Vegan Spinach Artichoke Dip is warm, soft and creamy, with wonderful cheesy flavor! Served warm or at room temperature, it’s a crowd-pleasing easy vegan appetizer served with pita chips, crackers or veggie sticks.
This plant based spinach artichoke dip recipe is seriously the BEST, and it’s so easy to make with only 7 ingredients! Plus, it’s oil and dairy free, easily customizable and can be made ahead.
It’s perfect for holiday gatherings, potlucks, game day, movie night or whenever you’re craving a homestyle warm and creamy dip! It’s perfect comfort food that’s actually healthy!
I’m super excited to add another fantastic vegan dip to the recipe collection! So without further ado, let’s get to the good stuff!
For another version, check out this Spinach & Artichoke White Bean Dip. It’s delicious too!
Ingredients You’ll Need
Here’s everything you’ll need to make this easy dairy-free spinach artichoke dip recipe. Included you’ll find tips and substitution ideas for various ingredients.
- Artichoke Hearts – I always buy canned artichoke hearts in brine or water. Frozen works well too, just let them thaw before chopping. Feel free to add another can!
- Spinach – Fresh or frozen both work. I bought fresh spinach and steamed it, then roughly chopped it before using. If using frozen, thaw first and squeeze the excess water.
- Cashews – Use only raw cashews as they have a neutral flavor. I know cashews can be expensive, but they are amazing and really take the place of cheese, which is about the same cost of cashews. Buying in bulk helps cut the cost. I highly recommend soaking the cashews, even if just for 10 minutes in hot water to really soften them up before blending. If allergic to cashews, try subbing sunflower seeds.
- Non-Dairy Milk or Water: For the liquids, use cashew or almond milk (or your favorite), just be sure it’s unsweetened and plain. Water works great too, the cashews are so creamy they don’t really need plant milk.
- Nutritional Yeast or Miso – Nutritional yeast adds a nice cheesy flavor, but if you don’t care for it use 1 tablespoon mellow miso for added umami flavor. And, if you don’t have either on hand, try using 2 teaspoons of dijon mustard instead.
- Garlic Powder – Adds a nice layer of flavor. Feel free to add a little onion powder too if you like, or substitute the garlic powder with onion powder.
- Salt + Pepper – Don’t skimp on the salt, as it brings out all the flavors, and cheese is typically salty, so we want to mimic that as much as possible. Add pepper to taste.
How To Make Vegan Spinach Artichoke Dip
(Note – The full printable recipe is at the bottom of this post)
- Add the soaked cashews, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and liquids to the bowl of a blender and process until nice and smooth, as shown above.
- Add the chopped artichoke hearts and spinach to a baking dish, pour the creamy cashew cheese over top and mix well to coat (shown above). Clean around the sides before baking if you like.
- Place in the oven and bake at 400 degrees., covered, for 10 minutes, remove cover and bake another 10 minutes. Feel free to keep it covered the entire time, or don’t cover it at all. Use your personal preference.
- Once pulled from the oven as shown below, it’s bakes up thick, creamy and ready to be devoured!
It’s not too thick, nor too thin, and is just perfect for scooping up with a sliced baguette, crackers, tortilla or pita chips, or vegetable sticks.
This spinach artichoke dip is seriously the BEST, and I know you’ll love it too!
How To Store Leftovers
- Refrigerator: Store covered in the fridge for up to 3 – 4 days.
- Freezer: Spinach artichoke dip is freezer friendly and can be stored in freezer safe containers (affiliate link) for up to 2 – 3 months. Let it thaw before reheating.
- Reheat: Warm in the oven at 375 for 10 – 15 minutes, until warmed through. Or microwave using 30 second intervals, stirring between each interval, until warm. Give a good stir and enjoy!
Making Ahead
This vegan spinach artichoke dip can be made ahead up to 1 – 2 days and kept in the refrigerator until ready to bake. It will taste even better after the flavors have had time to develop!
Serving Suggestions
Serve this spinach artichoke dip with fresh vegetables sticks, crackers, pita chips, bread sticks, tortilla chips or sliced baguette.
