It’s officially that time of year again: pumpkin season! In my opinion, nothing is more quintessential autumn than a loaf of pumpkin bread. This vegan pumpkin bread is moist, fluffy, and just all-around perfect. Once you slice into it, you’ll see that it’s firm enough to hold together while not being dense or heavy.
It’s also easy enough to make that you can whip it up any night of the week. So once you feel that cool breeze start coming in, run to the store, grab some pumpkin, and bake up a loaf!
Table of Contents
Ingredients for Vegan Pumpkin Bread
- Pumpkin purée. Make sure to use real pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling, which comes in a very similar looking can.
- Oil. A neutral oil works best.
- Brown and white sugar.
- Soy milk and apple cider vinegar. Together, these two ingredients create a vegan buttermilk substitute.
- Vanilla extract.
- All-purpose flour.
- Baking soda and baking powder. To ensure a proper rise of your pumpkin bread.
- Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger. This combo of spices is what makes this sweet treat taste like fall!
- Salt.
How to Make Vegan Pumpkin Bread
Step 1 — Preheat Oven and Prep Loaf Pan
Preheat your oven to 350℉. Lightly grease a 9″x5″ loaf pan. (I also like to line with parchment so it’s easy to lift the loaf out of the pan, but this is optional.)
Step 2 — Make the Vegan Buttermilk
In a large mixing bowl, combine the soy milk and vinegar, stirring well. Let sit for 5 minutes.
Step 3 — Mix Dry Ingredients
In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together all of your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and all spices.
Step 4 — Mix Wet Ingredients
To the bowl with the now-curdled soy milk, whisk in the pumpkin purée, oil, brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla. Make sure this is mixed well enough so that the oil is fully emulsified.
Step 5 — Combine Wet and Dry Ingredients
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients 1/3 at a time, stirring in between additions. Stir until everything is thoroughly combined, but don’t over-mix. (You can add in your optional chocolate chips at this stage.)
Step 6 — Bake the Pumpkin Bread
Pour your batter into your prepared loaf pan. Transfer to the middle rack of your preheated oven. Bake for 55-65 minutes. Allow loaf to cool fully before slicing.
Step 7 — Glaze (Optional)
While your pumpkin bread is cooling, whisk together sifted powdered sugar, vanilla, and plant milk. Once your loaf is completely cooled, drizzle with icing to your heart’s content!
Sarah’s Recipe Tips
- Adjust the spice blend to your liking. The amount of each spice in this recipe are to our liking (both Eric and I are super sensitive to nutmeg and cloves). Feel free to increase either of these spices to a 1/2 tsp of each.
- Mix your ingredients properly. When you’re mixing together your wet ingredients, it’s important to make sure the oil is fully emulsified in the mixture. If there’s any oil still floating on top of your wet mixture, keep mixing! Conversely, when you add that wet mixture into the dry mixture, only mix it enough so that everything is combined and there are no lumps. Over-mixing your batter will give you a tough loaf of pumpkin bread!
- Let your loaf cool all the way. I know it’s very tempting to cut into your vegan pumpkin bread right after it comes out of the oven, but the texture won’t be perfect if you don’t allow it to cool completely. Resist the temptation!
Storing Leftover Pumpkin Bread
Leftover pumpkin bread can be stored covered on the counter for about 3 days. If you want to freeze your loaf, cut into slices before placing in one layer in a freezer-safe storage bag. It will last about 3 months in the freezer. To defrost, just pop in the microwave until warmed-through.
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Vegan Pumpkin Bread
Video
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups pumpkin purée (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1/2 cup neutral oil such as sunflower oil
- 1 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk or any plant milk
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (or sub 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice for *all* of the spices)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Option 1: Glaze
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 tablespoon plant milk
Option 2: Chocolate Chips
- 3/4 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Lightly grease a 9"x5" loaf pan. (I also like to line with parchment so it's easy to lift the loaf out of the pan, but this is optional.)
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together soy milk and apple cider vinegar. Set aside for about 5 minutes to let curdle. (Depending on the type of milk you use, it may not visibly curdle. That's ok.)
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and all spices.
- To the bowl with the curdled soy milk, add the pumpkin purée, oil, brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla. Whisk until everything is well-combined and the oil is integrated into the mixture (i.e. not floating on top).
- Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture about 1/2 at a time, stirring between each addition, taking care not to over-mix.
- If you are adding chocolate chips to your pumpkin bread, gently fold them in at this point.
