Vegan Yorkshire Puddings

These vegan Yorkshire puddings are perfect with their golden, crispy crowns and an elusive ‘well’ ready to fill with gravy! They’ve gone through years of iterations before landing on the perfect recipe and method.

Jump to:

• Why this recipe works
• 🍽 Equipment needed
• 📋 Ingredient Tips
• 🔪 Step-by-step Instructions
• 👩‍🍳 Expert Tips
• 💭 FAQs
• 🍛 More recipes to try
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

So, what is a Yorkshire pudding?

If you’re British, you may already know this one...

Yorkshire puddings are a classic British side dish, originating from (you guessed it) Yorkshire. They’re basically made from pancake batter, but cooked in tins with fat, originally animal fat, but more commonly with vegetable oil these days.

They’re most often eaten as part of a roast dinner, which is how we always have them. In addition, they always feature on a Christmas dinner too. 

We’ve seen some more creative uses of the batter over the years. Giant Yorkshires filled with a roast dinner, and even wraps made with the batter and filled with roast dinner ingredients and dipped in gravy!

Another classic British dish that utilises Yorkshire pudding batter is the oddly-named “toad in the hole”.  It’s basically a giant vegan Yorkshire pudding with plant-based sausages inside it. If you like this recipe we bet you’ll like that one too! Try our Vegan Toad in the Hole.

Why this recipe works

• We practiced and practiced until they were just right. We always want vegan Yorkshire puddings with a roast dinner, so it was a labour of love to create a decent vegan version. There are many factors at play to get them to rise nicely, but completely worth persevering for.
• Everything from the oven temperature to the ingredient ratios, and whether you preheat the oil to how quickly you can work, play a part in creating the perfect vegan Yorkshire pudding. Following all of our advice perfectly should lead to exquisite Yorkies!
• There’s a reason why so many vegan Yorkshire pudding recipes lead to making something that looks more like a muffin than a Yorkshire pudding – it’s really difficult to get right! People struggle to make a good Yorkie using the traditional ingredients, so us vegans are just making it harder for ourselves.
• Resting time – it’s very important to rest these vegan Yorkshire puddings outside of the oven. If you don’t they will have a gooey middle, which is not how Yorkshire puddings should be.
• While these Yorkshires aren’t 100% replicas of a non-vegan version, they are the closest we’ve ever tasted. And we’ve tried a lot.

Pep Talk

• The catch: there’s no guarantee you’re going to get dream Yorkshires out of the oven the first time. You’ve got to practice in your own home, with your ingredients, your equipment and your oven – these variables (and even the temperature in your kitchen) can change the end results massively. But, fear not, this is the best starting point – just look at the photos, it is possible!
• Time for a little pep talk! Although it sounds like there’s a lot to think about, don’t be put off – you’ve got this. Just read this article thoroughly and you’ll be able to make a successful batch of vegan Yorkshire puddings!

🍽 Equipment needed

While this recipe needs to be followed to the letter, it doesn’t need fancy equipment. The main things you’ll need are: a hand whisk (or electric whisk), a metal muffin tin (not a Yorkshire pudding or popover tin), kitchen scales, a measuring jug (1 litre) and spoon measurers to make sure everything is exactly weighed out.

📋 Ingredient Tips

There are a few ingredients that we utilise in this recipe, which aren’t necessarily traditional, but replace non-vegan ingredients well. This is why we use them and some tips:

• Chickpea flour (also known as gram or garbanzo flour) helps to create a slightly lighter batter, as well as providing a slightly golden colour.
• Ground turmeric helps to create a slightly yellow, golden batter that would usually be achieved with egg yolks. 
• Aquafaba is the egg replacement in this recipe. It’s the water that beans have been cooked in. You know, that kind of weird smelling liquid that gets poured down the drain when you open a tin of chickpeas? Don’t worry though, it doesn’t affect the flavour when you use it in cooking. Aquafaba isn’t just found in tins of chickpeas, though most references to it mention chickpeas. We’ve successfully made this recipe using aquafaba from tins of kidney beans and butter beans, so if you’re making our famous vegan fish pie, keep the aquafaba from the tin of butter beans!
• Apple cider vinegar – it helps the batter rise and activates the baking powder.
• Baking powder – also helps them to rise.

