The perfect vegan blueberry muffins! These muffins are soft, sweet, perfectly moist, and filled with fresh blueberries in every bite. Made with a hint of lemon to take these muffins to the next level.
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This post was originally published on March 2, 2015. Last updated on July 13th, 2020
My first baking job was the best job I’ve had to date. Well, with the exception of this job. In my time as a baker, I fell absolutely in love with the process, the environment, and the practice of baking and patisserie.
I originally published this vegan blueberry muffin recipe over 6 years ago. Since then, it has become the most popular recipe on my website, BY FAR. You people LOVE these vegan muffins.
I get it. These vegan muffins are soft, perfectly moist, and flavored with a hint of lemon. Beyond that, they are wildly versatile. Take a look through the comment section of this recipe and you’ll learn how to make these muffins gluten-free, without refined sugar, soy-free, and so many other ways!
With all the love these vegan muffins get, I figured it was time to give them a new look.
Recipe Video
Recommended Ingredients & Equipment
I love this recipe and I think you will too! These vegan muffins are moist, rich, and bursting with blueberries and lemon zest in every bite. They are the perfect morning pastry or a midday snack.
Ingredient Notes
- Non-Dairy Milk – I recommend soy milk because it curdles the best. Almond milk will often curdle but not as well. This may affect the overall texture of the muffin.
- Apple Cider Vinegar – This is my vinegar of choice when making vegan buttermilk (vinegar + soymilk) but white vinegar, white wine vinegar, and lemon juice are great alternatives.
- All-Purpose Flour – For healthier flour options, you can use 1:1 gluten-free flour blends, buckwheat, or spelt flour.
- Granulated Sugar – Check out my guide to vegan sugars and alternative sugar replacements. For a healthier sugar alternative, I recommend coconut sugar.
- Oil – This recipe calls for canola oil because it creates the best texture without added flavor. If you want to avoid hydrogenated oils, try avocado or melted coconut oil. Olive oil also works but adds a slightly savory flavor. If you want to eliminate the oil altogether, swap it out for the same amount of applesauce.
- Fresh Lemon – If you don’t like lemon, this can be omitted.
- Fresh Blueberries – If you don’t have fresh blueberries, check out my Tips & Tricks to find out how to replace them with frozen berries.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step One – Combine the Ingredients
To start, we must first make our “buttermilk”. To do this, mix together soymilk with 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and set it aside for 5 minutes to curdle. Once it’s curdled, whisk in the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and lemon zest.
Pro Tip: The curdled milk helps give these muffins rise and texture. While other types of non-dairy milk will do, I find that soy milk curdles the best.
In a small bowl whisk together the dry ingredients. That’s the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk until it’s well combined and set aside. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until all the flour is evenly hydrated.
Step Two – Fold in the Blueberries
Once the batter is made, we want to gently fold in the blueberries. The goal with folding is to get the blueberries fully incorporated into the batter without overmixing the batter or breaking apart the berries.
To do this, use a wooden spoon or plastic spatula and fold the batter from bottom to top in a “C” shape.
Step Three – Bake the Muffins
Scoop your batter into a greased muffin tin. Fill each muffin mold about 3/4 of the way full and bake for 20-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Pro Tip: I find that using an ice cream scoop is the cleanest and easiest way to get the batter into the muffin molds. With an ice cream scoop, you can ensure the muffins are equally sized as well.
Remove the muffins from the oven and let them cool in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before flipping out to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Serving And Storing
Serving – Serve these vegan muffins immediately. They come out of the oven warm, buttery, and hard to resist!
Storing – Store leftover muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. You can also freeze these muffins for up to 2 months. To thaw, pull the muffins from the freezer and let them thaw at room temperature for several hours.
Tips And Tricks
- The most accurate way to measure flour is to spoon it into your measuring cup, leveling it off with the back of a knife.
- Do not overmix your batter. Overmixing allows the gluten to develop and too much gluten will give you gummy and dense muffins.
- If you are using frozen berries, thaw the berries in a colander by running them under room temperature water. Let the berries sit for 30 minutes for any excess water and juice to run off them. Pat them dry with a paper towel before adding them to your batter.
