This sweet, cake-like vegan cornbread is also gluten-free, dairy-free and 100% whole grain and doesn’t contain any specialty ingredients.
I’m thrilled to be working with Bob’s Red Mill today to bring you this gluten-free and vegan cornbread! After every trip to the US, I come back with my suitcases stuffed with their flour and even had my friend, Rose, send me another 20 pounds after I had run out of my stash.
I brought the cornmeal I used in this recipe back with me because I had started to notice that most of the German brands I had been buying weren’t 100% whole grain. It’s no different in the US so make sure your cornmeal says whole grain or stone ground. If it says steel-milled, some or all of the hull and germ has been removed and then you might as well be using all-purpose flour!
This healthier cornbread has what is, in my opinion, the perfect ratio of cornmeal to flour. I don’t like my cornbread too coarse-grained but I still want the corn taste. It’s moist, not at all dry, slightly dense (but in a great way!) and sweet. And there’s vanilla! This Southern girl is all about northern-style cake-like cornbread.
This vegan cornbread is great in bread form or as muffins. The only thing is that if you choose to make it as bread, you need to let it sit for 2-3 hours or it’ll be extremely difficult to cut and hold. It’s so fluffy when it comes out of the oven and due to the lack of gluten, it’s just hard to handle. The muffins can be eaten straight from the oven. If you want to make this for Thanksgiving, I recommend making it Wednesday night or Thursday morning so that it’s as fresh as possible.
I used this gluten-free medium ground cornmeal and though I haven’t tried it, I’m assuming it’d come out well with finely or coarsely ground cornmeal. I did try whole spelt in place of oat flour and the muffins sunk in the middle and didn’t taste nearly as good as the oat flour version. So stick with oat flour! I also tried store bought buttermilk in place of the homemade dairy-free buttermilk and that worked perfectly.
When I post a vegan recipe, it’s usually just coincidentally vegan, meaning that there aren’t any eggs involved and I used coconut oil instead of butter. Because I’ve gotten a few nice comments recently thanking me for posting vegan recipes, I thought I’d make more of an effort to make vegan recipes. So here we have some vegan cornbread!
If you’re vegan or making this for a vegan friend, you’ll need to skip the honey and butter I used to dress up my cornbread. Use maple syrup instead! Or just eat it plain like I do. :) And if you’re not vegan or gluten-free, make this anyway! It’s the best cornbread I’ve ever had and it really doesn’t taste like it’s been made healthier.
For another delicious cornbread dish perfect for Thanksgiving, try this Southern Cornbread Dressing! And for sugar-free, check out this Keto Cornbread.
Vegan Cornbread (gluten-free, dairy-free, whole grain)
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Ready in:
- Yield: 16 pieces of bread or 12 muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup (240 ml) milk of choice, room temperature or warm (this is important so that the coconut oil doesn't harden once added)1
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup (75 g) coconut oil, melted2
- 1/2 cup (100 g) raw or granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 2/3 cup (88 g) medium grind gluten-free cornmeal (non-GF cornmeal works, too)
- 1 1/3 cup (123 g) oat flour (use certified gluten-free, if necessary)3
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Wet ingredients:
Dry ingredients:
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C) and line a muffin pan with 12 muffin liners or line an 8" x 8" pan with a piece of parchment paper.
- Pour the milk in a large mixing bowl, add the apple cider vinegar, and give it a few stirs. Let sit for 5 minutes while preparing the dry ingredients.
- In a medium mixing bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients. Set aside.
- To the milk mixture, add the melted coconut oil, sugar and vanilla and stir until well combined.
- Add the dry mixture and stir just until combined.
- Pour into the prepared pan. Bake muffins for 12 minutes and bread for 20 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out with a few moist crumbs but no wet batter.
- Let the muffins cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. The bread can be eaten immediately but will be very difficult to cut – it's better to wait for 2-3 hours until it's firmed up just a little.
- Store any leftovers in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Notes
- You can use store bought buttermilk in place of the milk + vinegar mixture for a dairy-containing, non-vegan version. To make the homemade dairy-free / vegan buttermilk, you can use soy milk, almond milk, etc. but I don't recommend canned coconut milk. If you can have dairy, you can also use regular cow's milk.
- I used refined coconut oil, which has no coconut taste. If you use unrefined, these may have a slight to mild coconut taste.
- If you don't have oat flour, you can grind quick or rolled oats in a food processor or coffee grinder until it resembles flour.
I was compensated by Bob’s Red Mill for the development of this recipe but, as always, all opinions expressed in this post are my own.
