Seriously the best vegan pumpkin muffins I’ve ever tasted! Perfectly spiced, soft and moist. Best of all you only need 1 bowl and 30 minutes to make them!
Vegan pumpkin muffins are perfect for fall but I could seriously eat them all year long. They are perhaps the most fluffy, moist and flavorful muffins that ever existed.
Pumpkin puree gives them that beautiful orange hue and incredible flavor, especially alongside warming autumn spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Pumpkin is also what makes these muffins SO moist and irresistible.
I love to keep a few in my freezer at all times, if I can stop myself from eating the whole batch fresh! Along with my popular Vegan Pumpkin Bread and Pumpkin Coffee Cake, these muffins are one of my favorite fall treats.
Ingredients you need (with substitutions)
- Canned pumpkin puree – I’ve never made them with fresh pumpkin, but it should work just fine. Use quality canned pumpkin for the best results.
- Melted vegan butter or oil – You only need 1/3 cup for the whole batch. I prefer the taste melted vegan butter adds, but a neutral oil works as well, such as avocado, vegetable or melted coconut oil. For oil free, substitute applesauce or non-dairy yogurt.
- Non-dairy milk – I usually use soy, but sometimes I will use almond, cashew or even oat milk. Use your favorite.
- Brown sugar – To make the muffins extra rich tasting. Feel free to use less for a less sweet muffin, or substitute coconut sugar instead.
- All purpose flour – If you need gluten free vegan muffins, use a quality gluten free mix. Almond flour will NOT work here though.
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves – If you have it, substitute 3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice mix instead.
- Add ins – Sometimes I stir in some vegan chocolate chips, chopped nuts or dried fruit. But most of the time I like to keep them purely pumpkin.
How to make pumpkin muffins
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
Prepare the muffin pan with paper liners. Spray the inside of the liners with non-stick spray. I always do this for muffins so they don’t get stuck.
In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, melted vegan butter or oil, milk and brown sugar.
Sift in the flour, baking powder, salt and spices. I use a fine mesh strainer for this. You can skip the sifting, but you may find little chunks of flour in your muffins. Not the end of the world really, but I prefer sifting here.
Stir until just combined, but do not over mix the batter or your muffins will be dense and rubbery. Stir in any optional ad ins, if using.
Fill the liners all the way to the top for nice big muffins. You should get 12 good sized muffins.
Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out with no wet batter.
It’s best to let the muffins cool for at least 30 minutes before enjoying. The flavors mingle together and settle, and the texture gets better as they sit.
How to store leftover muffins
Leftover pumpkin muffins will keep at room temperature for 3-4 days, or a week in the refrigerator. Cover them or keep in a container so they don’t dry out too fast.
You can also freeze them. Freeze in a large container or ziplock type freezer safe bag.
I love to warm them up in the microwave for 30-40 seconds or even pop them in the air fryer for a few minutes until warm. YUM!
Tips
- Add frosting! These muffins are totally sweet enough to pass as cupcakes if you swirl some Vegan Vanilla Frosting on top.
- Don’t accidentally use pumpkin pie mix! You have to use pumpkin puree, which is just plain old canned pumpkin.
- Do not over mix the batter. This is almost always the reason your muffins turn out dense and rubbery. Mix gently until just combined, and carefully fold in any optional ad ins.
- Do not over bake. This is the second reason for dry, dense muffins! Only bake them until a toothpick comes out clean.
Can I turn these muffins into pumpkin bread?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well. I tried it when testing my Vegan Pumpkin Bread and it wasn’t good. My advice? Go make that bread instead!
You can, however make mini pumpkin muffins! Bake for only 15-18 minutes.
Want more pumpkin recipes?
- Pumpkin French Toast
- Vegan Pumpkin Cake Bars
- Vegan Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Pecan Frosting
- Vegan Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
- Vegan Pumpkin Pie
And check out all my Vegan Fall Recipes!
1 Bowl Vegan Pumpkin Muffins
Ingredients
- 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
- 1/3 cup melted vegan butter OR vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup soy or almond milk, unsweetened
- 1 1/4 cups brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Optional ad ins:
- 1 cup non-dairy chocolate chips, raisins, cranberries or chopped walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and lightly grease a muffin pan. If you use paper liners, also make sure to spray the cups lightly with oil so the muffins don’t get stuck to the paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the pumpkin, melted vegan butter (or oil), non-dairy milk and brown sugar. Whisk until well combined and smooth.
- Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and spices over the wet mixture (I use a fine mesh strainer for this or use a sifter).
- Mix the dry ingredients into the wet gently using a large wooden spoon until just combined, being careful not to over mix.
- Fold in any optional ingredients, if using, and fill the muffin cups full. Bake for 22-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
- For oil free, replace the butter/oil with applesauce or non-dairy yogurt. They won’t be quite the same though.
- If you want less sweet muffins, you may lower the brown sugar amount to 3/4 cup. Or feel free to substitute coconut sugar if desired.
- For gluten free, use a quality gluten free flour mix.
- If you have pumpkin pie spice mix, you may use 3 teaspoons of it and omit the single spices. Either way works!
- These muffins freeze well, simply let them cool completely and place in a freezer bag.
Nutrition
This recipe was originally published in August 2018 and has since been republished with improved photos and writing.
Delicious! I will use less sugar next time. They were fluffy and fun. Thank you for the easy vegan recipe.
You’re welcome!
Amazing! So tasty and moist! Love them! I ommited the nutmeg and cloves as I don’t like those spices and they were just perfect!
