What Is Follow Your Heart Dairy-Free Mozzarella Shreds?
Follow Your Heart has been one of the longest-running names in vegan cheese, and its shredded mozzarella is one of the products that built that reputation before "melty vegan cheese" was something you could reliably find in a mainstream supermarket. The current version, sold as Dairy-Free Mozzarella Style Shredded, comes in a resealable bag (typically 7–8 oz) and is marketed specifically for pizza and salads, with packaging that leans hard on "beautifully melty" language.
It sits in a crowded field. Violife and Daiya both make competing mozzarella-style shreds that are stocked in the same cold case at most grocery stores, and both have been reviewed separately on this site. What makes Follow Your Heart worth a dedicated look is that its formula takes a noticeably different approach — no coconut oil, no cashews, and a starch-and-fiber-based structure instead of the oil-heavy base that gives most competitors their stretch.
This review covers the shredded mozzarella specifically, since Follow Your Heart also sells mozzarella-style slices and a block version, both of which use similar but not identical formulas. The company itself has a longer history in vegan food than most of its current competitors — it started as a natural foods restaurant in California in the 1970s before moving into packaged vegan cheese, mayo, and eggs, and that "Vegenaise" mayo line remains one of the more recognizable vegan products on grocery shelves today, so this isn't a newcomer experimenting with its first cheese formula.
It's also worth being specific about format, since Follow Your Heart's cheese lineup can get confusing at a glance. The shredded mozzarella reviewed here is a finely shredded, bag-format product meant to be sprinkled and melted, distinct from the brand's block-style "Just Like Cheddar" wedges or its individually wrapped slices, which use different ratios of the same core ingredients and melt somewhat differently as a result.
How It's Made
Unlike the cashew-based artisanal vegan cheeses that dominate the "cheese board" end of the category, Follow Your Heart's shreds are built more like an industrial food product than a fermented one — there's no culturing step, no aging, and no live cultures involved. The starches are cooked and set into a gel-like base, the oil is emulsified into that base with the help of sunflower lecithin, and the resulting block is shredded and packaged. That's a meaningfully different process than what Miyoko's or Treeline use for their cultured, nut-based cheeses, and it's part of why this product sits at a lower price point than boutique cashew cheese while also landing on a milder, less complex flavor than a genuinely cultured product would deliver.
Ingredients
The full ingredient list for Follow Your Heart Dairy-Free Mozzarella Style Shredded reads: Filtered Water, Organic Palm Fruit Oil, Modified Corn and Potato Starches, Natural Flavors (plant sources), and less than 2% of: Pea Fiber, Pea Starch, Bamboo Fiber, Calcium Phosphate, Rice Flour, Organic Vegetable Glycerin, Cellulose, Sunflower Lecithin, Sea Salt, Carrageenan (vegetable source), Calcium Sulfate, Citric Acid, Xanthan Gum, Disodium Phosphate, Sodium Citrate.
A few things separate this from the competition. Organic palm fruit oil is the primary fat, rather than the refined coconut oil most other shred-style vegan cheeses lean on, which is part of why the saturated fat number below comes in noticeably lower than Violife's. The starch trio (modified corn starch, potato starch, and rice flour) is doing the structural work that casein does in dairy mozzarella — it's what lets the shreds hold together in the bag and then soften under heat. Carrageenan, sourced from red seaweed, is a plant-derived thickener and is not an animal product despite sometimes getting lumped in with "questionable additives" online; it's simply a texture agent that some people choose to avoid for digestive reasons rather than ethical ones.
There's no soy, gluten, egg, or nut anywhere in the formula, which is a genuinely useful allergen profile compared to shreds built on soy protein isolate or cashew paste. If you're checking any specific line item against a fuller animal-ingredient database before buying, the spvegan.com ingredient checker is a fast way to confirm.
Is Follow Your Heart Mozzarella Shreds Vegan?
Yes — this product is 100% vegan. Follow Your Heart lists it as Non-GMO Project Verified, Certified Kosher Pareve, gluten-free, and free of dairy, egg, and soy. There's no casein, whey, or any dairy derivative anywhere in the ingredient list, and none of the additives (carrageenan included) are animal-derived. The Kosher Pareve certification is a useful independent check here, since pareve status specifically confirms a product contains neither meat nor dairy under kosher dietary law — a good secondary signal on top of the brand's own vegan labeling.
