What Is Follow Your Heart Dairy-Free Provolone Style Slices?
Follow Your Heart has been making dairy-free cheese since long before "vegan cheese" was a category most grocery stores bothered to stock. The company started as a vegetarian restaurant in Canoga Park, California in 1970, and its food division later became one of the first widely distributed brands to put a genuinely meltable, sliceable vegan cheese into mainstream supermarkets rather than just specialty co-ops. Today its slice lineup spans American, cheddar, smoked gouda, pepper jack, and this provolone style, and it remains one of the most widely stocked dairy-free cheese brands in the U.S., sitting alongside Violife and Daiya in the refrigerated case at most major chains.
The provolone version is aimed squarely at sandwich and panini use: a coconut-oil-based slice meant to melt into a grilled cheese or Italian sub the way real provolone does, with a mild, slightly tangy flavor rather than the sharper bite of a cheddar alternative. It comes in a 7-ounce resealable package (roughly 10 slices) and retails for around $4.99, putting it in line with most other mainstream vegan cheese slices rather than at a premium price point.
Ingredients
The full ingredient list is short and doesn't try to hide what it is: filtered water, coconut oil, modified potato and corn starches, potato starch, sea salt, natural flavor (plant sources), olive extract, and beta carotene for color. That's eight ingredients total, which is notably shorter than some competing slices that lean on gums, isolated proteins, or added vitamins to round out texture and nutrition.
Breaking down what each ingredient is actually doing: water and coconut oil form the emulsion base, standing in for the fat and moisture that dairy milk fat would normally provide. The modified potato and corn starches, along with additional potato starch, give the slice its structure and help it hold together and melt rather than simply liquefying into oil. Sea salt and natural flavor (described as plant-sourced) are doing the flavor work — Follow Your Heart doesn't specify exactly what "natural flavor" contains beyond that it's plant-derived, which is standard but slightly opaque labeling practice across the packaged food industry. Olive extract functions here as a natural antioxidant and preservative rather than as a flavoring ingredient, helping extend shelf life without synthetic preservatives. Beta carotene is simply what gives the slice its pale yellow-orange tint instead of the stark white you'd get from an unpigmented starch-and-oil base.
There's no soy, gluten, grains, or nuts anywhere in the formula, and no added isolated proteins, gums, or vitamin fortification beyond what's naturally present. That simplicity is a double-edged sword: it's genuinely allergen-friendly for people avoiding the top allergens, but it also means there's essentially no protein or micronutrient contribution in the final product, which we'll get into in the nutrition section below.
Is Follow Your Heart Provolone Style Slices Vegan?
Yes. The product is certified vegan and Kosher Pareve, and every ingredient on the label is plant-derived — there's no casein, whey, or other hidden dairy derivatives that occasionally sneak into "cheese alternative" products marketed loosely as "dairy-free" without being explicitly vegan. It's also free of eggs, gelatin, honey, and any other animal-derived processing aids or colorants. Some "dairy-free" cheese products still use animal-derived rennet substitutes or vitamin D3 sourced from lanolin, so it's always worth checking rather than assuming — but in this case, Follow Your Heart's formulation and third-party vegan certification both confirm there's nothing to worry about here. If you're ever double-checking a "dairy-free" cheese product that doesn't carry an explicit vegan label, running the ingredient panel through the spvegan.com ingredient checker is a fast way to catch things like casein, whey, or animal-derived vitamin D hiding under less obvious names.
Nutrition Facts Comparison
| Product | Serving | Calories | Fat | Sat. Fat | Sodium | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow Your Heart Provolone Style | 1 slice (20g) | 60 | 4.5g | 4g | 180mg | 0g |
| Violife Just Like Mature Cheddar Slices | 1 slice (20g) | 60 | 4.5g | 4g | 180mg | 0g |
| Chao Creamy Original Slices | 1 slice (20g) | 60 | 4.5g | 4.7g | 213mg | 1g |
| Daiya Swiss Style Slices | 1 slice (22g) | 70 | 5g | 4.5g | 150mg | 1g |
The takeaway across the whole coconut-oil-based slice category, not just this one product, is that these are essentially fat-and-starch delivery systems with almost no protein — a real dairy provolone slice has around 7 grams of protein for a similar or lower calorie count, plus meaningful calcium. If you're eating vegan cheese slices purely for the melt and flavor on a sandwich, that tradeoff is fine and expected. If you're trying to hit a protein or calcium target with your food choices, none of the coconut-oil-based slices, this one included, are pulling meaningful weight, and you'll want to get those nutrients from elsewhere in the meal — a bean-based filling, tofu, or a fortified plant milk alongside it.