- Fill muffin tins about 3/4″ of the way full. Any fuller than that and they will overflow.
- Bake the muffins until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the tops are golden brown.
- Make sure to let the muffins sit in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before flipping them out to a wire cooling rack. Otherwise, the muffins may fall apart.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. While I choose soy milk because it curdles so well, many people have had success with almond milk, oat milk, and cashew milk as well.
For sure! For gluten-free muffins, I recommend using a 1:1 Baking Flour Blend. (<<affiliate link)
Sure. If you would like to make this recipe oil-free, simply swap out the oil for additional applesauce at a 1:1 ratio.
If you are using frozen berries, thaw the berries in a colander by running them under room temperature water. Let the berries sit for 30 minutes for any excess water and juice to run off them. Pat them dry with a paper towel before adding them to your batter.
I recommend coconut sugar. Other readers have replaced the sugar with 1/2 cup maple syrup or simply reduced the sugar by 25%-50% with great success. Check out my complete guide to vegan sugar for more ideas.
If you want to make this muffin batter in advance, store the batter in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours.
To bake the muffins, preheat the oven and bake according to the instructions. However, these muffins may take a few minutes longer to bake since the batter will be chilled. The muffins will also be slightly denser as the baking soda begins to activate once it’s mixed into the batter, causing it to be slightly less potent.
Do you still have a question? If so, make sure to check out the comments below. This recipe has over 500 comments, including answers to frequently asked questions, common substitutions, and more!
More Vegan Muffin Recipes
- Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
- Healthy Vegan Banana Muffins
- Pumpkin Muffins
- Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
- Chocolate Chip Muffins
And make sure to check out all my muffin & pastry recipes.
Vegan Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup soy milk
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup + 2tbsp. granulated sugar
- ¼ cup + 2 tbsp. canola oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest of 1 lemon
- 1½ – 2 cups fresh blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a small bowl combine soy milk and apple cider vinegar. Set aside to allow milk to curdle.
- In a larger bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, canola oil, lemon zest, and vanilla extract. Add soy milk/vinegar mixture and stir to combine. Stir in the dry ingredients until well incorporated. Be careful not to over-mix – a few lumps are okay. Gently fold in the blueberries.
- Spoon into muffin tins, filling each cup about ¾ full. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Remove from heat and allow muffins to cool before removing from pan.
Video
Notes
- Can I use something other than soy milk? Yes. While I choose soy milk because it curdles so well, many people have had success with almond milk, oat milk, and cashew milk as well.
- Can I make this recipe gluten-free? For sure! For gluten-free muffins, I recommend using a 1:1 Baking Flour Blend.
- Can I make these muffins oil free? Sure. If you would like to make this recipe oil-free, simply swap out the oil for additional applesauce at a 1:1 ratio.
- Can I use frozen berries? If you are using frozen berries, thaw the berries in a colander by running them under room temperature water. Let the berries sit for 30 minutes for any excess water and juice to run off them. Pat them dry with a paper towel before adding them to your batter.
- The most accurate way to measure flour is to spoon it into your measuring cup, leveling it off with the back of a knife.
- If you are using frozen berries, thaw the berries in a colander by running them under room temperature water. Let the berries sit for 30 minutes for any excess water and juice to run off them. Pat them dry with a paper towel before adding them to your batter.
- Make sure to let the muffins sit in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before flipping them out to a wire cooling rack. Otherwise, the muffins may fall apart.
Hi, I’m Sarah. I’m a 14-year (and counting) vegan, professionally trained photographer, former pastry chef, founder of My Darling Vegan, and author of the
Samantha says
Can you sub soy milk for rice milk?
Sarah says
Sure. It won’t curdle as well, but it also won’t have a major overall effect on the muffins.
lisbeth says
can you use a different kind of milk ie almond and can you use a different GF flour?and another oil, ie coconut? and can you use frozen bluebberries
Sarah says
Almond milk doesn’t curdle as well as soy, so it won’t have the buttermilk taste and texture but it will do.