Nutrition Facts: Follow Your Heart vs. Other Vegan Mozzarella Shreds
Per 1 oz (28–30g) serving, here's how it compares to Violife and Daiya's mozzarella-style shreds:
| Product | Calories | Total Fat | Saturated Fat | Sodium | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow Your Heart Mozzarella Shreds | 80 | 6g | 5g | 280mg | 0g |
| Violife Just Like Mozzarella Shreds | 80 | 7g | 6g | 190mg | 0g |
| Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds | 80 | 5g | 3g | 230mg | 0g |
All three land at exactly 80 calories per ounce, which isn't a coincidence so much as a reflection of how similar these starch-and-oil formulas are on a macro level. The real differences show up in the details: Follow Your Heart runs highest on sodium of the three at 280mg per ounce, while Daiya — which reformulated its shreds around an oat cream base — comes in lowest on both sodium and saturated fat. None of the three vegan mozzarella shreds contribute meaningful protein, which is worth remembering if you're using them to replace dairy cheese in a dish you're relying on for protein content; none of these products are a protein source, dairy or otherwise, at 0g per serving.
Taste and Texture
This is the category where vegan mozzarella shreds have historically struggled, and Follow Your Heart's version is a mixed bag. The flavor is the strongest part: reviewers consistently note a tangier, more "cheese-like" flavor note than most competitors manage, likely a byproduct of the citric acid and calcium sulfate in the mix mimicking the acidity of cultured dairy cheese. Straight out of the bag, the shreds have a firmer, slightly rubbery texture rather than the soft, slightly damp texture of fresh dairy mozzarella.
Melting is the weaker half of the equation. On a pizza in a hot oven, it softens and takes on a glossy sheen, but it doesn't fully liquefy or pull into the long cheese-pull that dairy mozzarella (or, frankly, Violife's coconut-oil-based version) achieves. It's noticeably better suited to being melted into a hot dish — baked ziti, a quesadilla, or a grilled sandwich — than to being the star of a Neapolitan-style pizza where stretch is the whole point. Cold, in a salad, it holds its shred shape well and doesn't clump, which is where the firmer texture actually works in its favor.
Follow Your Heart vs. the Competition
| Product | Base Fat | Melt Quality | Flavor | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow Your Heart Mozzarella Shreds | Palm fruit oil | Softens, doesn't fully stretch | Tangiest of the three | Baked dishes, salads |
| Violife Just Like Mozzarella | Coconut oil | Best stretch and pull | Mild, neutral | Pizza night |
| Daiya Mozzarella (Oat Cream) | Oat cream + oils | Melts smooth, moderate stretch | Mild, slightly sweet | Lower saturated fat option |
If the entire point of the purchase is a cheese pull for a pizza night video, Violife is the better pick. If you want the tangiest, most "actually tastes like cheese" flavor profile and don't mind a shred that softens rather than fully stretches, Follow Your Heart is the stronger option — and its soy-free, nut-free allergen profile is a real advantage for households managing multiple food restrictions on top of being dairy-free.
Tips for Getting the Best Melt
Because the starch-based structure here behaves differently than an oil-heavy shred, a few adjustments make a real difference in how it performs. Bringing the shreds closer to room temperature before they hit the oven helps them soften more evenly rather than seizing up from a cold start. A higher oven temperature — closer to 450–475°F than a standard 375°F bake — gives the shreds enough sustained heat to fully soften rather than just going glossy on the surface while staying firm underneath. Piling it on slightly thicker than you would with dairy mozzarella also helps, since a thin layer tends to dry out before it has a chance to properly soften.
It also does better paired with moisture. On a saucier pizza, in a casserole with a wetter filling, or folded into a quesadilla with some salsa, the shreds pick up enough surrounding liquid to soften further than they would completely dry on top of a pizza. Reviewers who've had the most success with this product tend to be using it inside a dish rather than as an exposed top layer, which tracks with how the starch-based melt behaves compared to an oil-based one.
Where to Buy and What It Costs
Follow Your Heart Mozzarella Shreds are widely available at mainstream grocery chains including Kroger, Safeway/Albertsons-affiliated stores, Sprouts, Fresh Thyme, and most well-stocked natural food sections, typically shelved alongside Daiya and Violife rather than in a separate specialty aisle. Pricing generally lands in the same range as its direct competitors, usually somewhere between $5 and $7 for a 7–8 oz bag depending on the retailer, making it neither the cheapest nor the most expensive option in the vegan shredded cheese category.
Who Should Buy Follow Your Heart Mozzarella Shreds?
This is a good fit for anyone managing soy or nut allergies alongside a dairy-free diet, since it's one of the few mainstream shredded vegan cheeses that's free of both. It also makes sense for baked pasta dishes, quesadillas, and cold applications like salads, where its flavor and shred-retention are assets rather than liabilities. It's a weaker choice specifically for anyone whose main use case is a stretchy, pizzeria-style cheese pull — for that, a coconut-oil-based competitor like Violife will get closer to the mark.
Final Verdict
Follow Your Heart's Dairy-Free Mozzarella Shreds deliver on flavor better than most of the category and come with a genuinely useful allergen profile, but the melt falls short of "beautifully melty" marketing when stacked directly against a hot pizza stone test. It's a strong pick for baked dishes and salads, a middling one for pizza purists chasing stretch.
Rating: 7/10
