What Is Follow Your Heart Dairy-Free American Slices?
Follow Your Heart has been one of the longest-running names in vegan cheese — the brand's Vegenaise predates most plant-based mayo competitors by decades — and its Dairy-Free American Style Slices are the company's answer to the yellow, individually-wrapped cheese slice every grilled cheese and diner burger is built on. It's sold in a 7 oz, 10-slice pack for about $4.99, positioned squarely against Violife's and Chao's own slice lineups on the same refrigerated shelf.
The pitch is unpretentious: a mild, meltable slice meant for grilled cheese, burgers, and quesadillas rather than a snacking cheese you'd eat off a board. Follow Your Heart markets it as a straight swap for a mild cheddar or classic American cheese slice, and it's one of the more widely stocked options — Albertsons, Safeway, Walmart, and Sprouts all carry it alongside the bigger national brands.
Ingredients
The full ingredient list is: Filtered water, coconut oil, modified potato and corn starches, potato starch, sea salt, natural flavor (plant sources), olive extract, paprika extract and beta carotene for color.
That's a short list by packaged-food standards, and it follows the same basic template nearly every meltable vegan cheese slice uses: water and coconut oil form the base (coconut oil is what lets the slice soften and stretch under heat the way dairy fat does), modified starches hold everything together and give it that sliceable, foldable structure, and the color comes from paprika and beta carotene rather than anything synthetic. Olive extract is there as a natural preservative and flavor-rounder, not for an olive taste. Notably absent: any added vitamin B12, which some competing brands (Violife, for one) fortify their slices with. If B12 intake matters to you and you're relying on fortified foods for it, that's worth checking before you assume all vegan cheese slices are equal on that front.
It's also worth noting what this ingredient list doesn't contain compared to some cheaper store-brand vegan slices: no hydrogenated oils, no artificial dyes, and no gums like carrageenan or xanthan that show up in a lot of budget cheese alternatives to compensate for a thinner starch base. That keeps the label short and relatively easy to read, even if it doesn't add much in the way of nutrition.
How to Use It (and How Not To)
Follow Your Heart's own instructions treat this as a cooking cheese rather than a straight cold-sandwich cheese, and that lines up with how it actually performs. For a grilled cheese, laying it between two pieces of bread and toasting in a skillet over medium-low heat for 3 to 4 minutes per side gives it enough time to soften all the way through before the bread burns — cooking too hot and fast, the common instinct with a quick lunch, leaves the center of the slice still slightly firm while the bread is already dark. On a burger, adding the slice in the last minute of cooking and covering the pan with a lid traps enough heat to soften it properly, mimicking the steam-melt trick that works for dairy cheese too.
Cold, straight from the fridge on a deli sandwich, it holds its shape and has a pleasant, mild flavor, but don't expect the same silky mouthfeel you'd get from a slice of real American cheese at room temperature — the starch base firms up more than dairy fat does when chilled. Letting slices sit out for 10 to 15 minutes before building a cold sandwich softens them noticeably and is worth the small wait if texture matters to you.
On storage: like most vegan cheese slices, this one is shelf-stable in the fridge for a few weeks unopened and roughly one to two weeks after opening, and it also freezes reasonably well if you're not going to get through a 10-slice pack before it turns — thawed slices are a little softer than fresh but still melt fine in a hot dish.
Is Follow Your Heart Dairy-Free American Slices Vegan?
Yes. Follow Your Heart American Style Slices are 100% vegan. The product carries Follow Your Heart's own vegan certification along with Kosher Parve, Non-GMO, gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free labeling. There's no casein, whey, or other milk-derived additive hiding in the ingredient list — a real risk category for "cheese alternative" products, since casein in particular shows up in some supposedly dairy-free slices as a binding agent. This one is clean of it.
As always, it's worth spot-checking the actual package you buy rather than assuming the whole product line is uniform — flavor variants and regional formulations can differ. Running any label you're unsure about through the spvegan.com ingredient checker takes a few seconds and removes the guesswork.
