Here comes another amazing vegan recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I can assure you that this is the best eggless/vegan blueberry muffins one can bake.
It's as light as an angel food cake made with only egg whites. You can imagine how light that cake would be.
So these eggless blueberry muffins which use vinegar as an egg substitute are also equally light and airy.
I used apple cider vinegar this time and got no aftertaste or smell from the vinegar. I personally feel that white vinegar has an aftertaste and smell.
I have made this vegan blueberry recipe a couple of times with many variations in using different flavors and ingredients, yet the recipe yields perfect muffins every time. I have used lemon zest, orange zest, orange juice, rice milk, and almond milk for flavorings and the liquid portion. I prefer these eggless blueberry muffins with orange flavoring the most.
I have always loved the combination of blueberry and orange. This orange blueberry bread is another best example of how lovely this combination is.
In my early days of venturing into vegan baking, I have used soy milk as a vegan substitute for dairy milk and have always felt that soy milk tends to give a rubbery texture to the baked treat. I don't know if it's just me or if others have felt it too.
That's the reason I have stopped using soy milk and these days mainly use rice milk and almond milk. Bot these non-dairy kinds of milk don't affect the texture.
I have another version of these muffins which uses whole wheat pastry flour, flax meal, maple syrup - healthy vegan blueberry muffins.
How to make vegan blueberry muffins?
Here is the step-by-step pictorial recipe on how to make fluffy vegan blueberry muffins from scratch:
Top Tip
This vegan blueberry muffin recipe is one of the most tried recipes from the blog and I get a lot of questions asking for substitutions and many other things. I have tried to answer it all either individually or consolidating similar questions and created one below.
So please take some time to go through all the questions and answers before trying the recipe or before repeating the same question in the comments section. Thank you.
Recipe
Vegan Blueberry Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour (I used bleached)
- 1 and ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Lemon/orange Zest
- ¾ to 1 cup Sugar
- 1 cup any non-dairy milk
- ⅓ cup any oil with neutral flavor
- 1 teaspoon vanilla/lemon/orange extract (optional)
- 1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 and ½ cups Fresh OR Frozen Blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F/200C (see My Notes) for 15 minutes. Lightly grease a muffin tin.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and orange zest.
- Combine the sugar, milk, oil, extract, and vinegar in a large bowl. Mix well.
- Add the dry and wet ingredients to stir until just combined. Don't over-stir.
- Gently fold in the berries using a rubber spatula.
- Fill the muffin tins about ⅔rds full.
- Bake at 400F for about 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 375F and bake for another 7-8 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let it cool for 5 minutes. After that remove the muffins from the tins and cool on a wire rack.
Taste & Texture
Nutrition
Recipe FAQs
I know that it's easy to get tempted to replace the oil/fat in a baking recipe with applesauce to make it fat-free, but that would result in dense and dry muffins. It won’t be as airy as using oil alone. So I would suggest just replacing half the quantity of oil with applesauce.
Since the acidic content of lemon juice is less when compared to vinegar you might have to double the quantity of vinegar. For example, if a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of vinegar, use 2 teaspoons of lemon juice.
Lemon zest is nothing but grating the skin of the lemon. Care should be taken so that the inner white sheet from the skin does not peel away because it will be bitter. Lemon extract is like vanilla, and almond extract is in liquid form.
I wouldn't say that it's compulsory, but it will give these blueberry muffins a nice flavor without baking powder. You may choose to use orange zest/extract instead of simply vanilla extract will be good too.
Opening the oven door quite too often while it is baking makes cold air enter the oven and might be the reason for the muffins to sink. Another reason is that you used too much batter for each muffin.
No it doesn’t work like that. You would have to use Xanathan gum. I haven't baked this recipe gluten-free and have read that simply substituting the all-purpose flour with gluten-free flour would not work especially in baked goods that have to rise, like muffins, cupcakes, and cakes. Brownies and cookies should not be that much of a problem to bake gluten-free and can be done without xanthan gum.
Gluten-free and egg free is a lot of trial and error methods only. But some of the readers did mention that they tried this recipe gluten-free using rice flour and gluten-free mix (which already has the xantham gum in it). You may try it at your discretion. I will try to bake a gluten-free version shortly and blog about it soon.
