I think this would work great to fill a graham cracker crust pie! This recipe should fill a pre-made graham crust, but if you make one of your own that’s bigger, you might need to 1.5x this recipe.
Hi! I was wondering, can you make the lemon mousse in advance and freeze it?? And if you can how long will it keep in the freezer??
Hi Wendy! I’m not sure if this would freeze well or for how long, I haven’t tried freezing this recipe. The So Delicious Cocowhip freezes well by itself, but I can’t safely say that the final recipe would do well frozen and then thawed or if it might ruin the texture of it. You can try it and see how it goes, regular dairy mousse can be frozen for up to 2 months, you just can’t heat it to thaw (thaw it in the fridge). I’d start there and see how it goes for you!
Hi Sarah! I’m excited about your blog. I would love to email you but don’t see a way to do so. Please email me so I can ask a couple of questions about your blog ( which is awesome btw). Thank you
O.S. I’m vegan so I’m loving the recipes. I’m printing them out as I write lol
Thanks Michelle! If you go to my contact page, there is a link at the bottom to email me 🙂 https://thefitcookie.com/contact-me/
I don’t do sugar and wanted to make my own coconut whip cream. What do you suggest?
Hi Rhonda, you can make coconut whipped cream with canned coconut milk using a recipe like this with powdered swerve instead of powdered sugar: https://minimalistbaker.com/how-to-make-coconut-whipped-cream/ or you can use the new Silk heavy whipped cream which whips up nicely, you can use it without sweetener if you’d like. Here’s a video I did with the Silk heavy cream, it needs to be chilled before whipping for best results: https://youtu.be/escbg3KQJ94
I made this dish today. I used Silk Almond Milk. It didn’t have much flavor. What should I do differently?
Hi Erin! Thank you for the feedback, if you wanted more lemon flavor, you could add a bit more lemon juice and lemon zest. Did you feel that it needed more lemon or vanilla?
I made this recipe yesterday! It was…so delicious! (Ha! No, but really it was!)
The So Delicious culinary coconut milk doesn’t seem to be available anymore so I compared the ingredients two cans of coconut milk at the store and it seemed like it had the same ingredients in the same order as *light* coconut milk. I did find some vanilla almond cashew milk made by Blue Almond, so I bought that.
When I added the cornstarch milk mixture back into the pot it didn’t seem to be very thick but I figured when it cooled it would thicken. The texture was definitely less like mousse and more like pudding even after I let it cool for the rest of the afternoon before bringing it to a neighbor’s house for dinner, but it was really yummy. For the record I put the lemon zest directly into the milk mixture and it tasted lovely.
I had enough left over from the can of coconut milk that I decided to make a second batch today. I had about 3/4 of a cup so I try to adjust the other ingredients accordingly. This time I wanted to add a little bit more cornstarch to see if that would thicken it up more. Well I guess I added the milk to the cornstarch too quickly because I ended up with lumps that would not fully disappear no matter how much I whisked and whisked.
So my recommendation would be two things: one, slowly add cornstarch to the milk and whisk it in rather than having the cornstarch in a separate bowl and adding milk to that; two, don’t worry if it doesn’t look thick enough after you add the 3 tablespoons of cornstarch because if you add more than that you will risk it becoming too thick and then it won’t mix well with the CoCo Whip! With my second batch I just got to the step where I mixed in the CoCo Whip and because the pudding was so thick and still had some little lumps here and there, it did not mix in well. So people should just follow this recipe exactly! 🙂
So glad this recipe worked out for you Nicole!! I have noticed that the culinary coconut milk has been unavailable for a long time, which is sad because I loved cooking with it so much. I think I’ll have to add a note to the recipe for replacing the culinary coconut milk. I think full fat canned coconut milk would probably be the best replacement to get the thickness for the mousse. Thank you so much for the kind words! <3
And thank you so much for taking the time to come back and review the recipe! I have a lot of people try the recipes but not come back and let others know how they turned out for them 🙂
Would canned coconut milk work? we don’t have the “culinary so delicious” products in Canada yet 🙁
I think the canned coconut milk should work, as long as it’s mixed or blended really well so it’s smooth. I’m having a hard time locating the So Delicious Culinary Coconut milk here lately!
This sounds wonderful but I am allergic to corn and rice along with grains what can I use to thicken it without using cornstarch
Hi Charmaine! Arrowroot starch, potato starch, and tapioca starch are grain-free thickening starches that you might be able to try instead of corn starch in this recipe. I have not tried any of those in this recipe, so I’m not sure how it would turn out, but you can give it a try and see. I’ll have to try making this recipe with another starch/thickener in place of cornstarch soon to see how it would work out
I can’t wait to try this. I can’t have corn, so is there something else I could sub the cornstarch for?
Hi Kristin! Some people use tapioca starch or arrowroot starch as a substitute for corn starch, but I’m not sure how they would work in this recipe since they tend to have a different texture than corn starch. Sometimes starches like arrowroot and tapioca can be slimy in texture, so I’d Google some good substitute ideas for cornstarch (maybe a mix of arrowroot and tapioca starches might work?). I haven’t used either of those much, so I can’t help a ton with substitutes
perfect time of year for lemons and i love a good lemon blueberry combo!
Thanks Ali!
I am all about lemon this time of year – light and bright! I need to find these new milks, too!
The new So Delicious milks are so good, I think you’d really like them!
How wonderfully decadent! I keep all of these ingredients on hand – even have an open culinary milk in the fridge. This must get made!
I keep the culinary coconut milk in my pantry, it sells out quick at out local Walmart, so when they have it I buy 2-3 at a time!
I am a sucker for a good lemon dessert! Let me tell you that I can’t wait to try this lemon mousse! It seriously looks so smooth and creamy!
Thanks Madison, let me know if you make it!
What a great product and a scrumptious treat. I love the berries in this dish to accompany the lemon flavor as well.
Blueberries and lemon go so good together, and their colors look great together too!
This is a perfect spring dessert. Light, creamy and delicious as it should be!
Thank you Leslie! It is such a great dessert to celebrate spring with 🙂
I love anything lemon and of course, So Delicious products are always in my fridge. Can’t wait to try this one out!
Thanks Jules! So Delicious is SO good, I can’t wait to try out their new ice cream flavors!
You can tell when everyone gets spring fever. All the lemon and blueberry recipes come out. I for one am really glad! I love the fresh tang of lemon.
Fo sure! I used to not like lemon much as a kid, but I do love lemon treats now, and it goes so well with blueberries!
This is a life saver… I’ve missed creamy desserts so much! Can’t wait to try!
Thanks Susie, let me know of you make it! I’m going to post a chocolate version within the next week or 2 as well 🙂