If you have food allergies, then you might think that you’ll miss out on great desserts. Think again! This Vegan Lemon Mousse recipe is dairy free, vegan, and gluten free
Do you remember the first time you had mousse? I remember when I first had mousse for dessert, back when I didn’t have food allergies, we went to an Italian restaurant and I ordered chocolate mousse for dessert. It was one of the best sweets I had ever tasted!
Mousse easily made it onto my list of favorite desserts, but as I got older, we discovered I had a dairy allergy and I later developed new food allergies that included eggs, 2 of the main ingredients in traditional mousse recipes. So I decided to make an allergy-friendly mousse for Spring with the help of So Delicious!
This delicious Vegan Lemon Mousse recipe features the new So Delicious Organic Almondmilk with Cashew that has simple and purposeful ingredients, is certified organic, gluten free, vegan, and non-GMO. The So Delicious line of Organic Almondmilk with Cashew has 3 flavors: original, vanilla (which we use in this recipe), and unsweetened. And they are all delicious!
Not only is the Organic Almondmilk with Cashew made with 7 ingredients or fewer and made without carrageenan, the bottles are also pretty amazing, too. The bottles are 80% plant-based (made from renewable sugarcane) and recyclable.
This recipe for Vegan Lemon Mousse is fun to make and pretty unique in how it comes together. Usually, recipes for egg-free mousse call for gelatin, but this one doesn’t use gelatin or agar (which can be hard to find for some people). In this recipe, we first make a lemon pudding, then stir in some So Delicious CocoWhip, and let it chill to make our mousse.
It almost seems like this recipe is way too simple, but that’s exactly why I love it! All the ingredients are things that you should be able to find easily, and they are all dairy and egg free.
The fresh lemon and vanilla make the perfect flavor pairing for Spring, so this would be great for Easter, Mother’s Day, or anytime you want a fun dessert. So Delicious uses real vanilla extract in their Organic Almondmilk with Cashew, so it’s natural and has a bolder vanilla flavor that blends beautifully with lemon.
There is some lemon zest in the recipe to add a more lemon flavor, but if you don’t want to run in to bits of lemon zest in your mousse, add the fresh lemon zest to a tea ball strainer and set it into the pan as the almond and coconut milk cooks. Remove it before you add the cornstarch, so you’ll have lemon flavor without the bits of zest in your mousse.
I’ll be making a chocolate version of this soon, so I’ll share that in another blog post when I get that made as well! I’ll be making the chocolate version of this recipe with the So Delicious Coconut Milk so my kids can have some, too. I’m excited to see how that turns out, stay tuned for that one!
Learn more about the new So Delicious Organic Almondmilk with Cashew, or follow So Delicious on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!
Note: So Delicious Culinary Coconut milk has been unavailable in stores for quite a while now, I’m not sure if this item has been discontinued or not, but in this recipe, you can use full fat canned coconut milk in place of culinary coconut milk.
Vegan Lemon Mousse (Gluten Free)
Vegan, gluten free; Free of: peanuts, dairy, soy. Contains tree nuts (almonds and cashews)
Ingredients
- 1 cup So Delicious Culinary Coconut Milk* (OR full fat canned coconut milk, mixed well)
- 1 cup So Delicious Vanilla Organic Almondmilk with Cashew Vanilla (for nut free, use rice milk, hemp milk, or oat milk)
- 2 Tablespoons unbleached cane sugar (optional, you can use Stevia if you want instead)
- 3-4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice, depending on how tart you want your mousse
- 1 pinch natural yellow food color powder (I use McCormick)
- 1 dash salt
- 3 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 ½ ounces So Delicious CocoWhip coconut whipped cream (1/2 a 9 ounce container)
- zest of 2 lemons** see note
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, combine the coconut milk, almondmilk, sugar, lemon juice, natural yellow color powder, and salt and whisk until combined.
- Start out sparingly with the food color powder, and add more as you like. You can always add more, but you can’t take it out once it’s there.
- Heat the milk over medium low heat, stirring often, until it begins to simmer. Scoop out about 1/2 cup hot milk into a small bowl and whisk the corn starch into the small bowl.
- Pour the corn starch-milk mix into the saucepan, whisking constantly. The milk mixture should thicken immediately (you’ve made lemon pudding!). Continue to stir with a whisk or spoon until it is mixed well and there are no lumps.
- Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract, and cool for about 15 minutes, then scoop the lemon pudding into a large bowl. Cover it 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).
- Place in the fridge and cool 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 So Delicious CocoWhip with a spatula until well mixed.
- Divide the lemon mousse into 4-6 ramekins, cover, and chill for several hours or overnight.
- Top with more CocoWhip and berries if you like. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
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 🙂