Certainly you can. Just use dairy milk and if you prefer butter, melted butter instead of oil. One of the readers suggested that the muffins turn out better if oil is used instead of melted butter though.
Any oil that has a neutral flavor. Peanut oil, sunflower oil, (refined) coconut oil, avocado oil, etc could work on this homemade vegan blueberry muffins recipe.
You can try it at 350F but bake it a few minutes longer.
Halving the recipe may not work out always. It's again for you to experiment and see. Another option is to bake all the muffins and freeze the remaining and use it later. If you decide to halve the recipe and use a 12-cup pan, then you will have to fill the rest of the cups with little water so that the muffins will bake evenly and doesn’t get dried out.
You can try a flaxseed meal, but I’m pretty sure the muffins won’t be as airy and light as those with lemon and vinegar. You can blend a teaspoon of flaxseed meal with 3 tablespoons of warm water.
There are a couple of reasons for this:
1) If you try to peel off the wrapper while the muffins are still warm
2) If you make it low-fat or fat-free
3) If you don't lightly grease the liners with non-stick cooking spray.
The temperature does not change, but you need to bake it for a shorter time than you would bake regular-sized muffins. Somewhere between 12-15 minutes.
I have explained it in detail here: Why does fruit sink to bottom of the cake?
Rice milk is derived from cooked white/brown rice. You can use any other non-dairy milk like almond milk, oat milk, hemp milk, etc. I personally don't prefer using soy milk because it gives a sticky texture to the baked goods. For vegan baking, my choice is either rice milk or almond milk.
Yes you can use any other berries or fruits of your choice. Or even add-ons like nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruits, etc.
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Jewel05 says
I made these with my mom for our Valentine's Day brunch. They were DELICIOUS! The blueberries burst in your mouth. We added turbinado sugar on top for that extra goodness, sweetness and crunch. To find a recipe that is eggless and dairy free that I can enjoy is amazing!!!
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Jewel. 🙂
Michelle Lim says
My batter turned out tacky and sticky.. not sure what happened. Is it normal? They are in the oven now I hope they turn out fine!
Kelly says
Made these for my egg allergic son and we think they're delicious. I'm forever on the hunt for decent eggless cakes and have become disheartened over the past couple of years with the terrible results I've had from recipes people have recommended but these are brilliant! I'm going to try a different recipe for the next week's play date and hopefully it'll be just as good as this! Thank you!
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Kelly and thank you very much for taking the time for the feedback.
Penny says
Loved this recipe, we like large muffins so instead of 12 made 6 just increased cooking time by approx. 10 minutes. Also omitted the lemon zest and extract. Thank you.
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Penny. 🙂
Robin says
I made these this morning and they were yummy! I added walnuts and cinnamon and used whole wheat flour. I used a cup and a half of flour so they wouldn't be too dense.
Madhuram says
That's great Robin.
Bharat Jadav says
I made this for weekend and everybody simply loved it! Best Vegan Muffin ever 🙂
Madhuram says
Thanks Bharat. 🙂
Paul says
This is a fantastic recipe. I'm suddenly turning to vegan recipes due to a loved one's changes in diet. It's a new way of cooking and this recipe is perfect. You don't miss the eggs, they are as fluffy as angel food, and it adapts easily. I substituted three medium overripe bananas, blackberries, and to any version add 1 tsp of vanilla and press turbinado sugar into the top, which carmelizes and hardens especially in the banana version. Thank you!
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Paul. Your version sounds great too. 🙂
Jacqueline says
I just wanted to tell you how impressed I am with this! So light and fluffy! My daughter was diagnosed with a very severe egg allergy and this website has been a life saver. It's been hard trying to find eggless things for her to eat that actually taste like they are supposed to! I appreciate the suggestions since I am re-learning how to cook!