- Pour batter into your prepared loaf pan and bake on the middle rack for 55-65 minutes. Every oven is different, so keep an eye on it. When ready, it should spring back when gently poked. A toothpick or knife in the center of the cake should come out clean (or with just a few moist crumbs). Add extra time in 5 minute increments if needed.
- Let cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool fully.
Icing (optional)
- Wait for the loaf to cool completely before adding the glaze, otherwise it will melt rather than harden.
- Sift powdered sugar into a bowl. Add milk and vanilla extract and whisk together until the sugar is dissolved. Drizzle over the loaf. It will can up to 30 min for the icing to fully set but you can dig in right away.
This is seriously one of the best desserts I’ve ever had!! Genuinely tasted better than non-vegan pumpkin bread I’ve had. It’s so moist and light, it’s able to hold structure incredibly well (once cooled) and tastes absolutely phenomenal. 100% making again (and again, and again). Seriously this was amazing 👏
I made mine with gluten free flour and added chocolate chips. It was SO easy to assemble and only took me about 20 minutes. It needs to be completely cool before you take it out of the pan or it will kinda fall apart, definitely don’t skip that step.
Due to allergies in the house I made this gluten free. I used Bob’s Red Mill as the gluten free flour. I used oat milk in place of soy milk and added a bit of Oatly cream cheese to the frosting. Turned out perfect. I definitely recommend this recipe!!
absolutely delicious. this batter comes out so airy and fluffy, and it rose an incredible amount in the oven. the flavor is out of this world- it was hard to wait for this to cool down. definitely my new go-to pumpkin bread recipe.
Hi Sarah,
I just wanted to say that I made this Pumpkin bread on Friday, and it’s serious one of the best breads I’ve made to date. And I’ve been vegetarian/vegan for almost 40 years. I appreciate your recipes. The vegan pumpkin scones were also really good. Thanks for the great recipes!
Made this twice already. So heavenly! I got my whole family hooked on it 😊
Delicious. Will be making again.
I’m WFPB OIL-FREE. I can substitute applesauce for the oil. Will coconut sugar be ok to sub for the brown sugar?
Perfect recipe for non bakers like us. Easy to follow and detailed steps. Thanks for bringing a little bit of fall feeling to us. Greatings from Bavaria
Best pumpkin bread ever!
This was phenomenal! I live in Australia and we can’t get canned pumpkin, so I used leftover roasted butternut pumpkin (squash) topped up with a little applesauce to make up the measurement. It came out perfect, all recipes I’ve tried of yours are winners.
Wow, I made this for a party and it was an absolute HIT! They couldn’t stop raving about how yummy it was and we were all sad there were no leftovers to bring home. It is so moist and just the right amount of pumpkin and spices. I used the 3/4 cup chocolate chips and am going to make another one tomorrow – it’s that good!!!
Amazing pumpkin bread! I would suggest a touch more salt and a touch more spice (I used rounded measurements), but this is otherwise perfect. I also converted to metric:
* 1 1/4 cups pumpkin purée (not pumpkin pie filling) or 310 g
96 grams or 1/2 cup neutral oil such as sunflower oil
* ▢ 238 g or 1 cup dark brown sugar packed
* ▢ 50 grams or 1/4 cup white sugar
* ▢ 187 g or 3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk or any plant milk
* ▢ 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
* ▢ 11 g —2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* ▢ 280 g or 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
did not convert for spices/baking powder and soda/salt
This pumpkin bread recipe is my new go-to! It’s incredibly moist and flavorful. I’ve gifted it to several family members, and they all finished off their loaves in a couple of days and asked for more.
I make this pumpkin bread every fall and its always a hit!
Some mods I make in case it helps anyone else out:
– I dont keep vanilla on hand, so I skip this addition
– I use almond milk instead of soy
– I use vegetable oil as my neural oil of choice
– Omitted cloves since I don’t keep them on hand
– Skipped out on the glaze and chocolate chips
– With my remaining pumpkin puree, like Sarah so smartly recommend I made a smoothie by combining it with ice, almond milk, one banana, protein powder and a dash of pumpkin spice in a blender!
Sarah!! This recipe is wonderful! I’m European, so pumpkin-centric desserts are not a thing here. I love your videos and recipes however, and really wanted to try something typically American; thankfully, that resulted in this delicious pumpkin bread. 🙂 thank you for this recipe and many others!