Dairy-Free Peppermint Oreo Cheesecake
Dairy-Free Peppermint Oreo Cheesecake has all the creaminess, none of the dairy!
The Facts
It is National Oreo Cookie Day, so of course we had to figure out a delicious recipe that incorporated Oreos! We were also feeling a little “green” this month of March, so we decided it had to be Mint Oreo based versus regular Oreos. This Dairy-Free Peppermint Oreo Cheesecake tastes just as creamy and delicious as regular cheesecake, but without all the dairy.
Recently, we have quite a handful of friends and family that have either chosen to remove dairy products from their diet or cannot eat dairy due to an allergy. It is because of this we set on a quest to make a creamy dessert that they would still be able to eat. Fortunately, these alternatives are becoming much more available compared to before.
Even though this Dairy-Free Peppermint Oreo Cheesecake could be made from mostly store-bought ingredients, we highly suggest taking the extra time to make some of the components from scratch instead. This gives you full control of the flavor and the ability to know exactly what goes into this cheesecake.
The first component and a very simple one, is the Oreo crust. Yes, you could buy the premade Oreo crust from the bakery isle of your grocery store, but we have found those to be not be as reliable. In fact, they are often slightly stale and just do not provide the freshness of one made from scratch. We also made the decision to use Oreo Thins (the dark chocolate ones) for the crust since we really need just the cookie part of the Oreo to create a crust, not the filling. Oreo Thins are newer product offering and help us easily solve this problem. But again, if all you have on hand is regular Oreos they will also do the job if needed. The process is simple, all you have to do is pulverize your Oreos, mix it with some melted Coconut Oil, and bake it for just 8 minutes. Just like that you have a homemade Oreo crust that is fresh, flavorful, and only made of Oreos and Coconut Oil.
The second component that is made from scratch is the Coconut Whipped Cream. This does take some pre-planning since we do need to separate the liquid from the Coconut milk to concentrate the fats so that we get a nice and fluffy whipped cream versus a watery one. All you have to do is chill the Coconut Milk in the fridge for a couple hours or the day before. But, by doing this process you now have full control on the sweetness and flavoring of your whipped cream. You could add more powdered sugar if you want it sweeter, more vanilla if you wanted, or do another flavoring extract altogether.
That is the nice part of this cheesecake, it can be completely customizable. There are countless flavors of Oreos nowadays and flavoring extracts. We simply focused on peppermint for the winter season and the green for St. Patrick’s Day!
Did you fool your dairy-obsessed friends or provide delicious creaminess to a dairy-free family member? We would love to hear how your Dairy-Free Peppermint Oreo Cheesecake turned out!