More Easy Vegan Appetizers You’ll Love
- Spinach Artichoke White Bean Dip
- 7 Layer Dip
- Vegan French Onion Dip
- Vegan Ranch
- Hummus
- Texas Caviar
- White Bean Hummus
If you make this spinach artichoke dip recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment and rate it below. I love to hear what you think, or any changes you make.
PrintVEGAN SPINACH ARTICHOKE DIP
Warm, creamy and flavorful this lovely spinach artichoke dip is perfect for just about any occasion and is super easy to make! No sour cream or processed cheeses, just simple whole food plant based ingredients.
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Cook Time: 20 min
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: Serves 10 1x
- Category: Appetizer, Snack
- Method: Bake, Puree
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups raw cashews, pref. soaked
- 2 – 4 tablespoon nutritional yeast or 1 tablespoon mellow miso
- 1 ½ teaspoons garlic powder or 2 – 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons onion powder
- 1 teaspoon mineral salt, plus more as needed
- salt + pepper, to taste
- juice of 1 small lemon or 1 – 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 ½ cups unsweetened plain almond milk (or your favorite) or water
- 10 – 14 oz. spinach, frozen or fresh (see notes)
- 1 can (14oz.) artichoke hearts in brine, drained and finely chopped
To serve
- sliced baguette
- pita chips
- crackers
- veggie sticks
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Soak Cashews: Soak, covered with 1 inch of very hot water for 5 – 10 minutes to help soften them up so they blend ultra creamy. If you have nut sensitivities, soak the cashews in cool water for 2 – 3 hours to aid in digestion.
Prep: Dice the artichoke hearts and prep the spinach.
Cashew Cheese: Using your favorite blender, add the soaked cashews, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and liquids to the bowl and process until nice and smooth, about 3 minutes or so. Taste for flavor, adding more of anything as needed.
Assemble: In a small or medium sized baking dish, add the spinach and artichoke hearts, pour the cashew cheese overtop and mix to combine. Wipe along the rim of the baking dish before baking for clean finish if you like.
Bake: Place in the oven, covered for 10 minutes, remove cover and bake another 10 minutes. Feel free to adjust the cover at any time to your preference (for me, sometimes I leave it covered the entire time).
Serve: Serve as is or give a good stir before serving. This dip is great warm or at room temperature, and is delicious scooped up with a sliced baguette or homemade crusty bread, pita chips, crackers or fresh vegetable sticks.
Would be great with a light dusting of Almond Parmesan too!
Store: Leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, in a covered container. Reheat in preheated oven set to 375 degrees for 10 – 15 minutes, or until warmed through.
Notes
Spinach: If using frozen, let thaw and squeeze the excess water before using. From fresh, use about 10 oz. , steam the spinach first, give a rough chop, drain any excess water.
Make ahead: Make the recipe as directed, without baking, and place it the refrigerator for 1 – 2 days until ready to bake.
Nutritional values are estimates only. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Keywords: vegan spinach artichoke dip, spinach artichoke dip recipe, healthy vegan appetizer
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Cherri says
Could this be prepared in a slow cooker?
Haley Curtis says
This turned out AMAZING! I soaked the cashews in hot water for about 5min before dumping them into the blender to make the sauce. I also baked covered for 15min and then removed the cover and baked for another 15min and it turned out great. Will be making this again :)
★★★★★
Janine Takasugi says
The cashew cream alone is 5 stars! Gorgeous recipe, so simple and I always taste before baking so tweaked seasonings for my palette. Thank you for sharing your creativity with us! (Sorry for the less than polite comments!)
★★★★★
Erika says
Fantastic, simple recipe. I’ve made this with both a lower-speed blender and recently again with my new Vitamix and hands down, it is far better when the cashews are blended fully to make a fluffy, creamy texture instead of the slightly grainy texture that the other blender produced.
★★★★★
Jess says
Yummy. Easy. So much better for you than the normal one with tons of cream cheese. Great flavor.
★★★★★
Barbara Evans says
I didn’t rate this because I don’t believe in ruining your 5 star rating.
My experience has been the following:
In prep time, you do not include how long it takes to soak the cashews. It took me well over 40 minutes to prep.
