These Easy Vegan Cinnamon Rolls come together in a little over an hour, are made with easy to find ingredients and taste like HEAVEN.
*This post originally appeared in 2016, but has since been updated. It’s still the same great recipe, though!
Oy, another cinnamon roll recipe?! Guys, I didn’t realize how popular cinnamon rolls are this time of year. This was my first time making them (well, first time yes, but this recipe is a result of two failed attempts), but I’ve been seeing cinnamon roll recipes all over the blogosphere within the past week or so. Maybe it’s because cinnamon rolls are a recipe for happiness, they’re the perfect holiday brunch tagalong, they’re warm and a great excuse to enjoy comfort food first thing in the morning. Simply put, I love them more than I realized, and I don’t think the world can actually have too many cinnamon roll recipes.
Or at least I hope not, especially when they’re vegan cinnamon rolls.
I’m currently sitting in bed typing up this post with a warm (!!!) cup of coffee by my side, looking out the window and it’s nice. The only thing that would make this nicer is if there was also a fireplace in my bedroom (#goals) and if it was snowing outside. Instead, it’s raining, and the temps are supposed to drop later today so YAY! But let’s talk about this easy cinnamon roll recipe.
Cinnamon roll ingredients:
- Dry active yeast
- Brown sugar* (can also use cane sugar)
- Warm water
- Dairy free butter
- Dairy free milk
- Flour
- Salt
- Cinnamon
I’ve been informed that brown sugar isn’t technically vegan, so use your best judgment for that. If you feel weird about using brown sugar, cane sugar works just fine. As for the dairy free milk, any kind will work, though I tend to use almond milk simply because that’s what I generally have on hand.
How to make easy vegan cinnamon rolls
Let’s talk about these vegan cinnamon rolls ok?! So the first two times I attempted them without yeast, because I was being stubborn and I wanted to see if it’d work. What I learned is that yes, you can make cinnamon rolls without yeast, but that they won’t be as fluffy and delicious. So, these babies do have yeast in them, and they’re well worth the wait. The glaze is made with, not only powdered sugar and milk, but with maple syrup too, giving them a mild maple-y taste. UM YEAH I know you’re now craving vegan cinnamon rolls and I’m not even a little bit sorry about it.
Activate the yeast: you’ll start by mixing the active dry yeast, sugar and water together and letting the yeast activate, which takes about 10 minutes. You’ll know it’s good to go when it’s foamy on top.
Heat the milk and butter: you’ll heat them up until the butter has melted, but make sure the mixture doesn’t come anywhere close to a boil. You want the butter and milk to be warm, not hot.
Let the dough rise: once everything is combined and you’ve kneaded the dough, you’ll have to wait approximately 1 hour for the dough to rise. Ideally, you want it to double in size. Tip: If you have trouble getting the dough to rise at room temperature (I always do!), heat your oven to 200° then turn it off and place the covered cinnamon rolls in the oven and allow the dough to rise in the oven for an hour.
Rolling the dough: Tip: Don’t roll the dough out too thin. A few people have had this issue (as have I) and I’ve learned that it helps to roll the dough out to an 8″x12″ rectangle. Once the dough is rolled into a rectangle, you’ll add the filling then roll it up into a long, skinny roll. Tip: You can use floss to cut the dough, but I personally preferred to use a really sharp knife covered in flour. That way, the knife doesn’t stick to the dough. If you know how to cut cinnamon rolls with floss and prefer it that way, then just do that instead.
If you have a vegan friend or family member (or maybe even you!), these easy vegan cinnamon rolls are the perfect addition to any holiday brunch!
Other cinnamon roll recipes:
- pumpkin spice latte cinnamon rolls
- chocolate espresso cinnamon rolls
- strawberry rhubarb cinnamon rolls
Easy Vegan Cinnamon Rolls
These Easy Vegan Cinnamon Rolls come together in a little over an hour, require simple ingredients and taste like HEAVEN!
- Prep Time: 1 hour 20 mins
- Cook Time: 25 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 mins
- Yield: 14 rolls
- Category: breakfast
- Method: oven
Ingredients
- 1 packet (2 1/4 tsp) dry active yeast
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 6 tbsp dairy free butter (I used Earth Balance)
- 1 1/4 cup almond milk
- 3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- For the filling:
- 2 tbsp dairy free butter, melted
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- For the glaze:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp dairy free butter
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2-3 tbsp almond milk*
Instructions
- Combine yeast and brown sugar in a bowl and then slowly pour in warm water while stirring everything together at the same time. Allow 10 minutes for the mixture to sit and the yeast to activate.
- While waiting, melt the butter and milk together over stovetop on medium heat, stirring pretty consistently until the butter has melted. Be careful–you don’t want it to be too hot or come anywhere close to a boil. Once butter has melted, set aside.