I haven’t tried this recipe with anything other than a 1:1 gluten-free flour blend, so that is the only one I recommend.
Coconut oil works.
Frozen berries work but they will bleed into the batter making your batter a bit blue.
Marcy Mazur says
I will again be making these for my vegan granddaughter. She absolutely loves them. I have all of the ingredients but the soy milk. I do have almond milk. Can I use it instead?
Jacolyn Carfrae says
These are so good! I didn’t have enough canola oil so I used coconut, the batter tasted like coconut but the finished muffins don’t. Also, these muffins had a slightly buttery taste, definitely making them again!
Maraika says
Great recipe. Easy to follow. I only used 1 heaped cup of blueberries but it was enough. I got 6 Muffin size and 4 cupcake size out of mix. The recipe says zest of 1 lemon but video on this page says 1 teaspoon zest. Guess it doesn’t make much difference:) Will be a favourite to make in future.
Lydia says
Great recipe and base muffin mix. Using this recipe and subbing out the blueberries I have made lemon poppyseed, strawberry, and raspberry chocolate chip so far.
Kennya says
I started getting the ingredients together and realized I didn’t have any oil. I was so sad because I really wanted something sweet. So I remembered I had earth balance vegan butter. I melted some down and used that instead of oil. It was perfect! I also added a crumble on top made with equal parts flour and brown sugar and I cut in some earth balance into it. Then sprinkled on top. So. Good!
Thanks for the recipe!
Joshua Howard says
The best muffins ever! The ingredients are natural and the instructions are easy to follow! These natural home-made products are definitely better than the ones full of chemical Thanks for shring the recipe!
Sandhya says
This is literally one of the best vegan muffin recipes ever! I’ve tried this one twice and both times it came out so well. THANK YOU <3
Belinda says
The muffins are delicious and they look great!!! Thank you so much!!!
Kristen says
I found this recipe after struggling with (and completely ruining) another recipe from a different website…so I was a little worried about how these were going to turn out. But, they look and taste amazing! I got so many compliments when I brought them into work! I did modify this recipe a bit – I used almond milk in place of soy, unsweetened applesauce in place of canola oil (1-for-1 substitution), and frozen wild blueberries in place of fresh blueberries (but only 1 cup) and they turned out really well!! My recommendation for anyone who uses frozen blueberries is you may want to rinse and drain them first so they don’t color your muffins blue (unless that’s what your’e going for). Thank you so much for this recipe!!
Katherine Hunt says
I make these regularly for my toddler, I use whole wheat flour, reduce the sugar a little bit and I use frozen blueberries.
These freeze well too I always have some in the freezer for snacks and desserts.
Fantastic recipe thanks for sharing!
Jana says
So I tried this recipe yesterday and the result was ok, but I guess I did something wrong. The taste is great, but the texture is too moist. I did replace oil with applesauce, and soy milk with almond milk, but otherwise I followed the recipe. What I found strange is that the vinegar didn´t curdle the milk, I added even more than indicated, and then a bit of lemon juice as well, but it wouldn´t curdle. So I tried with oat milk, but it didn´t curdle either, so I just used the uncurdled almond milk. Not sure if this is why they turned out to be so moist (and also didn´t rise)… wonder what the reason is, as I’m not an experiences baker, thanks! 🙂
Alex says
Applesauce can make baked goods heavy, dense, and wet, so that may be your issue.
Katie says
These muffins are really so incredibly good! I’ve made them around 6 or so times now in the last month and I’m fully obsessed.
I’ve been substituting 2 tsp lemon extract instead of zest and baking for no more than 20 minutes. 20 minutes on the dot and they’re perfect.
Love love love
Esther says
Can you use frozen blueberries?
Maureen says
Another huge hit! I just made these with huge freshly picked blueberries. They’re delicious! Unfortunately I had no lemons and I can only imagine it takes these muffins to another level, but even without lemon they are so yummy and perfect!
Thank you Sarah! I’m truly loving your recipes!
❤️
JESSICA PEGUES says
Great recipe. The muffins taste so good. Thanks for the recipe!