You do not say how much fresh spinach to use when the recipe asks for oz.
It took longer to cook than 20 minutes.
The result was grainy, tasteless dip, that I would have returned if bought at a store.
Julie | The Simple Veganista says
Sorry you had a bad experience with this recipe, Barbara! I’ll add a few minutes to the prep time for a 5 minute cashew soak. For the spinach, it’s noted to use 10 oz, fresh or frozen. Oven do vary, so it may well have taken more than 20 minutes to get it to how you like it. It should not have been grainy at all. That is most likely due to not blending the cashews all the way. I would suggest blending the cashews longer and checking the consistency before assembling. Thank you for the feedback, it’s greatly appreciated and helps others too. I hope you try again with better luck!
Claudia says
I’m getting ready to make this, so an immediate response would be helpful.
Your photo shows you use nutritional yeast. Have you found 2 T. to be enough? Have you ever tried it with the miso? (I have both).
I’m also wondering about the water vs. the almond milk. Any preferences?
Finally, what is the cup equivalent of 10 oz. frozen spinach when using fresh? You may think 10 oz. fresh is ample (without a scale it is a guesstimate from the container) or simply have forgotten to up the amount – fresh shrinks when steamed.
Julie | The Simple Veganista says
If you like nutritional yeast, I find the 2 T. to be enough, but you may even prefer more since it depends on personal taste. I think miso would great here in place of nooch, starting with 2 teaspoons and working your way up to taste. You could even experiment and try both.
I don’t have any preference between using water and almond milk, but any flavor you add in will alter the end result. If using almond milk, I recommend unsweetened and plain.
For using fresh spinach, I would buy a 16 oz tub or a couple of small packages, so you have a little left just in case the 10. oz fresh isn’t enough. I honestly have not tried it with fresh spinach yet, so I can’t say exactly. I will be revisiting this recipe soon and will definitely make it a point to test all your questions!
I hope that helps, and we would love to know how it goes and what you ended up using. Enjoy!
Claudia says
Thanks for getting back to me promptly, I’m about to do this and will let you know the results.
Just real quick, I take it you’ve used water and not almond milk? Do the cashews cream it enough without adding (plain) almond milk?
Julie | The Simple Veganista says
Yes, the cashews do cream up with water, that’s why they are so wonderful! But using unsweetened non-dairy milk is great too!
Claudia says
This came out pretty good – definitely not bland. It could have stood to have a bit more spinach, but that may have been because I cooked it a bit too long (completely browned it on top, and possibly less creamy). I don’t remember if it cooked for 20 minutes or more, but now believe that once it slightly browns on the edges it is done (I’m sooo not used to the concept of “cooking” a dip as much as I am baking a casserole).
I used about 12 oz of fresh spinach, but think that 16oz would have been good, too. My mother used to make spinach dip for parties and it was ultra creamy and rich with spinach! Again, because of over-cooking, I probably lost a bit of that creaminess, hence the difficulty determining whether more spinach was needed.
I did use almond milk and added nutritional yeast and miso as you suggested. My love for both of them led me to using too much, so I suggest if anyone tries it to start small as you suggest and test taste as nooch can overwhelm anything you add it to. Miso just adds depth, but can alter your outcome, too.
Just one tip to those who aren’t aware: cooking cashews (or any nuts for that matter) in boiling water for 15-20 minutes on the stovetop is a perfect substitution for any recipe requiring soaking, even if overnight). I usually use this method since I prefer not to wait for them to finish soaking, and prep everything else while it cooks. Prevents graininess every time!
Cindi says
This was easy and has great potential but my husband and I both thought it was very bland. What can I do to kick up the taste/flavor? Also, needs to cook longer than 20 minutes!
Julie | The Simple Veganista says
Thanks for sharing, Cindi! I’ve added onion powder to the ingredients, that should kick up the flavor a notch. Also, be sure to add salt (I noticed I didn’t have in the ingredients so you may have missed it, my apologies). Those small changes should do the trick. And you can leave it in the oven longer if you prefer, 30 minutes would be good. I’ll be updating this recipe soon and will test everything again.
Nicole S Faustino says
Have you ever tried freezing this to reheat in the oven later?