This easy vegan Irish Soda Bread is perfect for St Patricks Day or year round! Quick, simple, and a delicious bread that everyone will enjoy!
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Most people only ever hear about vegan Irish soda bread around St Patricks Day; however, it’s actually a great bread option year round.
Bread can be used for so many things – sandwiches, a side for soups and creamy pastas, just eaten on it’s own. However, for many people baking bread is daunting. Typically, that is because yeast is used and trying to perfect how to get yeast to rise is hard for many people.
Luckily, with something like vegan soda bread, there is no yeast used and it’s also a no knead bread, so it’s an even faster and easier way to make bread for many people.
What is Vegan Irish Soda Bread?
Prior to the invention of baking soda, people in Ireland would make a flatbread on a griddle since bread didn’t really have what it needed to rise. When Europeans started coming to America, potash was used as a leavening agent and in 1846, Mary Randolph published a recipe for Soda Cake.
Modern varieties are both sweetened and not depending on the place you find it and the variations in one country can be vast, let alone that there are other countries with their own soda bread that can be drastically different.
For one – different flours are used – like all-purpose, soft wheat, pastry or cake flour. Traditionally, buttermilk is used, but variations even use yogurt or stout instead. We’ll be making this vegan by making a vegan buttermilk.
Walnuts, herbs, caraway, and/or raisins are also used.
Other countries, like Scotland, Serbia, and Australia also have their own variations.
What ingredients do I need for vegan Irish soda bread?
You only need six ingredients for this super easy vegan bread recipe.
Ingredient amounts listed in the printable recipe card below.
The ingredients that you need are:
- Flour – We used all-purpose flour in this recipe. This is easy to find for many people and doesn’t require any speciality ingredients on hand which is why we like using it.
- Baking Soda – this acts as our leavening agent for this recipe to help give us that rise and not have just a flat bread.
- Salt – used to enhance the flavor of the dough and tighten the gluten strands
- Sugar – just a touch to add sweetness.
- Dairy Free Milk and Apple Cider Vinegar – traditional soda bread uses buttermilk, but since we are vegan, we don’t. When you combine non-dairy milk and vinegar together, it creates the same consistency and reaction to the recipe
That’s it! Can you believe that’s all you need?
Substitutions and Variations:
- Flour – softer flours are sometimes used for soda bread – like cake flour. This can also be used here. If you don’t have cake flour but want to try this you can replace 1 tablespoon of flour with cornstarch for each cup of flour the recipe calls for
- Sugar – Not all soda bread recipes contain sugar, so this is an optional ingredient that can be omitted. Additionally, you can swap cane sugar with something like date or coconut sugar or use a liquid like agave or maple syrup.
- Dairy Free Milk – other variations on the traditional recipe replace the milk with yogurt (so you can use non-dairy milk) or stout (like Guinness)
- Apple Cider Vinegar – can be replace with white vinegar or fresh lemon juice
- Raisins– this is an optional ingredient. When added sometimes people will call this bread Spotted Dick.
Frequently Asked Questions about Vegan Irish Soda Bread:
We typically use all-purpose since we always have it on hand and it’s easy to use. Cake flour can also be used. We have not tested this recipe with gluten free flour
We prefer using oat milk in this recipe because of the consistency and taste.
However, you can use any non-dairy milk in this recipe.
We are using vegan cane sugar. Other sugars like coconut or date or liquid sugars like agave or maple syrup can also be used. Alternatively, the sugar can be omitted entirely if you wish.
Yes! You sure can!
Once made it will last covered at room temperature (on the counter) for up to 3 days or your can place wrapped tightly in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Unfortunately, at the time, we cannot recommend using a gluten free flour with this recipe. Please know that we are working on a gluten free dough, but it’s just not quite there yet.
Otherwise, as long as you use a safe dairy free milk, (like we said Oat is our favorite) then you will be all set.
What other vegan dough recipes can I make?
Here are some recipes that we have created are:
- Vegan Raspberry Cinnamon Rolls or Vegan Blueberry Cinnamon Rolls
- Vegan Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread (some places call this Monkey Bread)
- Easy Vegan Soft Pretzel Bites
- Walnut Meat Skillet Pizza
- Vegan Chimichurri Monkey Bread
- Vegan Sticky Buns
- Easy Vegan Garlic Knots
- Chocolate Vegan Babka
- Vegan Artisan Bread
- Easy Vegan Bread Loaf
- Vegan Focaccia
- Vegan Naan
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Vegan Irish Soda Bread
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups dairy free milk
- 1 ½ tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 4 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoon sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup raisins, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease and lightly flour a 10-inch round oven safe skillet (like a cast iron) or 9-inch round cake pan. Set aside.
- Make vegan buttermilk by combining dairy free milk and apple cider vinegar and let sit for 10-15 mins. Milk will curdle.
- In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add raisins (if adding) and stir in. Now, gradually stir in the buttermilk until the dough comes together in a slightly sticky ball.
- Lightly flour a surface, and form the dough into a ball. Sprinkle more flour on top if needed during this process. Place dough into the middle of the pan and press out to form a large disc.
- With a sharp knife, cut an X about ¼ inch down into dough, careful not to go further. *Each line of your X should be about 4 inches
- Bake for 50-60 minutes or until deep golden brown on top. Remove and let cool completely before slicing.
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