Nutrition Facts Comparison
Here's how Follow Your Heart's American Slices compare to two of the most common competing vegan cheese slices, per 20g slice:
| Product | Calories | Total Fat | Sat. Fat | Sodium | Carbs | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow Your Heart American Slices | 60 | 4.5g | 4g | ~180mg (8% DV) | 4g | 0g |
| Violife Just Like Cheddar Slices | 60 | 4.5g | 4g | 230mg | 4g | 0g |
| Chao Creamy Original Slices | 60 | 4.5g | 4g | 180mg | 4g | 0g |
The headline here is how similar these three actually are. All three lean on the same coconut-oil-and-starch formula, which is why the calorie, fat, and carb numbers line up almost exactly across brands — this is a category built around melt and mouthfeel, not nutrition, and none of them offer meaningful protein per slice. If you're eating cheese slices for protein, none of these three will get you there; they're a flavor-and-texture add-on, not a protein source. The real differentiator is sodium, where Violife runs noticeably saltier than either Follow Your Heart or Chao, and ingredient sourcing — Chao's base includes fermented tofu, while Follow Your Heart and Violife are purely starch-and-oil.
Taste and Texture
Straight out of the pack, Follow Your Heart's American Slices have a mild, slightly tangy flavor that reads closer to a processed American cheese than a sharp cheddar — appropriate, since that's the product it's imitating. It's soft and pliable at fridge temperature, which makes it easy to fold onto a sandwich without cracking, a small but real advantage over some competing slices that go brittle when cold.
Melted in a grilled cheese or on a burger patty, it softens well and gets glossy, though it doesn't fully liquefy and ooze the way dairy American cheese does — it's closer to "very soft" than "molten." That puts it in the same performance tier as Violife and Chao rather than clearly ahead or behind either; all three coconut-oil-based slices behave similarly once heat is applied, softening and slightly spreading rather than pooling. As a middle layer between two other ingredients (a burger patty and a bun, or two slices of bread), it disappears into the dish convincingly. Laid flat on top of something and broiled or melted in the open, it looks slightly less appetizing than real cheese would — a cosmetic issue more than a flavor one, and one shared by essentially every coconut-oil-based vegan slice on the market.
How It Compares to the Alternatives
| Product | Base | Added B12? | Sodium (per slice) | Best For | Approx. Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow Your Heart American Slices | Coconut oil + starch | No | ~180mg | Grilled cheese, burgers | $4.99 / 10 slices |
| Violife Just Like Cheddar Slices | Coconut oil + starch | Yes | 230mg | Sandwiches, snacking | $4.49–5.49 / 10 slices |
| Chao Creamy Original Slices | Coconut oil + fermented tofu | No | 180mg | Sandwiches, a slightly funkier flavor | $4.99 / 10 slices |
If B12 fortification matters to your diet, Violife has a built-in edge — it's the only one of the three adding it directly to the slice. If you want the lowest-sodium option, Follow Your Heart and Chao are essentially tied and both beat Violife. If you want a slightly more distinctive, tangier flavor than a straight American-cheese clone, Chao's fermented-tofu base gives it a bit more character than the other two, which lean more neutral and mild.
Who Should Buy Follow Your Heart American Slices
This is a solid, no-drama pick if you specifically want a mild, meltable slice for grilled cheese, burgers, or a quesadilla and don't want to think too hard about which brand to grab — it performs on par with the category leaders, it's soy-free and nut-free (useful if you're also managing allergies on top of going dairy-free), and it's stocked at most major grocery chains rather than requiring a specialty store trip.
It's a weaker fit if you specifically want fortified B12 built into your cheese, since Follow Your Heart doesn't add it here — you'll need to get B12 from elsewhere in your diet or a supplement regardless of which slice you buy, unless you go with Violife instead. It's also not the pick if you're after a cheese slice with real protein content or a bolder, funkier flavor profile — Chao's fermented tofu base edges it out on both counts, at the cost of a slightly less "classic American cheese" taste.
Final Verdict
Follow Your Heart's Dairy-Free American Slices do exactly what a slice of American cheese is supposed to do — melt into a sandwich, disappear into a burger, and not draw attention to itself — without any dairy, soy, or nuts in the way. It's not more exciting or nutritionally superior to its closest competitors, but it's a reliable, widely available option that holds its own against Violife and Chao on taste and texture, and beats at least one of them on sodium.
Rating: 7.5/10 — Does the job well, widely available, but nutritionally identical to its competitors and missing the added B12 that gives Violife a slight edge for some shoppers.
