Aquafaba Whipped Cream, also known as vegan Cool Whip, is a fast, fluffy, fat-free, dairy and gluten-free, oil-free topping made by whipping the cooking liquid of beans.

Want to know the best part of this magical bean juice vegan meringue looking recipe? It only takes about 3-minutes to whip up a batch of vegan Cool Whip using garbanzo bean, aka, chickpea juice!

And we know you’ll be happy to learn that the nutritional information for aquafaba whipped cream confirms some comforting details! This creamy topping is not only vegan and gluten-free without really trying; it’s also fat-free!

As you make your first batch of chickpea juice dairy-free whipped topping, you’ll appreciate how incredibly quick the fluffiness begins.

This recipe is the perfect discovery in your search for fat-free, plant-based, Cool Whip topping!

What is Aquafaba?

Aquafaba may be unfamiliar to you for a good reason—it’s a relatively recent discovery. So, you may be wondering where to buy aquafaba and questioning what section to look for it in the grocery store.

When I first heard about it, it hit me as odd. You have to understand, by that point, I’ve poured tons of aquafaba potential down the drain.

Before my awareness of aquafaba, whenever I had used a can of beans, I’d drained the bean water straight into the sink! I obviously knew next to nothing about where to find or buy aquafaba. I’d never even heard of this vegan egg white replacer!

So, being the frugal soul that I am, once I knew where to buy aquafaba, or rather, make use of the fat-free aquafaba I’d been tossing, I knew that I had to try my hand at making delicious use of it! And boy did I ever find ways to use it!

There’s a long list of tasty recipes that use aquafaba towards the end of this bean juice recipe article.

And, so what exactly is aquafaba? Well, aquafaba is just bean water! It’s the stuff most of us discard without a second thought when using a can of beans in a recipe.

Technically, it’s the starch that cooks out of beans that creates the thickness in the broth or bean cooking water. And that thickness helps aquafaba whip up and behave a lot like egg whites!

But the cool thing about naturally occurring aquafaba is that it whips up far better than packaged plant-based egg replacers and other vegan egg whites.

Though, in all honesty, when you think of bean juice, your mouth probably doesn’t water in anticipation of your first taste. But hey, first impressions aren’t everything—read on!

Mike and I are confident that this recipe for, lite and fluffy, oil and dairy-free, vegan whipped cream topping is the perfect place for your aquafaba experiences to begin. You’ll soon realize that the uses for bean juice are endless!

Does Aquafaba Only Come From a Can of Chickpeas?

The bean water from a can of chickpeas is what we typically refer to in our recipes. Chickpea aquafaba is often the choice because it’s usually fairly clear in color with a neutral flavor. White beans are also a common choice for making this vegan meringue type of topping because it whips up the brightest and whitest.

But even though canned chickpea water or broth is our standard go-to, we do not hesitate to use any bean broth, including that from a homemade pot of beans!

So, no, gluten and dairy-free aquafaba does not have to come from a can of chickpeas.

If cooking beans from scratch, save the bit of unseasoned bean cooking water (broth) to use as you wish.  A thicker, more reduced homemade broth performs the most like aquafaba from a can.

Canned Beans: Salt or No Salt Added?

Another interesting fact about using the cooking liquid from a can of beans is a cooks’ choice of salted beans versus beans with no salt added.

Many recipes call for using unsalted beans when the bean cooking liquid, or bean juice, is one of the ingredients.  

For health reasons, meaning you have strict instructions to remove salt from your diet, no-salt-added makes sense. Otherwise, however, when it comes to using salted or unsalted bean water, there’s no noticeable difference in how aquafaba creations turn out. 

Salted bean water or no salt added aside, the flavor of different brands of beans does vary. We’ve enjoyed the taste and more tender texture of canned 365 Organic Chickpeas from Whole Foods. Beans, in our experience, taste better when they’re tender. 

But when it comes to whipping up some gorgeous guilt-free low-fat whipped aquafaba cream, we’ve been equally happy with all of the organic brands we’ve tried. We tested everything from Eden’s Organic to the most inexpensive canned beans by Walmart’s organic store label, and they all seem to whip up a nicely as a vegan meringue or whip cream.

Does Aquafaba Taste Good?

If you have ever poured out the liquid from a can of garbanzo beans, treating it as throw away, you may be a little reluctant to try using aquafaba, aka, bean water, aka, bean juice. Luckily, that reluctance is probably from how you might imagine it to taste rather than how it measures up. After all, what chance has it had to impress you when it headed straight down the drain?

But believe this: aquafaba whips up beautifully and tastes wonderful— it’s our favorite new dairy-free topping to dress up dessert or our favorite pumpkin spice latte.

The bottom line is that vegan aquafaba whipped cream does not taste like bean water. Aquafaba only tastes like bean water when you taste it on its own, straight from a can of beans.

When we use it in our black bean brownies, it tastes like chocolate brownies. And when we use it in our deliciously savory pumpkin seed burgers, it tastes like grilled burgers!

We often refer to aquafaba as magical because it is nothing less than low-fat, fluffy, creamy, brings recipe ingredients together, does what you have to do with style, magic!

So on its own, bean water tastes like nothing much. But when bean water joins other ingredients such as sugar or pure vanilla extract—look out!