Madhuram says
Thanks Jacqueline. 🙂
Rhondag812 says
I was running out of ingredients so I found this eggless recipe, I used a cup and half of flour and half cup of oatmeal, when I went for the milk I had found that I was out of that to, but I did have some pina colada mix (no alcohol) so I used that at half of cup mixed with a half cup water, lol. smells really good, batter tasted great, so looking forward to tasting these.` Will be right back with you when these are cooled. Okay I'm back and WOW!!! these turned out amazing, thank you so much for this great recipe and I will definitely be using this one again, they are golden brown and the pina colada mix gave them a slight coconut flavor so no need for lemon zest or vanilla. The oatmeal gave them a little fiber and made them a little more chewy which I like. Thanks again!
Madhuram says
Haa..haa..Pina Colada muffins...sounds very good. 🙂
Heidi says
Madhuram, how much apple sauce should I use in place of the oil? Thanks!
Madhuram says
I would probably go with 50/50 of each, that way the muffins are not too dense.
shyam says
Hi,
Wow this looks great . I wanted to know if I could use lemon juice instead of vinegar.
Madhuram says
Yes you can, but you might want to use twice the quantity of vinegar.
Heidi says
These are delicious and I liked how airy and light they came out. Would they still be airy if I replaced the oil with apple sauce? If I do replace it, how much apple sauce do you recommend?
First batch I used 1 lemon for zest and lemon juice instead of extract (since I didn't have any extract). They came out with a heavy lemon flavor.
So the second batch I didn't use any lemon ingredients and used 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.
That came out tasting too much like vanilla.
I'm new to baking.... does the lemon zest add a lemony flavor?
I'm thinking to use one lemon for zest and no extract of either kind.....what do you think? Let me know what you recommend so they don't taste lemony or have a heavy vanilla flavor! thanks!
Madhuram says
Thanks Heidi. The muffins will be dense if you use applesauce. It won't be as airy as using oil alone. Yes lemon zest will add a lemony flavour to the muffins. And a tablespoon of vanilla is too much. Just a teaspoon should be fine, so that it doesn't have a heavy vanilla flavour. Zest of one lemon and a teaspoon of vanilla should be enough to infuse a lovely flavour to the muffins.
Tracy says
These were good, but I wonder if it should have been baking POWDER versus baking soda like the recipe called for. I could taste the baking soda. I also added a bit more soy milk as the batter was quite thick.
Madhuram says
Hmm..I usually don't taste it.
Midge Van Etten says
I made these for a vegan friend. Unfamiliar with vegan baking I was sure they would be less than tasty. Boy was I wrong. Throwing away my blueberry recipe, these are so light and delicious I made a second batch for our house. The only substitution I made was brown sugar for the white, and added vanilla extract because I had no lemon zest. Delish!
Madhuram says
Thanks for the feedback Midge. 😀
Preety mohata says
i really like the recipe.. im making it tonight for my daughter, she loves blueberries, i am using dry blueberries though.
Madhuram says
That should not be a problem Preety.
Nidhi says
Thank you so much for all the great recipes. I have tried a couple of them and they have been great, but I tried these blueberry muffins and they have an aftertaste of the baking soda. Do you think I did something wrong? Or do you have any tips to cancel the aftertaste? (And I had done everything exactly according to the recipe).
Thank you!
Madhuram says
Hmmm...this recipe I have tried so many times, so I'm really surprised.
Lynne says
Thank you so much for this website!! I stumbled across it this evening as I was looking for instructions for making muffins without eggs. I'm so excited to see so many recipes! I am at the 20-minute mark with these muffins in the oven. They smell wonderful. But they are sunken in the middle. I used cranberries instead of blueberries. Do you know what might have gone wrong? Thanks so much!
Madhuram says
Did you open the oven door in the middle while it was baking? If cold air enters in the oven muffins usually sink. Another reason can be that you used little too much batter for each muffin.
neha batra says
hi, if i want to make them gluten free also can i use finger millet flour or almond meal.
Madhuram says
No it doesn't work like that Neha. You would have to use xanathan gum. Gluten-free and egg free is a lot of trial and error method only.
Jenni says
Excellent!!! The muffins came out exactly as described and my family loved them!! I did everything exactly except no lemon extract - the zest added an amazing flavor. Thank you so much!
Madhuram says
You're welcome Jenni.
Michelle says
I must say .. These came out great! I changed it up a bit, i used spelt flour instead and coconut sugar instead of regular 3/4 cup , I used almond oil, almond milk and didn't have blueberries on hand so used a mix of frozen fruit.. Grapes, peaches strawberries it came out great !