- In a large bowl, stir flour and salt together. Next, combine butter mixture with yeast mixture and stir; then, add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and use your hands to knead the dough for approximately 3 minutes.
- Line a separate large bowl with a small amount of coconut oil and then place the dough in the bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap and let sit for 1 hour, allowing the dough to rise and double in size. Alternatively, if your dough doesn’t seem to be rising at room temperature, you can heat your oven to 200°, turn it off, and place the covered bowl (I used an oven-safe glass bowl) in the oven until the dough has doubled in size, approximately 1 hour.
- While waiting, you can make the filling, which doesn’t take long.
- Melt butter and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine cinnamon and brown sugar and set aside. Other things you can do while waiting for the dough to rise include but are not limited to: walking your dog, catching up on emails, watching TV, sitting on Instagram–the possibilities are endless, and the time goes by faster than you’d think!
- Once the hour has gone by and your dough has risen, preheat the oven to 350°. Next, add 1/4 cup flour to your dough and stir, which will help make the dough less sticky and easier to roll. Then, flour a baking mat and place the dough on the mat. Use a rolling pin to roll it out into a rectangle, approximately 9″x14″, trimming the edges if needed. You want the rectangle to be big enough but you don’t want the dough to be too thin. Otherwise, you’ll have a difficult time rolling it.
- Next, brush melted butter overtop of dough, leaving a 1″ border around the edges. Next, spoon the cinnamon sugar mixture over top of butter and spread it evenly over the dough. Last, tightly roll up the dough long-ways.
- Use a sharp knife (it helps to carefully flour the knife so it doesn’t stick to the dough) to cut dough into 1.5″ rolls, and then place the rolls into a large baking dish OR (what I did) was placed them into two greased 10″ cake pans, cut side down.
- Place a towel over the rolls and allow them to rise at room temperature for 30 minutes. I originally skipped this step, but after a lot of practice, I’ve found that it really does help in making your rolls nice and fluffy! If you’re short on time, you can skip this step though.
- Once the rolls have doubled in size (or at least gotten significantly larger) brush rolls with a little more melted butter and then bake them for approximately 25 minutes.
- While they’re baking, make the glaze by combining all ingredients in a bowl and stirring with an electric mixer.
- Remove rolls from oven, wait 5 minutes or so, and then drizzle glaze overtop.
- Enjoy!
Notes
*Start with 2 tbsp milk and if glaze is too thick, add an additional 1 tbsp milk
**The serving size is an approximation–it will depend on how thick you cut the rolls
Keywords: cinnamon rolls, vegan, vegan cinnamon rolls
I want to make these…but in mini form! Do you have any recommendations for baking time if I make them miniature?
I was inspired to make cinnamon rolls for christmas morning and this recipe turned out great!
To answer some of the previous folks who wanted to know how pre-making and chilling would turn out: it turns out pretty okay. After the rolls were panned I covered them in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge; while in there they puffed up a little overnight and some of the butter-cinnamon melted out and pooled around the bases (yum). I took them out in the morning and put them in the oven, which had been slightly warmed, with a tea towel. I figure checking on them after half an hour and they should be back to rising properly. (however if this doesn’t work then next time I may try letting them rise completely before fridging them.)
Some recipe adjustments I made were: using rapid rise instead of active yeast, and using a stand mixer for the mixing/kneading. By doing so, I added the yeast into the dry mix instead of blooming it with the wet, and I heated the wet ingredients in the microwave to 118F, which turned out to be perfect. I also used silk unsweetened original almondmilk and earth balance no-soy buttery spread.
Also, tip: when rolling the dough out, if the height of your rectangle is larger than your width, you get less rolls but more layers; opposite, more rolls but less layers. Good to know for future pans, I goofed on the math and made too many smalls.
I was wondering if anyone had tried making the dough in a bread machine, my usual method, and then shaping the rolls and letting them rise again?
These were so easy and amazing! Made them for my daughter before going off to college this morning. She’s never had vegan cinnamon buns before and loved them!
★★★★★
These were great! I added chocolate chips and sliced almonds to the filling, and topped with some extra chocolate. Made for a delicious dessert!
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Hi, was wondering if you could put the butter amount as ounces as well, since I can’t convert tbsp of butter to metric accurately
My dough is really sticky and liquidy (uncooked and not left to rise yet) it that normal? What can I do to make it firmer?
Yes! The dough should be very sticky!! That’s ok and once it rises it’ll be slightly less sticky, but you’ll add some flour to the baking mat before your roll the dough, which will help take some of the stickiness away.
Made this today..super legit! Thanks for the recipe! My non vegan friemds would never know its vegan.
★★★★★
Hello how can I tell if the dough rises? And if it does not rise in the 1 hour what should I do?
hi! You will definitely be able to tell because the dough should double in size. If your dough isn’t rising at room temperature, heat your oven to 200°, then turn it off and place the bowl with your dough in it into the oven for 1 hour–that usually does the trick for me.
