Wake up to these PERFECT Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. They are everything you want in a muffin: moist, citrusy, sweet, and with a little crunch. Make them in under 30 minutes!
Do you remember those HUGE muffins from Costco that came in large cardboard trays and wrapped in cellophane?
Each package contained 12 deliciously enormous muffins: blueberry, double chocolate, and lemon poppy seed. For a short time when I was a child my family had a Sunday breakfast tradition of eating these Costco muffins. Despite all the freshly made, home-baked pastries and desserts that were accessible to me growing up, these store-bought muffins were the. best. thing. ever.
So on Sunday mornings, we would each get to choose one muffin that was all ours.
As I remember it my sisters always went for the double chocolate muffins. My parents' muffin of choice was for the blueberry, and I thought they were all crazy because is there anything better than a lemon poppy seed muffin?
No. No, there is not.
And so, today, I bring you Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins. And I think you're gonna love them.
Recipe Video
Ingredients & Substitutions
Like most of the vegan muffin recipes on this blog, these lemon poppy seed muffins are super simple to make! They just require a little bit of whisking, folding, and baking. If you think you can do that, then let’s make some vegan muffins!
Here is everything you need.
- Non-Dairy Milk – I recommend soy milk because it curdles the best. Almond milk will often curdle but not as well. This may affect the overall texture of the muffin.
- Apple Cider Vinegar – This is my vinegar of choice when making vegan buttermilk (vinegar + soymilk) but white vinegar, white wine vinegar, and lemon juice are great alternatives.
- All-Purpose Flour – For healthier flour options, you can use a 1:1 gluten-free flour blend, buckwheat, or spelt flour.
- Baking Powder & Soda
- Salt
- Poppy Seeds
- Granulated Sugar – Check out my guide to vegan sugars and alternative sugar replacements. For a healthier sugar alternative, I recommend coconut sugar.
- Oil – This recipe calls for canola oil because it creates the best texture without added flavor. If you want to avoid hydrogenated oils, try avocado or melted coconut oil. Olive oil also works but adds a slightly savory flavor. If you want to eliminate the oil altogether, swap it out for the same amount of applesauce.
- Vanilla Extract
- Lemon Juice & Zest
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step One - Make the Batter
To start, we must first make our “buttermilk”. To do this, mix together soymilk with 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and set it aside for 5 minutes to curdle. Once it’s curdled, whisk in the sugar, oil, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
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In a small bowl whisk together the dry ingredients. That’s the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and poppy seeds. Whisk until it’s well combined and set aside. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until all the flour is evenly hydrated.
Step Two - Bake the Muffins
Scoop your batter into a greased muffin tin. I find that using an ice cream scoop is the cleanest and easiest way to get the batter into the muffin molds. With an ice cream scoop, you can ensure the muffins are equally sized as well. Fill each muffin mold about ¾ of the way full and bake for 18-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Remove the vegan lemon muffins from the oven and let them cool in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before flipping out to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Step Three - Make the Lemon Glaze
While the muffins are baking, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice to make your lemon glaze. Once the muffins are out of the oven, spoon about one tablespoon of glaze over each warm muffins then let the muffins continue cooling until completely cool.
Serving and Storing
Serving - Serve these muffins immediately. They come out of the oven warm, buttery, and hard to resist! Serve them with a matcha latte or chai tea.
Storing - Store leftover muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. You can also freeze these muffins for up to 2 months. To thaw, pull the muffins from the freezer and let them thaw at room temperature for several hours.
Tips and Tricks
- The most accurate way to measure flour is to spoon it into your measuring cup, leveling it off with the back of a knife.
- Do not overmix your batter. Overmixing allows the gluten to develop and too much gluten will give you gummy and dense muffins.
- Fill muffin tins about ¾″ of the way full. Any fuller than that and they will overflow.
- Let the muffins sit in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before flipping them out to a wire cooling rack. Otherwise, the muffins may fall apart.
- Glaze the muffins while they are still warm. This allows the glaze to melt over the lemon poppy seed muffins.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. While I choose soy milk because it curdles so well, many people have had success with almond milk, oat milk, and cashew milk as well.
Yes! If you want to make this muffin batter in advance, store the batter in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours. To bake the muffins, preheat the oven and bake according to the instructions. However, these muffins may take a few minutes longer to bake since the batter will be chilled. The muffins will also be slightly denser as the baking soda begins to activate once it’s mixed into the batter, causing it to be slightly less potent.
For sure! For gluten-free muffins, I recommend using a 1:1 baking blend.
Sure. If you would like to make this recipe oil-free, simply swap out the oil for additional applesauce at a 1:1 ratio.
I recommend coconut sugar. Other readers have replaced the sugar with ½ cup maple syrup or simply reduced the sugar by 25%-50% with great success. Check out my complete guide to vegan sugar for more ideas.
More Vegan Muffin Recipes
- Blueberry Muffins
- Mixed Berry Crumb Muffins
- Healthy Vegan Banana Muffins
- Pumpkin Muffins
- Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
And make sure to check out all my muffin & pastry recipes for inspiration.
Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Ingredients
Muffins
- 1 cup soy milk
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoon poppy seeds
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- zest & juice of 2 lemons
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Lemon Glaze
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 2-3 tsp. fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F. Line a muffin tin with baking cups and set aside.
- In a small bowl combine soy milk and apple cider vinegar and let sit for 10 minutes to curdle. In another bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and poppy seeds. Set aside.
- In a large bowl whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and the lemon juice and zest. Slowly add curdled soy milk, whisking while adding, until completely incorporated. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, folding in gently until just combined.
