Our vegan brioche is a soft and fluffy breakfast recipe made with a few simple ingredients that you already have in your pantry.
You’ll love vegan brioche because it’s light, airy, aromatic, and delicious. The whole family will enjoy this.
Table of Contents
Vegan brioche is an indulgent, sweet breakfast recipe for those days when you deserve more than a quick bowl of oats.
Try dipping it in a latte or cappuccino, or slice it and have it with jam or chocolate hazelnut spread. Is delicious!
This recipe is Italian-inspired; the egg-free brioche has a tender crumb, it’s sweet and aromatic, and is made with simple ingredients.
It’s also easier than you think, and we are confident that with our step-by-step instructions, you’ll get it right on your first try.
Once you get the basics, you can experiment with croissants, maritozzi, and other recipes with the same brioche dough.
Ingredients & Substitutions
Find the complete recipe with ingredients and instructions in the recipe box at the bottom of the page.
Flour
You can use all-purpose flour, bread flour, or 50% all-purpose and 50% whole-wheat flour.
Sugar
Plain white sugar works best. If you are a strict vegan, you might want to use white sugar from sugar beet.
Instant dry yeast
We recommend instant dry yeast because it’s more reliable and doesn’t need to be activated.
You can replace it with fresh yeast, but if you do so, you need three times more fresh yeast than our instant dry yeast dose.
Non-dairy milk
Pick your favorite. We like soy milk and almond milk best. Any dairy-free milk will work wonderfully.
Vegetable oil
Use neutral vegetable oil such as avocado or light olive oil. Canola oil and sunflower oil work well, too.
Substitute melted vegan butter for vegetable oil.
Vanilla extract
For aroma. Substitute vanilla extract with the seeds of a vanilla pod.
Orange zest
It’s delicious in vegan brioche, and we recommend adding it for that extra oomph.
Salt
Just a pinch to tie the ingredients together.
How to make vegan brioche
To a bowl, add flour, sugar, and instant dry yeast. Stir to combine, then add orange zest, milk, lukewarm water, oil, vanilla, and a pinch of salt.
Mix with a spatula until the ingredients come together.
Tip: If you don’t have instant dry yeast, use either 7g (1.4 tsp) of active dry yeast or 25g of fresh yeast. In both cases, you must dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water and sugar before adding it to the flour.
Sprinkle your worktop with two tablespoons of flour, then knead the dough for 5 minutes until smooth, soft, moist, and elastic.
Tip: You can make this in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment.
Transfer the dough to a large bowl you brushed with oil, cover with a damp cloth, and let proof in a warm spot for about 2 hours or until it doubles in volume.
Tip: Use your oven as a proofing chamber. Turn it on for 30 seconds, then turn it off and put it in the bowl with the dough.
Transfer dough onto a clean worktop, fold it on itself three times, and cut it into nine pieces. Shape into balls.
Arrange the dough balls snuggly into an oiled bundt pan, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to proof for 1 hour, best if in a warm place.
Tip: You can use a loaf pan if you don’t have a bundt pan.
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°. Brush the top of the vegan brioche with non-dairy milk and bake on the lower oven rack for about 25 minutes.
The vegan brioche buns should be golden on top and soft and fluffy inside. Let cool down completely on a wire rack before eating. Optionally, sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Tips
- Knead well: It’s essential to knead vigorously for at least 5 to 10 minutes to develop the gluten network that will give structure to the brioche bread. You can learn more in this post. I tried without much kneading, and the brioche deflated and wasn’t as light and airy.
- Let it proof properly: Proofing for at least 2 to 3 hours is essential to develop texture and flavor. I tried proofing less time, but the brioche turned out heavy, gummy, and wet. It also lacked the aroma and taste of a well-proofed dough.
- Make a moist dough: When you are done kneading, the dough should be moist and almost stick to your worktop. To do that, try not to add too much flour while kneading the dough.
- Stick to our measurements: If you are not an expert baker, stick to our measurements and use a scale for best accuracy.
Questions
You can eat our vegan brioche bread for breakfast or as a mid-morning snack. You can enjoy it as is or with a thin layer of jam or chocolate hazelnut spread.
This recipe is easy to scale. You can divide all the ingredients by 2 for half a batch. Or multiplying by 1.5 or by 2 for a larger batch. Our quantities are the easiest to handle for kneading the dough by hand and for home cooking.
