This Vegan Donut recipe is easy, delicious, and a great crowd-pleaser. Donuts are a classic treat that everyone knows and loves. Whether you like something simple like a classic glazed doughnut or a fancier donut like Boston Creams, you can often find a flavor for everyone to enjoy.
In celebration of National Donut Day, I decided to make 7 of my favorite donut flavors and bring them into work for my fellow partners. I love making vegan versions of classic foods that everyone knows and loves to help remove some of the fear and stigma people often have trying vegan food. This can be especially true if it’s their first time. I thought a great place to start would be donuts.
These donuts are fairly easy to make, but they do require a little more time than most of our recipes. Give yourself around 2 hours to make these. It took me around 2.5 hours, but that included making all 7 kinds and preparing content for the blog, so you should be able to do it closer to 2 hours.
These donuts are free of these top allergens: dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and soy-free. This recipe currently does not have a gluten-free alternative.
How to make vegan donuts?
Making vegan donuts is not much different than making regular donuts. The only difference is really in the ingredients versus the steps. Most regular donuts have eggs and dairy in the dough, but vegan ones simply don’t have eggs and use non-dairy milk instead.
What are vegan donuts made out of?
Our vegan donuts require no fancy ingredients, just ingredients that can easily be found in your pantry or local grocery store:
- All-purpose flour
- Sugar
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Non-Dairy Milk
- Non-Dairy Yogurt
- Neutral Oil (I used vegetable oil.)
- Salt.
What are the 7 vegan donut flavors?
Today we have provided glazes and fillings for 7 of our favorite donuts:
- Vegan Classic Glazed Donut (It’s designed to be more of a Vegan Krispy Kreme Copycat Donut)
- Vegan Cinnamon Sugar Donut
- Vegan Maple Donut
- Vegan Chocolate Donut
- Vegan Sprinkle Donut
- Vegan Coconut Donut
- Vegan Boston Cream Donut
Below in the recipe box, you can find the ingredients and instructions for each kind of donut. For our Boston Cream donut, we did not experiment with the filling and instead used this wonderful Custard from Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery blog. This filling is amazing and I was practically licking the bowl clean it was so good.
If you make this recipe we’d love to hear from you down below in the comment sections. You can also tag us on one of our social media or use our hashtag #vegantheway. You can also stay up to date with our new recipes and post by subscribing to our email notifications.
Thank you for checking out our Vegan Donut Recipe with 7 Flavors and make sure to check out our other vegan recipes like our Vegan Coconut Bread, or our Vegan Buffalo Cauliflower (Air Fried).
Vegan Donuts (7 Flavor Options)
Equipment
- Deep Fryer or Large Pot
- Rolling Pin
- Mixing Bowl
Ingredients
Donut Dough
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup non-dairy milk (I used vanilla soy milk.)
- 2 tbsp non-dairy yogurt (I used plain soy yogurt.)
- 1/4 cup and 2 tbsp neutral oil (I used vegetable oil.)
- pinch of salt.
Classic Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp non-dairy milk
- 1 tbsp vegan butter (melted)
Maple Glaze
- 1/3 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
Sprinkle & Coconut Donuts:
- 1 portion of classic glaze
- 1-2 drops of pink/red food coloring
- 1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles or shredded coconut.
Cinnamon Sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon (Start with half a tsp cinnamon and add more depending on your taste.)
Chocolate Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp non-dairy milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Boston Cream
- 1 recipe of Gretchen Vegan Bakery Custard (Refer to the blog post to get a link to the recipe.)
- 1 recipe of the chocolate glaze.
Instructions
Doughnuts
- In a large bowl, sift all the dry ingredients.
- Next, mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ones to form the dough.
- Next, knead the dough either with a dough hook or by hand for 2 minutes.
- Once the dough is properly mixed let it sit for at least 20 minutes before using.
- Roll the dough out with a rolling pin until it around ¼ inch thick.
- Cut the dough into your desired donut shapes with cookie cutters, cups, or knives. If you want a ring you can either cut out the center with a shot glass, smaller cookie cutter, piping tip or poke and shape a hole in the center.
- Add excess dough and to remain dough and roll out and repeat steps 5 and 6 until you have no dough remaining. If you don’t have enough dough to make a full last donut, you can roll the excess into small balls and make donut holes.
- Heat oil in a deep-fryer or large pot. We used our large cast-iron pot.
- With a wooden spoon gentle place the dough into the oil. (2-3 max in a pot).
- On medium to medium-high heat fry the donuts on each side until golden brown. (Carefully not to have the heat too high or you might cook the outside of the donut while the inside is still raw.)
- Place the cooked donuts onto a paper towel-lined plate. (This will soak up excess oil.)
- Repeat steps 9 and 10 until no dough remains.
- Top and fill donuts as desired.
- Best served fresh.
Classic Glaze
- You'll need a small container or bowl that's large enough for the donut to be dipped into.
- Add all the ingredients into the bowl and mix until no clumps of powder sugar remain.
- Dip the donuts into the glaze and then rest on a wire rack to set and allow excess glaze to drip off.
Maple Glaze
- You'll need a small container or bowl that's large enough for the donut to be dipped into.
- Add all the ingredients into the bowl and mix until no clumps of powder sugar remain.
- Dip the donuts into the glaze and then rest on a wire rack to set and allow excess glaze to drip off. (I dipped donuts 2-3 times to get a more thick coating.)
Sprinkle and Coconut Donuts
- You'll need a small container or bowl that's large enough for the donut to be dipped into.
- Make 1 batch of the classic glaze.
- Add 1 to 2 drops of pink or red food coloring. Throughly mix the food coloring in until the glaze meets your desired and even color.
- Dip the donut into the glaze at least 1 if not 2 times. Then immediately dip the glazed donut into the sprinkles or shredded coconut. Then rest on a wire rack to set and allow excess glaze to drip off.
Chocolate Glaze
- You'll need a small container or bowl that's large enough for the donut to be dipped into.
- Add all the ingredients into the bowl and mix until no clumps of powder sugar remain.
- Dip the donuts into the glaze and then rest on a wire rack to set and allow excess glaze to drip off.
Boston Cream
- Prepare Gretchens Vegan Bakery Custard filling from her Boston cream donut post.
- Prepare 1 recipe worth of chocolate glaze/
- When making donuts for Boston Creams, do not make a hole in the donut as we will fill them.
- With a chopstick, toothpick or a similar sized and shape tool, poke a hole into the center of the doughnut and try to make a cavity to fill with cream.
- Fill a pipping bag or syringe with the cream filling, and then use it to inject the donuts with the cream.
- Dip the doughnuts into the chocolate glaze and then let it set on a wire rack. (I busted a couple of my doughnuts open when filling them. I dipped the crack side into the chocolate glaze to help seal the donut back close. Just a small tip that worked for me.)