I’m so glad they came out good!
Great muffins. Cooked our halloween pumpkin up for them 🙂
What a great idea! Glad they turned out well. 🙂
Made these 2 days in a row. My kids and husband all love them. Vegan baking had my husband raising an eyebrow at me, but one bite and he was sold. Thank you!
This is my favorite kind of comment! I love it when people discover how good vegan cooking can be. Thanks for sharing!
The muffins came out of the oven “liquidy”. I used corn oil, applesauce in place of brown sugar and almond flour in place of wheat flour. What did I do wrong?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Hi Marilyn! Unfortunately, your substitutions are the problem here. You can’t simply sub almond flour for regular flour, it doesn’t absorb liquid in the same way so you will end up with liquidy muffins. Then you added applesauce (even more liquid) which made the problem even worse. A gluten free flour mix would work, but not almond flour and I would not recommend subbing applesauce for the sugar. You could reduce the sugar, but don’t sub a liquid ingredient. Hope that helps!
Can you sub some of those spices for pumpkin spice? If so, what would be the measurements? Thanks!
Sure, I actually have a note for this in the recipe. You can sub about 3 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice mix for the spices. Thank you!
What do you think the oven temp and baking time would be for a 9×12 cake using this recipe?
Maybe 30 minutes or so? I’m not sure though as I haven’t tried it. I would check it after 30 minutes.
Delicious! Sweet enough to take away any craving for baked goodies. My 2 year old loves thes as well
Love these muffins! Thanks for the oil free suggestions!
Fantastic! Making them again today.
Why do my muffin tins always fill up way past 2/3 for every muffin recipe?? The batter was delicious! Can’t wait for the baked version to come out 🙂
Hope you enjoy the muffins! 🙂
If you sub applesauce for the oil what quantity do you use?
It’s a 1 for 1 sub, so 1/3 cup. Thanks!
I love this recipe, but would also like to make it into a loaf. I know you can’t give me exact times, but what would you say is a good ball park as to how long I should bake the loaf.
Thank-you for sharing your creations with us all. Suzie
Hi Suzie! So, I tried making the muffins into a loaf and it did not work for some reason! I would recommend making this recipe instead: Vegan Pumpkin Bread. You will have much better results! Thank you.
I made these with 3/4 cup brown sugar and added some chocolate chips. I did not have a sifter so I just mixed the dry first and added to the wet. These are AMAZING and so easy!
I just love this recipe. It is May and I still had a pumpkin sitting on my front porch! Much to my surprise it was still very very good. So I boiled it up and made this recipe. My kid and my niece and nephew and husband really loved it! So I froze the pumpkin into cup portions and every couple days I pull one out of the freezer and make this recipe. They are gone by evening. Hands down the best vegan pumpkin recipe that I have come across.
Thank you for the recipe Nora. I made these today and love the flavor but they were extremely oily on the outside. Do you know if I did something wrong? (I like to over mix because I prefer a dense muffin 🙂 lol )
Hi Heather! I’m not sure why they would be oily on the outside, maybe you greased the pan or muffin liners too much? It’s possible over mixing could cause that but I wouldn’t think so. If you like them more dense, you could try adding another 1/4-1/3 cup of flour, that would probably do it! Thanks.
Thank you for replying. I did grease the pan, I will be more mindful next time because I will be making again. Thank you for the type. I will try it.
We didn’t have enough pumpkin, so we substituted zucchini instead, and they came out great! Thanks so much for this recipe.
That’s so great it worked, Sam, thanks for letting me know!
Can I use regular milk instead of almond milk?
Yes, that will work fine.
These were amazing! I substituted coconut sugar for a cup of the brown sugar and they came out perfect. I also ended up with 16 muffins instead of 12 somehow, which rocks. Thanks very much for this recipe!
Yay! Glad you enjoyed them!
Have you made them as mini-muffins? Would you reduce baking time to 12 minutes?AA
I have made mini-muffins out of this recipe, and they took about 15 minutes to be done.
I made these today and the taste was so delicious but they came out so gummy on the inside! (They weren’t undercooked.) I’m not an experienced baker so I know I did something wrong, but I’m not sure what. I followed the recipe with no subs. Do you know what could cause this? I’d love to try these again. Thank you!
Aw so sorry they came out gummy! So the likely reason they were gummy is from over mixing the batter. If you over mix muffin batter they will come out dense and gummy, instead of light and fluffy. You want to stir the dry into the wet until just combined; even a lumpy batter is okay with muffins, it shouldn’t be perfectly smooth. Hope that helps!!
These are the best pumpkin muffins I’ve ever had! Thanks.
Have you tried subbing the oil for applesauce? I’m not sure how it would change the texture of the muffin, do you?
I have subbed applesauce for the oil in this recipe, and it’s pretty good. Though much better tasting with a little oil. Low fat or fat free baked goods like muffins tend to be a bit gummy. But if you’re avoiding oil completely, it’s not a bad option at all!
Thank you for the oil free option. It’s hard to find oil-free options for baked goods. i can’t wait to try these.
Oh good Liz, I’m glad! Hope you enjoy these muffins.
Can I make these using maple syrup instead of brown sugar?
I haven’t tried using maple syrup. It would probably work, but you would need less liquid overall. I would try using maybe 1 cup of maple syrup and then reducing or possibly omitting the almond milk altogether. I can’t really vouch for the results though since it would change to recipe quite a bit!