Taste and Texture
This is genuinely one of the milder, creamier slices in Follow Your Heart's own lineup rather than an attempt to mimic provolone's occasional sharpness — it reads closer to a mild white American than a deli provolone from an Italian sub shop. That's not necessarily a flaw; it means the slice is inoffensive enough to work across a lot of different sandwiches without dominating the other flavors, which is arguably the more useful trait for an everyday sandwich cheese. Reviewers and customers consistently note that it has a faint tangy, cheese-like smell that many coconut-oil slices lack entirely, likely a product of the olive extract, and that it melts cleanly rather than turning greasy or visibly separating into oil, which is a common failure mode for cheaper vegan cheese slices left too long under a broiler.
Cold, straight out of the package, the texture is soft and slightly rubbery in the way most commercial vegan slices are — it's not going to fool anyone biting into a cold sandwich that this is dairy provolone. Where it does its best work is heated: on a grilled cheese or panini, it goes soft and glossy rather than staying stiff, and it doesn't require the extra minute or two of coaxing that some stiffer competitor slices need to actually melt through. Where it falls short of dairy provolone is in stretch and chew — melted, it goes soft and creamy rather than stringy, so don't expect the pull-apart cheese-pull effect you'd get pulling a slice of pizza with real mozzarella or provolone. For flat sandwich applications that's rarely an issue; for something like a cheesesteak where stretch is part of the appeal, it's a noticeable gap.
How to Use It
Follow Your Heart specifically markets this as a substitute anywhere you'd use dairy provolone, and in practice that holds up best for grilled cheese, paninis, veggie burgers, and Italian-style subs where the cheese is one component among several bold flavors (deli-style vegan meats, roasted peppers, pesto, marinara) rather than the star of the dish. It's less convincing on its own on a cracker or in a simple caprese-style presentation, where the mildness and lack of tang become more noticeable without other ingredients to round things out. Because the slices are pre-portioned, it's also a convenient option for meal-prepping sandwiches ahead of time, since it holds up reasonably well refrigerated between layers of bread without getting soggy the way some fresher, wetter vegan cheeses can.
How It Compares to Other Vegan Cheese Slices
| Product | Base | Melt Quality | Flavor Profile | Allergens | Price (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow Your Heart Provolone Style | Coconut oil | Melts soft and creamy | Mild, slightly tangy | None of the top 9 | ~$4.99 / 7 oz |
| Violife Just Like Cheddar Slices | Coconut oil | Melts well | Sharper, cheddar-forward | None of the top 9 | ~$4.99 / 7 oz |
| Chao Creamy Original | Coconut oil + fermented tofu | Melts well, slightly tangier | Fermented, tangy | Soy | ~$4.99 / 7 oz |
| Daiya Swiss Style | Coconut oil | Melts, can go slightly oily | Mild, nutty | None of the top 9 | ~$4.99 / 7.8 oz |
What's notable here is how similar the nutrition and base ingredients are across nearly every mainstream vegan cheese slice brand — coconut oil plus modified starches is close to the industry-standard formula at this price point, with the real differentiation coming down to flavoring choices and minor texture tweaks rather than fundamentally different technology. Chao stands out as the exception, since its use of fermented tofu gives it a genuinely different, tangier flavor profile at the cost of adding a soy allergen that the others avoid.
Who Should Buy This
This is a solid pick if you want a mild, allergen-friendly slice for grilled cheese, Italian subs, or veggie burgers and don't specifically need a gluten-, soy-, or nut-free product for other reasons — it happens to already check all of those boxes. It's a better fit for people who found sharper vegan cheddars too aggressive and want something closer to a mild deli cheese that won't overpower other sandwich fillings. It's not the right choice if you're prioritizing protein or calcium content in your food choices, since like nearly every coconut-oil-based slice on the market, it contributes essentially none of either. If you specifically want a tangier, more fermented "real cheese" flavor, Chao's fermented-tofu-based slices are worth trying instead, though that comes with a soy allergen the Follow Your Heart version avoids entirely.
Final Verdict
Follow Your Heart's Provolone Style Slices do what they're designed to do: melt cleanly, taste mild and inoffensive rather than distinctly artificial or plasticky, and slot into sandwiches without much compromise compared to dairy provolone. It won't fool anyone who's specifically craving the stretch and sharpness of a real deli provolone, and the total absence of protein and calcium is a real nutritional shortcoming shared by almost the entire coconut-oil-based slice category, not a flaw unique to this product. But for a widely available, allergen-friendly, reliably melting sandwich cheese at a normal price point, it's a dependable everyday option rather than a disappointing one.
Rating: 7.5/10