Madhuram says
Thanks Michelle, now I too want to try it with spelt flour.
Phillip says
1/3 canola oil has about 70 grams fat! I made some
blueberry muffins today and the only added fat
I used was a tablespoon of granular lecithin to
soften the texture. I did use 1.25 cups soy
yogurt which has about 8g fat. Using whole wheat
pastry flour and sifting the dry ingredients made
for a light weight tasty muffin without all the
fat.
suresh says
great item Everyone should try it please send recipe of more items like this one suresh@q8living.com
DeeDee says
Delicious... best vegan muffins ever.
Madhuram says
Thanks Dee.
Reader says
What changes do I need to do if I want a non-vegan eggless version?
Madhuram says
Just use dairy milk and if you prefer butter, melted butter instead of oil.
Gemma says
Just add 1 cup of animal milk. I'd suggest still using oil, not butter, because the oil is taking the place of the eggs, and the butter is way too heavy to do that.
Ravi says
Hi,
If I want to try this with dairy, do I just need to replace canola with butter? What about vinegar? is lemon zest still required?
Whats the difference between this and using your silken tofu based blueberry pound cake recipe for muffins?
Madhuram says
Hi yes you can replace the oil with equal amount of melted butter and still would need vinegar. These muffins would be lighter than the pound cake.
Veronica says
I've made these 3 times so far with baking powder instead of baking soda. They are really, really good. There's another batch in the oven with choc chips instead of blueberries 🙂 Thanks for the recipe.
Madhuram says
You're welcome Veronica. Baking powder instead of baking soda!? Really?
Jessica says
My boys have life-threatening food allergies to a number of things, including eggs. Do you know how hard it is to find a good egg-free muffin recipe that is actually delicious?? This is the first one that I would definitely make again. The lemon zest adds that something special. They are so light!!! This will forever be my go-to muffin recipe. Thank you!
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Jessica. I'm so glad that you like it.
Marie Frank says
Hey Eve---try almond, flaxseed or hazelnut milk-all delicious!
Also, as an egg substitute-1 TBLS flaxseed mixed with 2 1/2 TBLS water-let sit for 5 minutes.
Maggie says
hi! this looks great! do you have the nutritional information for the muffins?
Madhuram says
Sorry Maggie, I don't have it.
Eve says
Wow, cannot wait to try these, my husband and I have not eaten meat in a month and I wanted to make blueberry muffins and thought I couldn't without eggs! Thank you so much for the info, will be exploring the whole site next! I still use regular 2% milk, as soy milk hurts my stomach and I am mostly just trying not to eat meat for now, so I will be trying this with 2%!
Madhuram says
You're welcome Eve.
melissa hanna says
These are great!!! Just like muffins when I could eat egg and dairy. The recipe is super easy. I didn't have a lemon so I did vanilla extract and a squirt of lemon juice. Still yummy. Thanks so much for sharing!!
Madhuram says
Thanks for the feedback Melissa.
Ariel says
Very nice recipe have a lot of compliments from even non-vegans :). Used gluten free flour and tasted great
Recommend 21 minutes as I felt mine were too well done after 2 tries
Thank you
Madhuram says
That's great to know it works with gluten-free flour too. Thanks Ariel.
rose says
Hi Madhuram I made these muffins they were great. I used frozen mixed berries , rice milk because it was all I had. I put splash of vanilla as no lemon in the house. Put a bit more flour as seemed runnny but berries seemed to thicken it up. Would make again maybe try lemon. Thank you. Rose
Madhuram says
You're welcome Rose.
Rose says
Hi recipe looks good. Can I use vanilla instead of lemon zest? What oil can I use instead of canola as don't have any. Thank you.
Madhuram says
Yes you can use vanilla or even orange zest. Any oil of your choice.
Cathy G. says
I made these muffins this morning and they are delicious!
I used orange zest instead of lemon because that's what I had on my trees. Also about a tbs. of orange juice rather than the lemon extract since the orange was already zested. And I added about 2 tbls. toasted flax seeds from Trader Joes to bump up the fiber etc. My daughter who is a fairly new vegan loved them and also liked the flax seed addition which surprised me.