Just wondering if anyone who baked the rolls the day after the dough was made were successful. Thanks!
Hi! I was looking to make these Christmas morning, but I won’t really have the time to make the dough that morning. Could I make them the night before and put the dough wrapped in the fridge? If so, do iet it rise before or after the fridge?
hi! So if I were you, I would follow the instructions through step 7, but skip the part about pre-heating the oven. At this point, your dough should be doubled in size and you can then make the cinnamon rolls, place them in your baking dish and tightly cover them and set them in the refrigerator overnight. Then, in the morning allow them to rise again at room temperature for about an hour or so, and then some in the oven to get them to be extra fluffy before baking them. Hopefully this makes sense (I’ve never tried making the dough the night before, but it should work)–let me know how they turn out!
Did the make-ahead instructions work?
Made these tonight for St. Nick’s day tomorrow. I used vanilla Ripple for the milk, as my 1 year old has a milk allergy. They are delicious (I had to taste test for tomorrow!).
★★★★★
I’m glad you like them!
I have never made cinnamon rolls before. My dough came out very loose and sticky! Not even close to be able to roll it. I just slopped it in the pan…it’s resting now and will go into the oven soon. Hoping for the best!
Hi! So the dough will be a bit sticky and even a little loose, but it shouldn’t be impossible to work with. I recommend flouring your hands first to make it a bit easier. Let me know how they turned out!
Hi!
Thank you so much for this awesome recipe! I made it and they are delicious 🙂 quick question though: as far as the filling goes, in the pictures above it looks like there is a great deal of filling, which I definitely did not get with mine! I was wondering if adding some apple sauce and more cinnamon/brown sugar would work to make the flavors more pronounced?
Thank you so much in advance 💙
★★★★★
Hi! I’m glad you liked them. Yes, feel free to add more filling, like the cinnamon brown sugar mixture if yours weren’t as flavorful as you’d like.
Looks amazing!
Can I substitute the vegan butter in coconut oil?
★★★★★
I haven’t tried it before…you could probably use coconut oil instead of butter for the filling, but I wouldn’t recommend combining it with the yeast. Yeast is tricky to work with, and I know for a fact the butter works with it, whereas I’m not sure about the coconut oil. You’re more than welcome to try it though, because it might work, I’m just not sure. Let me know if you give these a try!
Would you think that crushing some pecans for the top would be okay? I just like pecans on my cini-buns
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Yes absolutely!
Do you think I can substitute soy milk instead of almond milk?
Yes, I think soy milk should work just fine. Let me know if you try them!
Why does it just say “butter” in the ingredients list for the filling? Is the filling made with vegan butter? Does it matter which kind of vegan butter you use?
Yes, dairy free butter. It shouldn’t matter which kind, but I personally always use Earth Balance.
Hello, did you use light or dark brown sugar?
Hi! I used dark brown sugar, but either one will work.
Just made these for Easter brunch and they were so delicious!!!! Not a single crumb was left! Will be makjmg these again and again!!! Thank you!!
★★★★★
I’m so glad you liked them!!
These look amazing! I’m hoping to make them for brunch for my family next week, but I will likely need to make them the day before and leave overnight in the fridge before baking. Will this cause the dough to rise too much? Thanks!
Hi! I’ve never tried it, but I’m pretty sure that should work. I have a feeling the dough won’t rise when refrigerated, so in the morning you may have to remove the dough from the refrigerator and then allow time for it to rise before making the rolls. Let me know if you try them!
Hi Kelly, were you able to make these the day before and refrigerate overnight? I would like to try and make the night before as well 🙂
I must have done something wrong cause they were too loose lol still good. I followed the measurements but something went wrong along the way I guess lol
Mine were loose as well and I double checked to make sure I followed the recipe correctly and I did. They did not look nearly as good as they do in the picture but they tasted great!
★★★★★
Hi! I JUST updated the recipe… the key is to not make the dough too large (it now says 8×12″) because then the dough becomes too thin and it’s difficult to roll. Let me know if you give them another try, but I’m certain this will make a big difference! I am, however, glad they tasted good 🙂
These cinnamon rolls look OH SO incredible, Erin! Pinning for sure 🙂
I’m making these today and hoping to bake them in the morning… Do you think they will rise too much between now and then if I refrigerate the dough?
I love your blog! My 11 month old has a fair allergy so this will be her first ‘sweet’ experience Tomorrow!
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I’m definitely not vegan, but these look incredible. Also, a fireplace in the bedroom has always been a dream of mine… I bet it would be so cozy in winter!!
SAME! #goals for sure
I get really excited about presents too. Christmas is so much fun! Every year growing up my mom made cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, so they always remind me of the holidays. Of course, in my family, our version comes from a tube, but what can you do? Haha