Storage
Room temperature: Keep at room temperature in a reusable food-grade plastic bag. It’ll last for up to 5 days.
When it gets dry, our favorite way to eat it is to dunk it in a cup of oat milk cappuccino. You can also warm it up in the microwave for a few seconds to get it soft again.
Freezer: Let the vegan brioche cool down at room temperature, transfer it to a freezer-friendly bag, and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
More brioche recipes
- Vegan chocolate chip brioche.
- Vegan brioche rolls with custard.
- Italian breakfast brioche (Buondì).
- Vegan croissant with brioche dough.
- Vegan Italian cream buns (Maritozzi).
- Vegan Italian donuts (Bomboloni).
- Vegan french toast.
More dessert ideas
For more delicious sweet treats, check out:
For many more easy dessert ideas, check out our desserts category page.
Vegan Brioche
Equipment
- Bundt cake pan 10-Inch (26cm) or loaf pan
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 3⅓ cups all-purpose flour + 2 to 3 tablespoons for kneading
- ½ cup sugar
- 1½ teaspoons instant dry yeast sub active dry yeast, or 20g fresh brewer's yeast but in this two cases dissolved in warm water.
- 1 pinch salt
Wet Ingredients
- ¾ cup non-dairy milk any
- ½ cup water
- ¼ cup vegetable oil avocado, olive, sunflower, etc.
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons orange zest grated
Instructions
- To a bowl, add 3⅓ cups all-purpose flour, ½ cup sugar, and 1½ teaspoons instant dry yeast. Stir then add ¾ cup non-dairy milk, ½ cup water, ¼ cup vegetable oil,1 tablespoon vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons orange zest, and 1 pinch salt.Mix with a spatula or wooden spoon until you get a dough.
- Sprinkle your worktop with two tablespoons of flour, then knead the dough for 5 minutes until smooth, soft, moist, and elastic.
- Transfer the dough to a large bowl you brushed with oil, cover with a damp cloth, and let proof in a warm spot for about 2 hours or until it doubles in volume.
- Transfer dough onto a clean worktop, fold it on itself three times, and cut it into nine pieces. Shape into balls.
- Arrange the dough balls snuggly into an oiled bundt pan, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to proof for 1 hour, best if in a warm place.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°. Brush the top of the vegan brioche with non-dairy milk and bake on the lower oven rack for about 25 minutes.
- The vegan brioche buns should be golden on top and soft and fluffy inside. Let cool down completely before eating. Optionally, sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Notes
Nutrition
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Can this be made gluten free,sounds like a wonderful recipe
Hi Theresa, we have not tested this brioche with gluten-free products, so unfortunately, I cannot advise.
If you give it a try with gluten-free flour, do let me know what you think! Kindest, Louise
The brioche came out delicious. Thank you Nico and Louise for your delicious and easy, well explained recipes. First question : will you publish a book? That would be awesome and you would sell billions of them!
Second question: do you think it is a good idea to add raisins and sliced almond to the brioche?
Thank you for your fantastic work.
Hi Dan,
I’m so happy you enjoyed the brioche AND the recipe instructions 🎉
1. Thank you for your kind words. Yes, in the future we make a book. For now, we focus on making this website and our videos better and better for our audience. We still have a lot to improve 🙂
2. Oh yes. We’ve tested this brioche with raisins (and chocolate chips), they are both wonderful options. links here: https://theplantbasedschool.com/vegan-chocolate-chip-brioches/ and https://theplantbasedschool.com/vegan-brioche-rolls-with-custard/ for inspiration.
We have not tested them with sliced almonds, so I cannot guarantee that the dough would stay airy and light with those added. Alternatively, you can try sprinkling with sliced almonds just before baking.
I hope this helps a little.
Thank you again for your support, we really appreciate you being here ❤️
Kindest,
Nico & Louise
Top class recipe. It never fails. I am a bug fan of your work guys!
Hi Michelle – I’m so very happy you like the brioche 🙂
Thank you very much for taking the time to leave such kind comment. All the best,
Louise
Thank you for this fantastic recipe. We baked it last week and couldn’t stop eating it. Can’t wait to bake it again!
So happy you liked it! Thanks for letting us know 🙂