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Since it opened in Midtown in 2022, Austin-based Home Slice Pizza has become one of Houston's favorite places for a New York-style slice. But it hasn't been available to vegans — or anyone else who avoids cheese — until now.
Home Slice Pizza , the popular joint known for its thin crust, crisp bottom, and simple by-the-slice service style is now courting a new type of customer with vegan mozzarella. The new pizza style launches today, July 1.
Customers can add vegan cheese to any pie, at any of the four locations, including three in Austin: 1415 and 1421 South Congress Ave. and 501 E. 53rd St. There's no word yet on if this game-changer can be applied to non-pizza items, like the excellent chicken or eggplant parmesan sandwiches, or the Caprese salad.
Interestingly, this vegan cheese comes not from a majority-vegan company but from a company called Cheese Merchants that specializes in hard and Italian cheeses. The plant-based "arm" of the company is called Selfish Cow and uses a blend of coconut oil, potato starch, tapioca starch, sunflower oil, and chickpea protein to make its mozzarella, which seems to be its only product so far.
It appears to come pre-shredded and melts well, as seen in photos by Home Slice and online recipes by Selfish Cow. The release name drops "pizza business capo" Tony Gemignani, a 13-world-title-winner in pizza making who also loves this brand of vegan cheese. It also includes a peek behind the scenes at the arduous process of choosing the right cheese.
"We've been looking for a vegan cheese that meets our standards since opening in 2005, and our customers have been waiting a long long time for us to find one. We're thrilled that the wait is over," said Home Slice founder and owner Jen Strickland in a press release. "It took an actual cheese company that cares about artisan cheese to produce a vegan mozzarella we are proud to serve to our customers."
It certainly took a while to find, but folks who have shopped for vegan cheeses know that sometimes they bear only a passing resemblance to the food that inspired them.
