Melt-In-Your-Mouth Vegan Bread Pudding

Looking for a way to use up stale bread and satisfy your sweet tooth? This Vegan Bread Pudding will absolutely melt in your mouth, curbing your sweet cravings and breathing new life into your stale bread!

With just 6 simple ingredients and ready in under an hour, this delicious easy vegan dessert recipe will not only brighten your mood but will also come together easily. And the bonus? Your kitchen will smell fantastic.

Plus, it’s super easy to make your own by throwing in some add-ins like dark chocolate chips, berries, nuts, or my favorite— whipping up an easy 15-minuute bread pudding sauce like this Vanilla Sauce or Brandy Sauce!

As a mom balancing family life and a sophisticated taste for food, I’m in love with one bowl recipes like this with very little hands-on prep time, not too much clean up, just 6 simple pantry ingredients, and tons of delicious flavor. It hits all the right notes—easy, efficient, and elevated!

Plus, using up ingredients I have in my fridge is always a priority as the primary grocery shopper and cook in the house, and this recipe is such a great way to use up stale bread!

What is bread pudding?

Bread pudding is day-old bread that is typically cut into cubes, mixed with a mixture of milk, sugar, and eggs, and then baked in a casserole dish.

For this non-dairy bread pudding that is completely vegan, we are subbing apple sauce for eggs to act as a binder and using non-dairy milk for the bread to soak up.

Bread Pudding without Egg Ingredients

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Here’s everything you need:

• Vegan butter. Any will work—use your favorite!
• Stale bread. Any vegan bread will do. I prefer white, brioche, or French, in my bread pudding (you can find great vegan versions of these!), but truly any will do.
• Coconut milk. Or any other unsweetened non-dairy milk.
• Apple sauce. Plain and unsweetened.
• Granulated sugar. For sweetness.
• Vanilla extract. For flavor.

Vegan Bread Pudding Tips and Tricks

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This recipe is super simple. Sugar for sweetening, coconut milk for moisture, vanilla and butter for flavor, and apple sauce to work as a binder. And then there’s your bread, of course!

I love using full-fat coconut milk in this recipe because it really makes the bread nice and pillowy and the final result absolutely melts in your mouth. The flavor of the coconut is not very evident.

You can absolutely substitute another non-dairy milk but just make sure it’s not sweetened. We want to be able to control the amount of sweetness we add to this dish. On that note, unsweetened apple sauce is the best for this recipe, too!

Best Bread for Bread Pudding

While bread pudding can be made successfully with any bread, the best bread for bread pudding is usually stale white bread, brioche, challah, or French bread. However, when making vegan bread pudding, you’ll want to make sure the bread you’re using is vegan, too!

It’s best stale because it will then soak up all the moisture from your milk without becoming too soggy.

As with any bread pudding, breads that have a subtle sweetness work really well, simply because they are already more mild or sweet in flavor, lending to the overall sweetness of your bread pudding.

However, it’s worth noting that the typically breads you think of when you think of “sweet bread” are not always vegan, but they do sell great vegan versions.

Brioche Gourmet makes a great plant-based brioche and I’ve loved the Trader Joe’s Vegan Brioche Loaf as well (when I can get my hands on it!)

Vegan white bread is much easier to find, just check the ingredients first! A few of my favorites are Dave’s Killer and BFree.

Melt Your Butter

Melting your butter allows it to easily combine with the rest of your ingredients. You can melt it over the stove, in the oven, or if you’re lazy like me, just chuck it in the microwave.

Add your vegan butter to a microwave-safe bowl (I just use my glass measuring cup) and microwave on high in 30-second intervals. Stir in between, and just keep heating until the butter completely liquefies. Simple as that!

Once your vegan butter is melted, you’ll mix it in with the milk, vanilla, sugar, and apple sauce before adding your bread.

Grab A Large Mixing Bowl

This recipe isn’t only super delicious, it’s as easy as apple pie!

Outside of your 6 simple ingredients, you’ll just need a large mixing bowl and a medium-sized casserole dish (I used a 9″x7″ dish).

A mixing bowl is the best way to make sure all of your ingredients are perfectly integrated before transferring them to your baking dish.

Cube Your Bread

The next step is cubing the bread. You can use any bread for this recipe, but I recommend white bread. It most easily absorbs your liquid and takes on the sugary taste seamlessly. You’ll need just half of a loaf of any bread you choose.

If your loaf is whole, slice it into pieces about 1-inch thick.

If your bread is already sliced, it’s as easy as slicing it into 4 roughly equal parts vertically, then rotating it and slicing it roughly into thirds to form little bread cubes.

You can stack your bread to slice it, but wouldn’t recommend tackling more than 4 slices at a time.

Once your bread is cubed, you can add it to your liquid mixture and use a spatula to toss it, making sure every piece of bread is coated.

Best Ways to Serve Bread Pudding

This dairy-free bread pudding is best served warm. I like to dust it with a little powdered sugar or if I’m feeling decadent I will whip up this Vanilla Sauce for Bread Pudding or Brandy Sauce for Bread Pudding (both recipes have vegan options!).

Serving bread pudding a la mode is a great way to kick this delicacy up a notch! Try it with this Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream.

How to Properly Store and Reheat Vegan Bread Pudding

This Vegan Bread Pudding is meant to feed 6-to 8, but it is extremely addictive! If you do have incredible willpower and happen to have leftovers—I got you!

Cover and keep in the refrigerator for 5-7 days or in the freezer for up to a month. Reheating it is a breeze.

From the fridge, reheat a single serving on a frying pan for about 5 minutes on each side, until thoroughly heated through. You can also reheat it in the toaster or the oven at 375°F for 10 minutes from the refrigerator or 15 minutes from frozen.

The microwave will work in a pinch but does tend to make it a little soggy.

Why this is the Best Dairy-Free Bread Pudding Recipe

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• It’s simple. Accessible ingredients, one mixing bowl, throw it in a dish, and pop it in the oven!
• THE TEXTURE. When I say this melts in your mouth… I MEAN this MELTS in your mouth!
• It’s resourceful! Why toss your stale bread when you can make this undeniably delicious dessert instead?