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135 comments on “Vegan Cornbread (gluten-free)” — Add one!
3 comments are awaiting moderation!
Really good recipe, and so simple! I haven never made cornbread before, I added half the sugar and I used oat milk and they turned out delicious! Thank you :)
You’re welcome! I’m so glad that it worked out well. :) It’s great to know that half the sugar works! I’m surprised that the bread held together. Thanks for your comment!
Last night I made these muffins but mine were brownish/tan looking. But the flavor was amazing. If I wasn’t afraid to gain 10 pounds I would eaten all of the in one day. Great flavor not sure why mine look so different than you pic
I’m so sorry for just now seeing your comment! And haha, I could also eat all of these in 1 sitting! This is my only recipe where people have such different end results so I’m not really sure. Perhaps your oven is running hot? Thanks for your comment!
Hi Erin. Is there any substitute for the oat flour? My arthritis is triggered when I eat oats. Can I also use dried fruits and mix it with the batter? The muffins look gorgeous and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it. I love cornmeal and thank you for posting this recipe. Hope your day is pleasant. Cheers!
Hi there! You could check out this gluten-free cornbread recipe. :) Hope that one works better for you! And yes, you should be able to add some dried fruits.
Question, what can I use in place of oil?
Butter or ghee would probably work for a non-vegan version but it wouldn’t be as moist as oil’s 100% fat and butter is only 80%. I think ghee’s 99% fat so that might be better.
Would this by any chance freeze well? My son’s daycare servers this and I would love to make ahead and freeze.
Sorry for the slow reply! I haven’t tried it myself but I think it’d work.
Vegan is dairy free thus buttermilk is not vegan.
Yup. That’s why this recipe specifically calls for dairy-free milk in order to make homemade vegan and dairy-free buttermilk.
It is vegan If you read the whole recipe he gives both options.
These were FANTASTIC! I took out the sugar and added in 1/4 cup of pureed date. I ate one 5 minutes after it came out the oven. It was a little crumbly but held together more than enough (and will probably stiffen after I put it in the fridge for a couple hours). These will definitely become a regular in my house! Thank you!!!
That’s a courageous sub I never would have dared! That’s awesome. :) So happy that they came out well! Thanks for sharing your tip. I definitely prefer your date-sweetened version! I’ll have to give it a try. Thanks again!
I prefer savoury muffins so can I leave out the sugar & add spicy seasonings, mixed dried herbs etc?
Unfortunately 1/2 cup is too much sugar to omit from a recipe and it would affect the structure of the muffin. I recommend finding a savory recipe. Sorry about that!
Made these today and they were great. I wanted to avoid cane sugar, so I used 6 tbs. of maple syrup instead and then decreased the milk by 1 1/2 tablespoons. If you want full muffins, I found that this only made 9, not 12.
I bet these are great with maple! I’ll have to try that. Thanks for the tip and your comment. :)
DELICIOUS! I halved the recipe and made half with unsweetened organic coconut milk, and the other half with unsweetened organic coconut cream. All else was as written, with the exception that I used olive oil instead of coconut oil. Oh, I also omitted the vanilla. BOTH iterations were amazing, and I really feel that the half batch I made with the coconut cream was slightly better (IMHO). I will be making this forever, with whichever type of coconut milk I have on hand. EXCELLENT. We now have to make sure to use non-inflammatory ingredients in our meals, so I am always game to try new things! THANKS!
What a great tip! I’ll have to try that. The coconut cream version sounds especially delicious. Can’t wait! Thanks a ton for your feedback and kind comment. :)
Is this recipe really supposed to be made with 2.5 tsp of baking powder? I made it as the recipe says to, but they completely caved and all I can TASTE is baking soda! They’re inedible! :(
Please let me know if this was truly the ratio, or if I did something else wrong.
Thanks!
The recipe’s correct. The other reviewers (or at least most of them) seemed to love them so I’m thinking something must have gone wrong or you accidentally added too much or too little of something. Or did you make any subs or changes at all to the recipe? I’m sorry they didn’t come out well for you!
Yes I noticed no one else seemed to have any issues. This is actually the second time I have had an issue with the baking soda I added, I use non-aluminum specialty baking soda, so I wonder if that could be it?
The only change I made was I used goat milk…
Hmm, well thanks for your response, your recipes thus far have come out PERFECTLY, I guess I need to figure out my baking soda issues on my end. :)
I don’t think the aluminum-free thing is the issue (baking soda doesn’t actually contain baking soda – you can read more here). But maybe the goat milk is? I’ve never used it and have no idea if it’s in some way different. Good luck figuring out the baking soda issue! I’m happy to hear that you’ve had better luck with the other recipes. :)
I made these and they are incredible. Thanks for sharing. It’s such a nice balance of corn and oats. I did use finer grind from Bob’s Mills and really liked the texture.
I’ll have to try the finer grind and see how they compare! Thanks a bunch for your feedback. I’m so happy that they came out well for you!
I want to put whole corn kernels in as well, how do you think that would affect the recipe? Should I ad anything to compensate?
I’ve never actually tried that so I’m not sure. This recipe has always worked perfectly for me but a few others have had issues so I’d be afraid to add anything to it! If you rinse off the corn with paper towels, I’m pretty sure you’d be okay but I’m not positive.
I loved this recipe! I was skeptical at first as it doesn’t call for eggs, sour cream, or buttermilk like many other cornbread recipes, but man am I ever glad I tried this one out! I substituted coconut milk for regular milk and used Pamela’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour as a substitute for the oat flour. Everything held really well and despite doubling up on the coconut (milk and oil) it tasted delicious and just like cornbread. I had to bake it at least 8-10 more minutes than what the recipe calls for as it hadn’t fully cooked at 20 minutes but it didn’t come out dry. I even managed to get my boyfriend to love it (and he’s never liked cornbread). Definitely recommend.
Sorry I just now saw this! And wow. You pretty much just made a new recipe! I’m thrilled that it worked out well with your subs. I’ll have to try them because they sound great! Thanks a bunch for your feedback. :)
I have a grand daughter who can’t have eggs unless VERY well baked. My cornbread made with eggs always had to be way too done and consequently got dry . I tried this recipe and subbed some things as oil for coconut oil, and used unbleached white flour because the is what I had. The results were delicious and the kids loved the corn bread. Its moist and light and was a hit with everyone having dinner. This is a great recipe .
You used all-purpose flour in place of the oat flour? Interesting! Did you use the same amount? I’m so happy you and the kids liked them. :) Thanks for your feedback!
How is it vegan if you use milk…. just wondering
Milk of choice is listed in this recipe, meaning you can use whatever dairy-free milk you want. The footnote goes on to say, “You can use dairy milk, soy milk, almond milk, etc. but I don’t recommend canned coconut milk.”
mmm tasted real good
whats’ the nutrition profile…fat calories much sodium ?
I don’t have that info but you can copy and paste the recipe here for the nutritional profile, if you’d like. :) I’m happy you enjoyed them!
hi…did I miss some ingredient….followed the recipe and baked the appropriate amount of time but they didn’t stay together totally crumbled …didn’t look as good as your picture…but they did taste ok….but did throw out most of the batch….please let me know as they did look great…
It’s hard for me to say if you missed an ingredient. The recipe is correct, though! The commenters below you seemed to have success so maybe it was an ingredients issue or you forgot to add something (I do this all the time!). Did you make any subs or any changes at all? I’m sorry they didn’t come out well for you! They are really fragile when you take them out of the oven but they should firm up once they’ve cooled.
With any baked goods we must remember that not all recipes are universal, in other words whenever I pull a recipe off the internet I try to see where the person is from that published the recipe and where I am in relation to that… why you ask? Because, you see there needs to be made subtle changes to a recipe to account for higher or lower altitudes and varying degrees of humidity. If someone develops a recipe in a high humid area like Arkansas at a lower altitude and I try making the same recipe in a dryer environment and higher altitude like Utah, I am going to have to adjust the recipe….
Alas, it takes experimenting to make those adjustments… : )
That’s true! Does it have such a huge impact? I just think it’s weird that someone can call these the worst cornbread muffins ever and others say they’re amazing. I really think something must have gone wrong for the two people who said they’re crumbly. I’m quick to blame ingredients because I live in Berlin, though I’m from Texas, and it’s become very clear to me that ingredients aren’t the same everywhere. Thanks for your helpful comment! :)
These are delicious. My kids loved them! I would have liked them a bit less sweet but my kids totally disagree here. Thank you so much for sharing.
Haha. I’m on your kids’ side here. :D You could reduce the sugar by a little bit, if you want. ;) But not by too much or it’ll mess with the structure! Thanks for your comment. So happy that you enjoyed them!
This is day #1 as vegans for us and this cornbread is AMAZING. So fluffy and scrumptious! Thank you! Do you happen to have the nutritional info?
I don’t have that info but you can copy and paste the recipe here and it’ll give you what you’re looking for. :) I’m so happy you enjoyed the cornbread! Thanks a ton for your feedback and good luck with going vegan (I say that in a sincere way – not sarcastically!)