Thank you for a great, easy recipe!
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Cathy.
NS says
Hi Madhuram,
Another wonderful recipe from you.
Just one question - would you recommend baking these muffins at 350 F? I have just started baking and I have not used anything more than 350. So I was just wondering if 350F would be okay. Will it involve baking for a longer time then? Also I plan to do just 6 muffins.
Thanks.
Madhuram says
You can try it at 350F but bake it a couple of minutes longer. If you are using a 12 cup pan then you will have to fill the rest of the cups with little water so that the muffins will bake evenly and doesn't get dried out.
Sonia says
Loved the muffins..my 6 yr old loved it too!!
Madhuram says
Thank you very much Sonia.
Garima Narera says
Hi Madhuram
Loved the info on egg substitutes and am very excited to see so many eggless recipes. Great!
We don't get fresh or frozen blueberries easily. Can I try with rehydrated blueberries?
Thanks.
Garima
Madhuram says
Thanks Garima. I think it would work. Or you can just use the dried ones too.
Rupa Lakshminarayan says
Hi Madhu
can we use silken tofu and yogurt in this recide
if so wat would be the measurement ?
i tried your other blueberry cake with the sliken tofu and it was phenomenol
want to repeat the same here
thanks
- Rupa
Madhuram says
Hi Rupa, this recipe doesn't have enough room to incorporate the tofu and yogurt. Maybe 2 tablespoons of each and reduce the quantity of milk by 1/2 cup and add it at the end as needed. But please give the original recipe a try and I assure that you will love it.
Fiona says
Hello, I want to try this recipe but I didn't have canola oil and they didn't have it in the supermarket either so I bought sunflower oil instead, is it okay?
ASAP thank you!
Madhuram says
Any oil is fine Fiona.
Judy says
can i use coconut flour imstead of all purpose???? if so, do i just put in the same amount?
Madhuram says
No Judy, it doesn't work like that. I wish it did too because then gluten-free baking would become so easy. You would need xanathan gum to make the muffins rise or at least eggs.
Pragna Vijay says
Amazing results! Texture and taste- both excellent!
Madhuram says
Thanks Pragna.
stara says
Is it okay to use flax seed meal instead of lemon and vinegar? If so, can you please suggest the amount of flaxseed meal? Thanks
Madhuram says
You can try flax seed meal but I'm pretty sure that the muffins won't be as airy and as light as the ones with lemon and vinegar. You can try blending a teaspoon of flax seed meal with 3 tablespoons of warm water.
Angelina says
These muffins were phenomenal and I used whole wheat flour instead of white flour.
Madhuram says
Thanks Angelina.
Baksho says
Can you use lemon juice in this recipe just so you don't waste the lemon? Can the lemon juice be used in place of the lemon extract or vinegar?
Madhuram says
Yes you can use it instead of the vinegar, but you would have to double the quantity.
Nicole says
Just tried this recipe. Loved the texture, but got a "baking soda" aftertaste. Any suggestions? I didn't have any lemons, so omitted the zest . As for substitutes, I used almond milk (instead of milk), vanilla extract (instead of lemon extract)and apple cider vinegar (instead of regular vinegar). Also tossed in some walnuts.
Madhuram says
I have never had any problem with this recipe. Are you sure you didn't mix up baking powder with baking soda or increase the quantity of baking soda by chance?
Diane says
Nicole, I also had the aftertaste and used baking powder instead. The results were perfect! I make these muffins often, so grateful for Madhuram's amazing recipes.
Diane says
I forgot to add, I omitted the baking soda and replaced it with baking powder.
Arienne says
Love this recipe!
I did not have some of the ingredients so i used:
1/2cup of passionfruit instead of blueberry
corn flour instead of all purpose flour
erythritol instead of sugar
almond milk instead of rice milk
sun flour oil instead of canola oil
I didn't use any lemon zest cause I didn't have any.
I added a little vanilla and almond flavor to it
Madhuram says
It's great to know that the muffins turned out great even after all the changes you made.
Debby says
I just made these and they're yum,i've never made anything vegan before think i will do more often now that i've made these.....thanks for the recipe
Madhuram says
You're welcome Debby.