- Fill the muffin liners ⅔ full and bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle come out clean. Set the muffins on a cooling rack to cool.
- While the muffins bake, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice. You may need to add a little extra lemon juice to get a thick and smooth consistency.
- Spoon about 1 tablespoon of glaze over each warm muffins then let the muffins continue cooling until completely cool.
Video
Notes
- The most accurate way to measure flour is to spoon it into your measuring cup, leveling it off with the back of a knife.
- Let the muffins sit in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before flipping them out to a wire cooling rack. Otherwise, the muffins may fall apart.
- Glaze the muffins while they are still warm. This allows the glaze to melt over the lemon poppy seed muffins.
- If you want to make this muffin batter in advance, store the batter in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours. To bake the muffins, preheat the oven and bake according to the instructions. Muffins may take a few minutes longer to bake since the batter will be chilled.
Hi, I’m Sarah. I’m a 14-year (and counting) vegan, professionally trained photographer, former pastry chef, founder of My Darling Vegan, and author of the
Adrienne says
Made these for the first time and my only modification was using oat milk instead of soy. The texture of these muffins are fantastic, and the glaze is delicious; however, we both agree that far more lemon flavor is needed in the muffin, and less poppy seeds should be used.
Next time, I'd add either more lemon zest or perhaps lemon extract, and only use 2T poppy seeds.
Bailey says
Hi can you please state the amount of lemon juice and zest since the size of lemons can vary so much?
Lili says
I only had 1 pretty large lemon and I look forward to making this recipe again with two lemons. These muffins baked really well and are so soft and fluffy! I wonder if the author could let us know how much in cups the juice of 2 lemons is supposed to make ? My lemon made exactly 1/3 cup juice.
I also used chia seeds instead and rice milk. I wonder if the buttermilk is what makes these muffins so fluffy because I’d never made muffins so fluffy.
Leine says
These taste incredible and were a big hit in my household! I used coconut milk and threw in some blueberries at the very end, which was a tasty addition. However, the muffins really stuck to their wrappers and some of the muffin had to be scraped off the bottom with a fork. Why did this happen and how could I prevent it in the future? (Looking through previous comments, I’m not the only one who ran into this.)
Brightways says
It’s not the muffins, it’s the liners. I only use the unbleached parchment ones and they are flawless every time. I make dozens of muffins monthly!
Manda says
.I subbed chia for the poppy seed as I didn't have any and that worked great.
The texture on these was so amazing that next week I'm going to use the same recipe with orange and dried cranberries. Thank you for sharing!
Carly says
I'm wondering why when I change it from 12 to 24 muffins in the serving size, the entire recipe doubles, but it still only says zest and juice of 2 lemons, which is what is says for 12 muffins. Is this a mistake and it should be 4, or do you still only need 2 lemons for a double batch? Doesn't seem right....
Kayla says
These were the best muffins I’ve ever made! Will be making these again!
Debbie says
One of the best vegan muffins I have made to date! I followed the muffin recipe to a tee, and just used the lemon glaze as a drizzle over the muffins as opposed to all over. the muffins Will definitely be making again!
Sheri Livingston says
OMG this is a great recipe! I made mini loaves instead of muffins following the recipe exactly except for the temperature and baking time and they turned out perfectly!!! Thanks for this.
Barbara says
So easy to make! I did these with oat milk and GF flour for my gym climbing class. Going to check out the other recipes for muffins. 🙂
Rheba says
Is there a way to make these muffins sugar free?
Jen says
Hello Sarah,
We made these muffins and they were a huge hit! Now we are wondering if we could use this recipe for a cake? Or do you have a lemon poppy seed cake recipe that you would recommend? If we did use this muffin batter for a cake, we would want to put frosting on it instead of the glaze and thought maybe we should add more lemon and sweeten up the batter more because it wouldn't be as tangy and sweet without the glaze. But that might change the performance of the batter.
Thanks for any thoughts on this. The muffins were so good we wanted to do a birthday cake with the same flavors!
Jen
Jess says
Great recipe! I made these today and they look and taste really lovely! Will certainly be making them again ?
LindainCA says
Fantastic recipe - it's my go-to muffin recipe. I've even switched out the lemons and used oranges from our tree.
Thanks for creating this recipe.
Danielle says
I’m new to baking so maybe I read it wrong. But I feel zest of 2 lemons made the muffins rather bitter. I also had to bake them for about 30 minutes. I like how soft and moist they are so I’ll try again, just with less zest!
Sheri Livingston says
Is it possible you got some of the white pith in with the yellow zest? That could make it bitter.
gunita says
Really tasty muffins, thank you! Recipe saved 🙂 Being a gourmand and a tameless experimenter myself, I added hazelnuts, which was a good idea 🙂
gunita says
Really tasty muffins! Recipe saved! 🙂 Being a gourman and a tameless experimentator myself, I added hazelnuts, which was a good idea 🙂
arianna says
made them three times now, these are my favorite muffins ever and the lemon smell it leaves in my kitchen is a PLUS! i don’t change anything to the recipe except for the milk, i think i’ve used almond, soy, and milkadamia and every time i loved it. thanks for sharing
Britt says
Can this recipe be made into a cake loaf instead of muffins?
Rich says
Really good muffins and I used 1/3 cup coconut sugar in a coffee grinder to pulverize, for the glaze, and about 1.5 Tb lemon juice and pulp.
Brenda Kuciemba says
Delicious! Love the aroma from baking and the lemony glaze is perfection.