This soft, moist, and completely delicious vegan gingerbread recipe makes a wonderful holiday breakfast or dessert!

The best vegan gingerbread

Try this delightful plant based recipe the next time company comes to visit.

Guests are always shocked to discover the gingerbread spice loaf is dairy free, egg free, and vegan, because it tastes exactly like traditional gingerbread from a bakery.

The comforting festive flavor and super soft texture perfectly capture all the nostalgic magic of the holidays.

It’s secretly packed with iron and nutrition, at just 100 calories per slice. Plus leftovers freeze well too.

Also try this holiday Vegan Pumpkin Bread

Healthy gingerbread loaf cake

In addition to containing no eggs or butter, the fully vegan gingerbread recipe can also be gluten free, soy free, refined sugar free, and oil free.

Thanks to the powerhouse blackstrap molasses, each slice gives you close to ten percent of the RDA for fiber, calcium, and iron.

It includes very little saturated fat, almost three grams of protein, and no cholesterol.

Most importantly, this vegan version is just as moist and spicy sweet as classic gingerbread, so you never feel like you are sacrificing at all.

You may also like this Gingerbread Latte Recipe

Easy vegan gingerbread recipe video

Watch the step by step recipe video above.

Vegan gingerbread ingredients

You will need flour, cinnamon, ground ginger, allspice, salt, white or apple cider vinegar, sugar, plant based milk of choice, flax seeds, baking soda, and molasses.

If you are a raisin lover like I am, stir half a cup of raisins into the gingerbread batter along with the dry ingredients.

Flour – The recipe works with spelt flour, white flour, or gluten free all purpose flour. Oat flour works but yields a denser result.

I have not tried the recipe with whole wheat flour, coconut flour, almond flour, or any other flour not listed and therefore cannot recommend any of these substitutions.

Milk – To keep the recipe vegan, go with your favorite nondairy milk. I like rich coconut milk or low calorie almond milk. You may also use soymilk or oat milk.

Sugar – Choose white sugar, unrefined coconut sugar, or even brown sugar. For a lower sugar vegan quick bread, opt for xylitol.

Flax seeds – Thanks to their binding properties, Flax Eggs are a great substitute for eggs in vegan baking.

Both health food stores and regular grocery stores like Safeway, Trader Joe’s, and Target should sell ground flaxmeal.

If you can only find whole flax seeds, simply grind them yourself in a food processor before beginning with the recipe.

Oil – For those wishing to use oil instead of additional milk of choice, I recommend sunflower, coconut, or vegetable oil.

Be sure your milk and other ingredients are not cold if you add coconut oil, because it hardens when chilled.

This is actually the oil free version in the photos, and you cannot tell at all. While baked goods without oil are often gummy or dry, the molasses here keeps this quick loaf moist even without the extra fat.

What type of molasses?

Blackstrap molasses is my preference for its myriad health benefits, including its high calcium and iron content.

(I also love this sweetener in my easy recipe for Bran Muffins.)

If you cannot find blackstrap molasses or prefer the slightly sweeter taste of regular light or dark molasses, either of these is fine to use instead.

While substituting pure maple syrup, agave, or another liquid sweetener might yield a delightful spice cake, it will lose some of the familiar classic gingerbread flavor.

So I do not recommend swapping out the molasses in this recipe.

For a low carb loaf, try this Almond Flour Banana Bread

Frosting options

Serve the gingerbread unfrosted or topped with almond butter, Coconut Butter, powdered sugar and strawberries, vanilla frosting, or Vegan Cream Cheese.

I frosted the vegan gingerbread loaf in the pictures with the dairy free cream cheese icing recipe written out in my post on Vegan Cinnamon Rolls.

This fluffy frosted gingerbread was the star of an entirely vegan brunch event I recently hosted for the holidays.

All fifteen slices disappeared within minutes, and both vegan and non vegan friends asked me for the recipe.

So I highly recommend serving the gingerbread at your next get together of friends or family, because it is a big crowd favorite.

Note: If you are looking to bake cookies instead of a gingerbread loaf, be sure to try this recipe for chewy homemade Vegan Gingerbread Cookies.

How to make vegan gingerbread

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and grease an eight inch square baking pan or a nine by five inch loaf pan.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the milk of choice, oil, vinegar, molasses, and flax meal. Let this mixture sit at least ten minutes (or even overnight in the fridge).

Whisk dry ingredients, either in a separate bowl or directly into the same bowl. Stir everything together until just evenly mixed. Spread into the prepared pan.

Bake on the oven center rack for twenty five minutes in a square pan or one hour in a loaf pan, or until cooked through.

Test to see if it’s done by inserting a toothpick into the center of the loaf. The toothpick should come out mostly clean.

Let cool, then slice and frost if desired.

The taste and texture are even better the next day, if you can wait that long!

The gingerbread recipe is also really great to serve with Vegan Hot Chocolate.

More Holiday Favorite Recipes

Sweet Potato Brownies

Applesauce Muffins

Healthy Pumpkin Pie or Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Vegan Pecan Pie

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

Apple Bread

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies