Vegan Blueberry Bread
Vegan blueberry bread that is perfectly soft and moist and comes together in one bowl! The recipe uses only common pantry including heaps of blueberries and a hint of lemon for freshness.
Ingredients you’ll need
The full list of ingredient quantities and instructions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Notes about the ingredients
Fresh or frozen blueberries. I’ve tested this recipe with both fresh and frozen blueberries and they both work well! You don’t need to defrost the frozen blueberries before using them in the recipe.
Oil, rather than butter, helps create a softer and fluffier cake that keeps well for days.
Lemon zest for flavor. This quick bread will still work without lemon zest but I recommend using it if you can.
Tips for making the batter
The batter for this vegan blueberry bread comes together in one large bowl!
Simply mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in the blueberries and you’re done. You don’t need to toss the blueberries in flour because the thick batter suspends the blueberries when baking.
My TOP tip is to mix the batter until just combined. Some lumps are fine, as long as they aren’t lumps of flour.
Baking the quick bread
This blueberry bread is quite tall so it takes just over 1 hour to bake. If your bread takes longer to bake, that’s fine – your oven may run cool.
If your oven runs hot or has strong top heating elements, the top of your blueberry bread may brown too quickly. I recommend checking the bread at the 30-40 minutes and if it’s already brown, carefully tent your loaf tin with aluminum foil.
Serving suggestions
The vegan blueberry bread is excellent by itself at room temperature, warmed up or toasted. However, you can take the bread to the next level by topping it with:
- A simple lemon icing, for example from my lemon olive oil cake. For a thin lemon glaze, add more lemon juice.
- Lemon buttercream frosting, from my vegan lemon cake. I suggest using only one-half or one-third of the frosting recipe.
- Strawberry buttercream or strawberry cream cheese frosting.
Tip: make sure your loaf is completely cool before you drizzle any icing or spread any frosting on top.
Customizing this recipe
Yes. For an 8-inch (20 cm) round cake pan, I suggest baking the cake for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until done.
For muffins, I recommend checking out my vegan blueberry muffin recipe.
Instead of blueberries, you can use strawberries, raspberries or even blackberries. If your berries are large, I recommend chopping them into smaller pieces.
Alternatively, check out my vegan blueberry banana bread or vegan mango bread.
Adding lemon juice to a recipe isn’t a simple swap because too much lemon juice can cause a bread/cake to deflate. Instead, check out my tried and tested vegan lemon blueberry cake recipe.
– For extra flavor and texture, you can top the bread with a crumble. Keep in mind that this will slightly weigh down the bread, and you’ll need to bake it for an extra 5-10 minutes. Alternatively, check out my vegan blueberry coffee cake which has a buttery crumb topping!
– To make this blueberry bread into a dessert, top it with my easy blueberry frosting!
More vegan quick bread recipes
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Vegan Blueberry Bread
Ingredients
Blueberry Bread
- 2 ¼ cups (280g) all-purpose plain flour, spoon and leveled (note 1 for gluten-free flour)
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar, (note 2)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 teaspoons lemon zest, (about 3 lemons)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt, optional
- ¾ cup (190g) dairy-free milk
- ½ cup (125g) neutral flavored oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
- 1 ¼ cups (190g) blueberries, fresh or frozen
To decorate (optional, or see note 2)
- ¼ cup (40g) blueberries, fresh or frozen
Instructions
Make the blueberry bread:
- Preheat your oven to 180°C (355°F). Line or grease an 8-inch (20 cm) loaf pan with parchment paper.
- Add all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, lemon zest, baking powder and salt) to a large mixing bowl and whisk until there are no lumps. Add all the wet ingredients (non-dairy milk, oil and vanilla) and mix until just combined.
- Add the blueberries to the batter and gently fold them through. Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pan.
- Optional: Scatter the additional blueberries on top of the quick bread.
- Bake the quick bread for 60-70 minutes. If the bread is browning too quickly, carefully tent the pan with aluminum foil. The bread is ready when you can poke a toothpick in the middle and there's no wet batter on it. It's a moist bread so some crumbs on your toothpick are fine.
- Allow the bread to cool in the loaf pan for 15 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.
Serve the bread:
- Use a sharp knife to slice the bread. Serve warm or at room temperature.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for 1 day, in the fridge for 3 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month. If you freeze the bread, the texture of the blueberries may change.
Notes
- This blueberry bread works well with King Arthur’s measure for measure flour. The batter will be thicker than the original and I suggest baking it for an extra 10 minutes. and the loaf will rise less than the original, but the bread will still be delicious.
- Alternatively, you can use light brown sugar or coconut sugar (they will make the loaf darker in color). Most granulated sugar replacers should also work.
- This vegan blueberry bread is also delicious with a simple lemon icing. Combine 1 1/2 cups (150g) powdered sugar and 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice until combined. Add more sugar for thicker icing or more juice for thinner icing. When the blueberry bread is completely cool, drizzle the icing on top. You can see what the icing looks like in my vegan lemon olive oil cake recipe. For other serving suggestions, read the blog post.
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Lovely recipe but could I lower the amount of sugar
Thankyiu
Hi! We haven’t tested it with less sugar, so we can’t guarantee the results. Sugar does play an important role in the cake’s texture and moisture. If you’d like to experiment, you could first try reducing it by about 10–20% and see how it works, but just keep in mind that your cake will turn out differently to the one pictured. Hope that helps!
Can you use frozen blueberries instead? Fresh blueberries tend to be very expensive especially in off seasons.
Hi Matt, yes you definitely can use frozen! We totally understand that fresh blueberries can be expensive. The recipe has been tested with both fresh and frozen blueberries and both work well – you don’t need to defrost the frozen blueberries before using either 🙂
Haven’t made yet but have 2 daughters GF and dairy free and just picked 13 pints of BB. They are coming for a visit soon. Can I make ahead and freeze loaves?
Hi Jacqueline! That’s an impressive blueberry haul and sounds like the perfect excuse to get baking! Yes, you can definitely freeze the loaves. Just pop them into an airtight container, and they’ll keep in the freezer for up to 1 month. Just know that the texture of the blueberries may change after freezing but they will still taste great! Happy baking and hope you and your daughters enjoy 💙
Absolutely delicious!!!!! So easy to make!! Loved it!!
That’s wonderful to hear! Thanks for your feedback!
So yummy! I made this and enjoyed it soo much!! can I make it with butter? I ran out of oil 🙁 ?
I’m so glad that you enjoyed it! Yes, melted butter instead of oil will work. The bread may rise a tiny bit less, but it will have more depth of flavor. Hope that helps!
My loaf took around 3 hr to bake . Why ??
Did you bake the loaf at 180 Farenheit rather than 355 Farenheit? Or did you change or reduce any of the ingredients?
Seems like a lot of oil. Can you substitute apple sauce for at least some of the oil?
The amount of oil/fat is needed for the amount of flour/sugar, and is actually on the low side for an oil-based cake. I haven’t tested it with apple sauce, but from experience it will change the texture.
I am obsessed. This recipe is so easy and this blueberry bread is so good. I will make this as much as possible. Thanks for the fantastic recipe. I love it!
Hi Kelly, I’m thrilled that you enjoyed this bread and that the recipe will be a keeper for you! Thanks so much for your feedback 🙂
My 3rd time baking this blueberry bread and it’s a winner every time 🤩I chose to make it tonight for our school’s 1st Bake Sale, tomorrow-I know it’s gonna be a hit🥳Thank you so much for your lovely recipes-Also made your Apple Crumble Cake many times and it’s ALWAYS a 10/10🙌
Hi Sandy! Aw you’re amazing and I’m honored that you’ve made this recipe and my apple crumble cake several times!!! Thanks soo much for taking the time to leave your feedback over here. I appreciate it so much!
This was so easy and quick to make and man is it absolutely delicioussssss, I couldn’t even control myself I drizzled the lemon icing without the bread cooling completely. 10/10 highly recommend!
I’m so happy that you enjoyed this bread! Drizzling lemon icing on the warm bread sounds like an *amazing* idea (drooling over here). Thanks so much for your lovely comment!
Amazing recipe!!! I did it for me and for my family and everyone in the house loved it!!! 💙 I love blueberries so it’s the perfect recipe for me.
Hi Laura, I’m so glad that you and everyone enjoyed this bread!! From a fellow blueberry-lover, thanks soo much for your kind feedback 🙂
This blueberry bread is amazing! I made it yesterday and it was a success. Really good! The only thing is that it falls little bit apart. But we didn’t care 🙂
Hi Kristina, I’m so glad that you enjoyed this bread! With the crumbliness, this can happen if the flour is a little overmeasured, if you used slightly less sugar, or if the batter was overmixed. However, it sounds like it still turned out well!
Tasted awesome! I didn’t add icing just some icing sugar. But was really tasty and lasted a few days.
Hi Alexia, I’m so glad that you enjoyed this bread and that it kept well!! Thanks so much for your kind review 🙂
Hi! Please let me know wht is the ratio to make this a gluten free version?
Thanks a bunch for sharing your amazing recipes!
Hi Tammy! Unfortunately, I haven’t tested this recipe with gluten-free flour so I’m not 100% sure. In the past, I’ve had success with using half almond flour and half gluten-free all-purpose flour. This recipe may also work if you use a good gf flour such as King Arthur’s measure for measure (all of the flour). I hope that helps!
Hello Anthea,
I tried this recipe and it is delicious! It turned out very soft! I put 150g of erythritol instead of 200g cause I have to take care with my sugar intake. Anyway, I already sent this recipe to my family members and friends! I am eager to try out some other recipes from you!
Kind regards,
Bianka
Hi Bianka, aw that’s great to hear! It’s good to know that the cake works with a sugar replacer. I hope you enjoy any other recipes that you get to make from my site! Thanks so much for your kind feedback :).
Do you have to use any kind of sugar at all? I try to avoid sugar and sugar substitutes if at all possible.
Hi Theresa, I don’t recommend making this recipe without sugar or without a sugar replacer. Sugar helps this bread rise and gives it a soft and moist texture. You’re welcome to experiment but you’ll need to change a lot of the ingredient quantities to make the bread edible.
Love your recipe ♥️
Instead of using a normal flour and sugar, may I use oat flour and sweetener?
Hi Gloria! I haven’t tested this particular recipe using oat flour so I’m not 100% sure. However, from experience with eggless recipes, you need to combine oat flour with a starch (such as corn starch) otherwise the texture won’t be great. The recipe will work with a granulated sweetener, but I don’t recommend a liquid sweetener unless you completely change the other ingredient quantities. I hope that helps!
What kind of oil can I use for it ?
Hi Carol, you can use any neutral oil such as avocado oil, sunflower oil, or even a light olive oil.