Vegan Brioche Bread Recipe (2024)

This vegan brioche bread adapts the authentic French brioche bread with no eggs, no butter, or milk.

It is a fluffy, soft, and lightly sweet bread perfect for vegan breakfast toast.

Table of contents

As a French couple, we had to share a vegan brioche recipe on the blog.

We were born and raised snacking on brioche as kids, so now this is the version we share with our kids on the weekend.

Is Brioche Vegan?

No, a classic brioche is not vegan. It is made with butter, eggs, and dairy milk.

Most commercial brioches are similarly made with animal-based ingredients and reaching the same texture requires a very specific recipe

If you want to get that taste and texture, follow our recipe below!

How To Make Vegan Brioche

The good news is that it’s pretty easy to make your own vegan brioche bread at home with only simple plant-based ingredients.

Below I am guiding you step by step on how to make this classic French brioche vegan!

Ingredients

Before starting any vegan baking recipes, I recommend measuring all your ingredients in individual bowls for precision.

Remember that this recipe is tested using all-purpose flour, and it doesn’t work with flour substitutes like gluten-free flour blends, almond flour, or coconut flour.

The ingredients you need to make this fluffy vegan brioche bread are:

• All-Purpose flour – also known as bread flour or white flour. Again, don’t swap the flour for any other flour, or the recipe will be a big fail! You need regular white-wheat flour for this recipe or spelt flour but don’t even try almond flour or coconut flour. It will not work at all. Also, note that my trials with all-purpose gluten-free flours didn’t come out great. The brioche won’t rise or get fluffy, so I don’t recommend that either.
• Soy Milk – this is the best choice to make a moist, soft and fluffy vegan brioche. You can use oat milk or almond milk with different results, mostly a drier crumb.
• Sugar – you can use any sugar. Unrefined cane sugar is my favorite or coconut sugar, but this option adds a lightly dark color to the brioche.
• Apple Cider Vinegar – or lemon juice or white vinegar.
• Active Dried Yeast – Learn why yeast is vegan.
• Vegan Butter – or light olive oil or coconut oil, but oil usually makes the brioche very dense, so it’s not my favorite choice for a soft fluffy center.
• Salt

Activating The Yeast

The first step to making brioche is to feed the dried active yeast with sugar into a lukewarm mixture of soy milk, vanilla, and melted vegan butter.

To warm the milk, you can either use a microwave or a non-stick saucepan.

Keep in mind that you want lukewarm milk. Think bath temperature 98°F (37°C), not boiling milk. This would ‘kill’ the yeast.

Combine the ingredients above into the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk with a fork, and set aside 10 minutes.

Kneading Brioche Dough

Next, sift flour and salt into the bowl and place the dough hook on the stand mixer. Then, knead the dough for 6 minutes or until the dough is soft and tacky but doesn’t stick to the bowl’s bottom.

If it sticks to the bottom of the bowl, it means you need more flour.

Add 12 tablespoons of extra flour one at a time until the dough is soft and doesn’t stick to the bowl.

Rising The Dough

Finally, transfer the dough into a large mixing bowl oiled with olive oil or coconut oil. The oil prevents the dough from sticking to the bowl.

Then, cover the bowl with a piece of parchment paper and top with a clean kitchen towel.

Place the bowl in a warm room or into a preheated oven at 110°F (40°C) for 45 minutes or up to 1 hour.

You know the dough is ready when it has doubled in size.

Kneading Brioche Dough

When the dough has doubled in size, push down with floured hands and transfer onto a floured surface.

Knead the dough for 1 minute bringing the extremity of the dough ball to the center and pressing with your palm to knead the dough evenly.

If the dough sticks, sprinkle extra flour onto it.

Braiding The Dough

Divide the dough into 3 equal portions and form balls.

Then, roll each ball into 9 inches long cylinder/tubes. Bring the three tubes of dough together by their extremity and pinch to seal.

Start braiding tightly but don’t pull on the dough tubes, or you would overextend them.

Pinch the extremity of the dough when you reach the end. You will end up with a long braid, longer than your 9-inch loaf pan.

To fit the pan, tuck under the extra dough from the extremities under the loaf to fit the loaf pan.

Second Rise

Place the braided dough into a loaf pan covered with parchment paper. Then, cover the top of the pan with a clean kitchen towel and raise for 20 minutes or 30 minutes.

Baking

In a small mixing bowl, mix melted vegan butter and a pinch of turmeric to mimic egg color.

Use a pastry brush to brush the top of the brioche and bake in a preheated oven at 180C/350F for 35-45 minutes.

The vegan brioche is cooked through when the top is golden brown, and a skewer inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.

Cooling Down

Flip over the brioche on a wire rack and cool at room temperature for at least 2 hours before slicing or overnight.

Serving Vegan Brioche

This vegan brioche makes a delicious breakfast, served plain or with jam, peanut butter, or vegan butter.

You can also use this vegan brioche recipe to make French toast.

However, I recommend slicing the brioche and letting the slices harden for a few days at room temperature before using it for vegan French toast.

In fact, this brioche is very fluffy and soft, and the French toasts taste better if the bread has had time to firm up.

Storing Vegan Brioche

This is an egg-free brioche recipe, so it stores very well at room temperature as soon as it’s stored in a sealed container.

You can keep it fresh for up to 4 days in a cake box or freeze slices in zip-lock bags for later.

Thaw the vegan brioche slices the day before at room temperature.

Can I Make Vegan Brioche Buns With This Recipe?

Yes, you can use this recipe to make buns or vegan brioche hamburger buns.

However, I would recommend decreasing the sugar to 2 tablespoons for a savory bun.

Then, divide the entire dough into 8 or 10 balls. Then, place each ball onto a baking tray covered with oiled parchment paper.

As for the brioche bread, always rise a second time for 30-45 minutes and bake until golden brown.

Your friend, Carine