These easy savoury vegan muffins are SO addictive! They’re the perfect savoury snack or side dish that really hits the spot. Filled with zucchini, and herbs & topped off with crunchy seeds.
Sometimes you just need a savoury treat.
One that feels like ultimate comfort food that would be too good to resist.
These savoury vegan breakfast muffins are the perfect side dish to my stew & dumplings or vegan cream of chicken soup.
Why You'll Love These
- A crunchy pumpkin seed topping
- Super easy - completely beginner friendly.
- Contains secret portion of veggies!
- Easy to customise
- No special equipment needed
- Amazing when topped off with my homemade pesto
- Filled with herbs like thyme and chives.
Plus, I prepared step-by-step photos to help you bake!
You’ll find both metric and US weight measurements in the instructions below. Plus, you can adjust the portion sizes with just a click.
Ingredients
These are the ingredients you'll need to make my savoury vegan muffins- most of these are vegan cupboard staples!
Ingredient Details
- Plain flour: also known as all-purpose flour.
- Almond milk: choose unsweetened almond milk. Can be subbed for soy or oat milk too (but make sure they are unsweetened too).
- Vegan cheese: cheddar or mozarella-style cheese is my personal favourite, but I've also tried these muffins with smoked vegan cheese & it worked well.
- Olive oil: you can use sunflower oil instead.
- Herbs & seasoning: you'll need salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika powder & dry chives & thyme.
Steps
This is a quick overview of making these savoury vegan muffins - full details & instructions are at the bottom of this post.
- Combine flaxseed and hot water in a small bowl. Let stand. In a separate bowl, sift all your dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder and all the seasoning).
- Grate a zucchini and set it aside.
- In another bowl, combine oil, almond milk, and flaxseed mixture. Then squeeze out all the remaining liquid from the zucchini on top of the wet mixture.
- Combine your dry and wet mixtures. Mix well with a silicone spatula until fully combined.
- When fully combined, stir in the cheese and the zucchini.
- Line a muffin tray with oil and fill your muffin tins all the way to do top. Sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and bake at 180°C/356°F for 30-35 minutes.
Expert Tips
Below you can find some common troubleshooting tips!
If you’re stuck at any point in making these savoury vegan muffins, go ahead and leave a comment below. I am to answer all blog comments within 24 hours.
Don't overmix
Stir your batter until no big flecks of flour remain. However, do not overmix it.
Overmixing will cause the development of more gluten and make your muffins feel more like bread than the fluffy, airy goodness they are.
Avoid dry dough
Made your dough and you think it's too dry?
Simply add water one tablespoon at a time.
Before doing that, make sure that you've squeezed out ALL the water from your grated zucchini.
The zucchini adds A LOT of liquid so not squeezing it out properly can make a big difference.
No paper liners
These muffins don't work in the same way as their sweet counterparts (such as my blueberry ones) that require paper liners.
Simply spoon the batter straight into your very well-greased muffin tin.
If you use paper liners, there's a big chance you won't be able to get the muffins out without damaging them.
Variations
I like to keep my recipes as customisable as possible. This way, if you don’t have all the ingredients in your fridge or pantry, you can still make the recipe you’re craving.
As always, I do recommend sticking to the exact recipe. However, I understand it’s not always possible.
If you’re looking for some ideas for possible ingredient substitutions, I’ve got you covered:
- No wholemeal flour? No worries, use just plain flour.
- Want to avoid plain flour? If you’re attempting to avoid plain flour altogether, I would advise against it. Plain flour is what helps make these vegan muffins so fluffy and airy. Only using wholemeal flour will leave you with flatter, hard, denser muffins. More tips on how to sub whole wheat flour for white flour can be found here.
- No thyme or chives? No worries. Substitute with other herbs of your choice. I recommend using similar green herbs currently in your pantry. These could be rosemary, parsley, basil, etc.
- No flaxseed? Substitute with chia seed. This will serve as your vegan egg. Don’t just simply leave out the flaxseed egg - this won’t work. To make your chia egg, follow the exact same instructions you would for the flaxseed egg. Simply just switch out flaxseed for chia seed.
- Want to experiment even more? You could also add in some other veggies such as green (spring) onions or sundried tomatoes.