How Much Vegan Aquafaba Whipped Cream Will a Can of Drained Bean Liquid, Make?

Get ready to be nothing less than amazed at how less than a cup of drained bean cooking liquid, such as the chickpea aquafaba used in this recipe, turns into multiple cups of vegan whipped cream! 

A 15-ounce can of chickpeas usually provides about 1/2 cup of aquafaba, which will typically whip up to make about 2 to 3 cups of dairy-free, oil-free, aquafaba whipped cream.  

The nutritional information chart located just below our recipe shows the results of using one 15-ounce cans’ worth of aquafaba.

How to Make Whipped Cream Using Aquafaba:

Here is the quickest and easiest method for how to make homemade whipped cream using aquafaba, aka, vegan cool whip:

• First, into a mixing bowl, drain the liquid from a can of chickpeas or another white bean.
• Then, use a mixer to beat that drained liquid until it begins to foam.
• After it foams, add cream of tartar, which helps it hold its shape.
• And then add pure vanilla extract to give it a beautiful flavor.

Our recipe doesn’t require added sweeteners, but we do list them as an option. We’ve noticed it takes very little maple syrup or other unrefined sugar to add a bit of sweetness to this vegan substitute for Cool Whip.

And since our recipe does not use oil, ours turns out super lite and fluffy. But do note that when you skip the oil typically found in toppings like Cool Whip, it is a little less creamy.  

We left oil out of ours because, honestly—who needs extra fat and calories when you’re already eating dessert?

How to Store Vegan Aquababa Whipped Cream:

First, it may be helpful to know that you can keep the cooking liquid from beans in the refrigerator for up to about five days. 

And if you wish to stash your bean water a little longer to save for future use, you can freeze the cooking liquid from garbanzo beans (chickpeas) or other legumes for up to three months, no problem. 

But once you whip it into the form of a plant-based vegan substitute for Cool Whip, it holds its fabulously fluffy shape for a few hours.

So, unlike a store-bought version of vegan Cool Whip or another whipped cream topping made with oils and filled with empty calories and fat, whipped aquafaba will not keep its shape indefinitely. But do not let that hinder you from trying it—it’s a perfect vegan whipped cream!

And since whipped aquafaba can easily hold its shape for hours, we often make it before dinner and chill it in the fridge until needed!

Recipes that are Plant-Based and Gluten-Free Using Aquafaba or Vegan Aquafaba Whipped Cream:

Once we started writing this recipe for easy vegan aquafaba Cool Whip topping, we soon realized that we’ve shared quite a few super successful recipes using this naturally dairy-free, magical aquafaba bean juice. And we also noticed how often our recipes make use of black bean, as well as white bean, aquafaba—there’s no end to the delicious aquafaba recipe possibilities!

Recipes that celebrate the use of bean water:

• Pumpkin Seed Veggie Burgers – These taste amazing either on the grill or baked!
• 5-Minute Oil-Free Hummus 
• Gluten-Free Cornbread Muffins – Nothing pairs better with black bean soup than these babies!
• Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies – The aquafaba creates an addictive chewiness!
• No-Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake with Aquafaba Whipped Cream Topping – This festive looking recipe marks when we landed on the idea of making our vegan whipping cream low in both fat and sugar.
• Happy Jalapeño Hemp Seed Hummus
• Potato Avocado Hummus & Radish Chip Appetizers
• Chocolate Chip Skillet Scones – Who would’ve thought that vegan aquafaba whipping cream could have a similar result as using egg whites in a recipe?
• Vegan Pumpkin Spice Latte Recipe – This seasonal recipe makes splendid use of vegan aquafaba whipped cream topping. It makes a deliciously lite latte where the foaminess of the topping reminds me of a vegan meringue.
• Easy Baked Vegan Dip with Spinach & Artichokes 
• 1-Bowl Crazy-Healthy Black Bean Brownies with Pistachios
• Cheesy Smashed Chickpea Spread – Featured in an issue of Raised Vegan Magazine!
• Everyday Chocolatey Chickpea Cookies
• Greek Chickpea Pasta Salad – You use the aquafaba in the zesty dressing!

Plant-Based Recipes Using a Leftover Can of Chickpeas or Other Beans:

• 20-Minute Peanut Butter Chickpea Cookies
• 1-Bowl Super Simple Chickpea Salad – This is one of the easiest delicious ways to use healthy garbanzo beans!
• Roasted Steak-y Mushroom Kale Salad
• No-Cook Brownie Bean Chia Bites
• Hippie Harvest Tofu Feta Dip
• Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cookies
• Vegan Protein-Packed Mashed Potatoes
• Cannellini Kale Noodle-y Soup
• Healthy Mashed Potatoes & Gravy with Cannellini Cream

Thank you for Being Here and for Sharing Recipe Ideas Using Aquafaba!

Since using aquafaba is a relatively new idea in cooking, we can only imagine the innovative places it will go!

So after trying this fantastic fat-free, gluten, dairy, and oil-free aquafaba whipped cream topping; we’d love to hear what recipe you create using bean juice! 

And, by all means, do feel welcome to share what you create in a comment. Your experiences and wisdom will inspire us all to explore new ideas and grow.

Happy Eating!