Vegan Carrot Orange Muffins

The warmth of delicately spiced carrot cake meets the freshness of orange quick bread.

Whether for breakfast, brunch, on the go, or alongside your next cup of tea or coffee, these are the perfect snack for carrot cake lovers!

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📖 Recipe Overview
🧾 Ingredients Needed
🥣 How To Make Vegan Carrot Muffins
🥕 Variations
💡Recipe Tips
💬 FAQs
🧁 More Vegan Muffins
Carrot Orange Muffins

Love baking and making desserts with carrots? Make sure you try my vegan recipes for no-bake carrot cheesecake, carrot quick bread, and carrot layer cake next!

📖 Recipe Overview

Quick & Easy - Don't be overwhelmed by the relatively long ingredients list - most ingredients used here are pantry staples such as raising agents, sugar, flour, and spices with some added fresh ingredients that are easy to find or easily swappable! I've included possible swaps in the ingredient notes and variations sections below.
Incredibly Moist - These muffins will seriously melt in your mouth. They have the most tender texture with a moist crumb that packs a huge flavor in each bite!
Made Without Nuts - I get a lot of requests for nut-free recipes, so opted for toasted coconut instead of the more traditional walnuts in these muffins.

🧾 Ingredients Needed

Here's everything you need to make moist and fluffy carrot muffins with cream cheese glaze from scratch:

Find the complete list of ingredients, quantities, and instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.

Ingredient Notes

Grated Carrots - Make sure you use freshly grated carrots as storebought tend to be too dry and often have an unpleasant flavor. Select bright, fresh carrots and peel them before shredding.
Oranges - This recipe uses both the zest and juice, so opt for unwaxed and organic oranges if possible.
Shredded Coconut - I recommend using toasted coconut for maximum nutty flavor. You can easily toast the shredded coconut yourself. Add it to a baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven (175°C/350°F) for 5 minutes, tossing it halfway through. Let it cool before use.
Soy Milk - This is mixed with apple cider vinegar to make vegan buttermilk. You can swap it for almond milk or oat milk and the vinegar for lemon juice.
Brown Sugar - I used panela, an unrefined cane sugar, but feel free to also use coconut sugar or soft brown sugar if you prefer.
Olive Oil - This adds moisture and keeps the muffins moist for days!
Vegan Greek-Style Yogurt - Vegan sour cream or thick coconut yogurt can also be used. You could swap this for another egg substitute such as mashed banana, unsweetened applesauce, or pumpkin puree. Just note that this will also alter the flavor of the muffins!
Vegan Cream Cheese - If you can't find store-bought dairy-free cream cheese, you can DIY it with this homemade version.

🥣 How To Make Vegan Carrot Muffins

These simple carrot cake muffins come together in just a few easy steps. Here's a visual of how to make them:

Step 1: Using your fingertips, rub the freshly grated orange zest into the sugar to add flavor and help the zest release its oils.

Step 2: Whisk in the wet ingredients (orange juice, non-dairy milk and apple cider vinegar, oil, vanilla extract, and vegan yogurt).

Step 3: Fold in half of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg). Then fold in the remaining dry ingredients along with the shredded carrot and coconut.

Step 4: Divide the muffin batter into tulip liners, skipping every second well in your muffin tin. If you have leftover batter, keep this in the fridge while you bake the first batch.

Step 5: Let the muffins sit in the pan for 5 minutes before carefully lifting them onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Step 6: Top with the vegan cream cheese glaze. If you used regular muffin liners, you could also quickly dunk the muffin tops in the glaze.

🥕 Variations

Here are some ways you can put a twist on the recipe to suit your taste:

Carrot And Banana Muffins - Swap the vegan yogurt for the same-weight mashed bananas.
Carrot Nut Muffins - If you don't like coconut, add finely chopped walnuts or pecans in their place.
Date Carrot Muffins - Add a third cup of pitted chopped dates to the batter. You can also do this with raisins or sultanas.
Pumpkin Carrot Muffins - Swap out the non-dairy yogurt for pumpkin puree for a fall twist!
Skip The Glaze - If you want them less sweet, top them with pumpkin seeds or the streusel from my pumpkin muffin recipe.

💡Recipe Tips

Toast the coconut for maximum flavor. If you can't find store-bought toasted shredded coconut, you can toast it yourself like I did. The Kitchn shows how that can be done in the oven, microwave, or on the stovetop

Shred the carrots finely. I recommend using the finest setting on your box grater (the cheese grating side). I much prefer the flavor, color, and moisture super finely grated carrots give the batter.

Fill the liners all the way to the top with muffin batter. You want the muffins to bake up nice and tall.

💬 FAQs

How to store carrot muffins?

Place the muffins in an airtight container and store them at room temperature for up to 2 days with glaze or 5 days (without glaze). You can keep them in the fridge for up to a week.

Let them sit at room temperature for an hour before serving if stored in the fridge. You can freeze them in an airtight container and defrost them for a couple of hours before serving.

Can I make them with gluten-free flour?

I haven't tested these muffins with gluten-free flour. If you want to try them with GF flour, use an all-purpose GF flour such as Bob's Red Mill or King Arthur which contains xantham gum. Let the batter rest for 30 minutes before baking, and let me know in the comments below if you give it a try!