Missing any other ingredients? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll try and help you out.
Other Recipes
Enjoyed these lovely savory vegan muffins? Then you'll also love my:
🍴Recipe
Savoury Vegan Breakfast Muffins w Zucchini
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon ground flaxseed
- 1 cup (120 g) wholemeal flour
- 2 cups (240 g) plain flour
- 2,5 teaspoon (2.5 teaspoon) baking powder
- 2½ tablespoon (2.5 tablespoon) olive oil
- ⅘ cup + 2 tbsp (220 ml) almond milk or other UNSWEETENED plant milk
- ⅔ cup (80 g) vegan cheese sliced
- 1 (130 g) medium-sized zucchini
- 2 tablespoon pumpkin seeds topping
Seasoning
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon (0.25 teaspoon) ground pepper
- A pinch garlic powder
- 2,5 tablespoon (2.5 tablespoon) dried chives
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon paprika powder
Instructions
- Make a flax egg by combining ground flaxseed and boiling hot water (6 tbsp). Stir well until no lumps remain and set aside.
- In the meantime, sift all your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, seasoning) into a medium-sized bowl. Stir well.
- Grate a courgette/zucchini. Set aside.
- In a new bowl, combine your wet ingredients – oil, almond milk, and flaxseed egg. Then take the grated zucchini and squeeze out all the water from your zucchini over your wet mixture. Set the zucchini aside again. Stir the mixture.
- Add your wet mixture to your dry mixture. Mix well with a silicone spatula until fully combined. When fully mixed, stir in the cheese and zucchini.
- Grease the muffin tin with plenty of oil. Fill the moulds with your mixture (with a spoon) and top off with pumpkin seeds.
- Bake at 180°C/356°F (fan oven setting) for 30-35 minutes.
Notes
- Tip 1 - Stir your batter until no big flecks of flour remain. However, do not overmix it.
- Tip 2 - Made your dough and you think it's too dry? Simply add water one tablespoon at a time.
Nutrition
Disclaimer: The nutritional information above is calculated automatically. The author of this post cannot guarantee 100% accuracy of this data.
Made my vegan savoury muffin recipe? Do let me know your feedback in the comments below - I love hearing about your remakes of my recipes!
Afreen
Love your easy to follow directions and the handy tips. Feel motivated to making it today. Many thanks from someone who is averse to cooking and baking usually.
Tajda Ferko
Aww that means a lot, thank you so much for your lovely comment and glad to hear you're feeling motivated! Let me know if you've end up making the recipe - would love to hear about how it turned out 🙂
Noah
I tried these muffins, i didn't have zucchini so i substituted with carrots. Really liked them but they are a bit dry (maybe i left them in the oven too long), so i added some tofu based creamcheese and it was really good. Will definitely make again, but without the pumpink seeds.
Thanks for the recipe
Tajda Ferko
Hi Noah, thanks for your lovely feedback. Happy to hear you liked these overall. I would definitely try taking them out of the oven a bit sooner the next time - the centre will keep cooking even after you've removed it from the oven. Another reason for a slightly dry texture could be the carrots. Carrots have less moisture and a lower water content compared to zucchini. Thanks again for commenting! Have a fab day x
D
These look delish... can you use an egg replacement powered instead of flax or chia seeds?
Thanx
Tajda Ferko
Hi lovely! I think it could definitely work with an egg replacement. As always with substitutes, it might turn out different than the original recipe, but it would be worth a try! Let me know if you give it a try, I'd love to hear all about it. x
Tanesha
Love this recipe! I subbed in half oat flour and the muffins still came out with a great texture.
Tajda Ferko
Brilliant to hear it worked with the oat flour! Thanks for the wonderful review xx
Janet Perry
Thank you for a lovely recipe, my family and I absolutely loved these muffins.
Tajda Ferko
Thank you so much Janet, really happy to hear that!! x
gloria
What do you do with the cheese? Melt it, chop it...?
Tajda Ferko
Hi Gloria, no need to melt it, just slice it into small bits & add it the batter. You can use the Photo 5 in my step-by-step guide to see how big/small they're meant to be. You can also use shredded vegan cheese if preferred 🙂