🔪 Step-by-step Instructions

These instructions are an overview of the vegan Yorkshire puddings recipe to go with the process images. These are to help show what the recipe should look like at each key stage.

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7 / 220c / 425f. Sieve the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir to combine.

2. Mix the aquafaba, water and apple cider vinegar in a large measuring jug.

3. Stir together the liquid ingredients and dry ingredients. Whisk with a hand or electric whisk until smooth.

4. Let the mixture rest for at least 15 minutes in the large measuring jug.

5. Pour the oil into the wells of the muffin tin. There should be 3mm of oil per well. Place in the oven until smoking hot – this will take about 10 minutes, but keep an eye on it.

6. Once the oil is smoking hot, work quickly (but safely) and pour the batter mix into each well of the tin. Don't overfill them. Leave a gap of around 5mm from the top of each well. Very quickly, put the filled tin back into the oven. Bake for 15 minutes.

Turn the oven temperature down to gas mark 5 / 190c / 375f and leave in for another 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow them to rest for a further 30 minutes. This will allow the middle to firm up!

Use a spoon to carefully remove them from the tin. Serve with a roast dinner. You can re-heat them in the oven or let the gravy heat them up on your plate!

Check out this video for even more help to make this recipe...

👩‍🍳 Expert Tips

Here’s the crucial information that’ll help you become a vegan Yorkshire pudding master:

• Pre-heat the oven. Turn it on when you start making the recipe and let it come fully up to temperature while you get the batter mix ready. It should be on gas mark 7 / 200c / 425f.
• Preheat the oil. It has to be smoking hot, so pour it into the muffin tin and get it into the pre-heated oven as quickly (and carefully!) as possible.
• Rest the batter. Transfer the mix into a jug so that it’s easier to pour later. Rest it for a minimum of 15 minutes, but you could even leave it overnight. If you leave it overnight, be sure to cover it and keep it in the fridge, then bring it up to room temperature before using it.
• If you don’t have a tin of chickpeas or other tinned beans, you can make these vegan Yorkshire puddings with Oggs aquafaba. Oggs sell aquafaba in cartons, but it’s often more expensive than buying a tin of beans.
• Variations – surprisingly, Yorkshires are sometimes eaten as a dessert with jam or other sweet fillings. This was apparently the original way to serve them! We haven’t actually tried them sweet but it does sound initriguing.
• Work fast (but be careful!). The faster you can pour the batter into the tin and get it back in the oven, the better your chance of success. The amount of batter to pour into each well of your tin will come with practice, there should be a gap of about 5mm from the top of each well. Once you’ve made them a couple of times you should be able to tell by eye where to pour to and have them in the oven within a minute.

What not to do

• Don’t overfill the wells of the tin, because then the oil will bubble over the sides, meaning there won’t be enough left to weigh down the middle of the Yorkshires. We know from experience!
• Don't use the batter straight from refrigerator, if it's been in there overnight. Make sure the batter is room temperature, or even a little bit warm. The oil needs to stay as hot as possible, to start cooking the batter straight away.
• Don't scrimp on the oil. We know oil isn’t generally healthy in large quantities, but there’s no way to get the “well” (or dip, or hole – whatever you call that bit in the middle) without it. You need a good few millimetres of oil in each well of the muffin tin. The oil *should* pool in the batter and weigh down the centre of your vegan Yorkshire puddings, leaving the sides to rise and crisp up.
• Don’t try to get them out of the tin straight away – we know it’s tempting to rip one straight out and dunk it in gravy to toast your victory, but hold off. If you give them 15 minutes (or longer) to sit on the side, the middle of the pudding will continue to cook and, more importantly, set. In addition, they’ll be easier to get out of the tin. Otherwise the middle will be soft and gooey, which is not how they should be.
• Don’t use a Yorkshire pudding or popover tin – they’re just not the right shape and they won’t work. Use a standard metal muffin or cupcake tin. It’s important that it’s metal because it distributes the heat evenly and has the structural integrity to maintain its shape during cooking.

💭 FAQs

🍛 More recipes to try

• Cheezy Cahew Nut Roast 
• Vegan Cauliflower Cheese
• Easy Mushroom Wellington
• Easy Vegan Stuffing

If you’re interested in even more roast dinner recipes, check out our guide that features over 30 ideas. And if you're reading this around the Holidays, check out our 79+ Vegan Christmas Dinner ideas.

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