Based on my classic cinnamon roll recipe, these gooey sweet rolls are infused with the fragrant nutty flavor of pistachios!
This recipe requires a bit of prep but I've included an overnight option, so you can prep, proof, assemble, and refrigerate the rolls, and then bake them fresh the next day after a second rise. Perfect for a special weekend brunch or Christmas morning!
I took inspiration from the viral TikTok cinnamon rolls. This hack involves pouring heavy cream over the rolls before baking, which makes them incredibly gooey. As vegan heavy cream is more difficult to find, I've used a combination of single oat cream and pistachio butter which bakes around and into the rolls making them super gooey, without being soggy.
🧾 Ingredients
Here's everything you need to make these pistachio cinnamon rolls:
Ingredient Notes
Find the complete list of ingredients, quantities, and instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Vegan Buttermilk: This gives the dough a slightly tangy flavor. Soy milk makes the best buttermilk for fluffy rolls, but you could use oat milk or almond milk if needed.
- Instant Yeast: This recipe calls for instant dry yeast, if using active yeast, it will need to be activated first. To activate, add the yeast to warm buttermilk with a spoonful of sugar and stir. It's ready once the mixture begins bubbling and foaming (about 5-10 minutes).
- Vegan Unsalted Butter: You'll need block-style dairy-free butter. At first I tried to replace some of the butter in the sweet roll dough with pistachio paste, and while that gave them a beautiful hue, it didn't add much pistachio flavor and stopped the dough from becoming as fluffy as it should, so butter is a must!
- Vegan Pistachio Spread: I used this dairy-free pistachio spread. You can make your own with this vegan pistachio cream recipe, made from ingredients like pistachios, vegan white chocolate, and real vanilla.
- Pistachio Butter: This is used to flavor the pistachio glaze and the pouring cream. If you don't want to buy or make pistachio spread, you can also use pistachio butter for the filling, just double the sugar in the filling to make up for the sweetness.
- Powdered Sugar: For the pistachio sugar glaze, this creates a beautiful sticky sweet topping.
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🔪 Instructions
Here are step-by-step images showing how to make this pistachio cinnamon roll recipe. Please refer to the detailed printable recipe card at the end of this page for full measurements and written instructions:
Making & Proofing The Dough
Step 1: Add the melted butter and vanilla extract to the vegan buttermilk and mix. In the bowl of a stand mixer combine flour, sugar, yeast, and salt. Pour the buttermilk mixture in with the dry ingredients.
Step 2: Using the dough hook attachment, knead the dough on medium speed for 5-7 minutes until it forms a ball. It will be sticky, but if it sticks to the bowl too much, knead in 1-2 tablespoons of flour.
Step 3: Place the dough ball into a lightly greased bowl and cover the top of the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Place in a warm part of your kitchen to proof for 1-2 hours until the dough rises and has doubled in size.
Step 4: Punch the air out of the dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface into a large rectangle (about 11”x16”).
Assembling The Rolls
Step 5: Add the raw pistachios, granulated sugar, and ground cinnamon to a food processor and blitz to a powdery consistency. Set aside.
Step 6: Carefully spread the pistachio cream in a thin layer using a spatula or your fingers - going all the way to the edges. Sprinkle the ground pistachio mixture on top in an even layer.
Step 7: Mark the log into 9 portions, then use a pizza cutter or dough cutter to cut it into equal strips. Individually roll each bun, or roll into a tight log and use unflavored toothfloss as shown in this vegan cinnamon roll recipe.
Step 8: Place the buns in an 8x8" or 10.5"x7.5" dish lined with parchment paper and cover the plastic wrap or foil. For overnight cinnamon rolls, you can refrigerate them at this stage.
Second Rise & Baking
Proof for a second time in a warm place for 1-2 hours until they rise and puff up.
Whisk together the oat cream and pistachio butter. Pour it over the proofed cinnamon rolls just before baking.
Bake for 30-35 minutes until the tops are light golden brown.
Whisk together the glaze ingredients until smooth and pour it over the warm buns.
💭 Recipe Tips
Use room temperature ingredients. Make sure your pistachio spread is not refrigerated as this will make it difficult to spread over the cinnamon roll dough.
Proofing time will vary depending on the temperature of your kitchen. Ideally, you want a temperature between 24°C and 29°C (75-85 degrees Fahrenheit). If you can't find a warm place, you can use your oven at a very low setting. This useful post by Culinary Hill explains how to proof yeasted dough in the oven
💬 FAQs
Nope, these are entirely different.
Pistachio butter is a more pure, made using 100% pistachios which are blended into a smooth nut butter.
Pistachio cream (crema al pistacchio) is an Italian sweetened spread made with pistachios, sugar, and white chocolate. It's like a pistachio version of nutella! These days there are some vegan storebought pistachio spreads on the market, but you can easily make your own with this vegan pistachio cream recipe.
In this recipe, yes! If you don't want to dish out on an entire jar of pistachio cream spread, simply swap it for pistachio butter. I recommend doubling the sugar content of the filling to compensate for the sweetness.
I personally find cinnamon buns are best when baked fresh. But if you have leftover rolls, tightly cover them with plastic wrap or aluminum foil, or place them into an airtight container. They will keep at room temperature for 2 days, or you can refrigerate them for up to 5 days. Take them out of the fridge an hour before serving to let them soften. You can also gently warm them in a toaster oven if you’d like.
🍩 More Vegan Buns
📖 Recipe
Vegan Pistachio Rolls (Fluffy & Gooey!)
Ingredients
Dough
- 1 batch (1 cup) vegan buttermilk *see note 1
- 75 g (2.6 oz) vegan butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 460 g (3 ⅔ cups) all-purpose flour
- 60 g (5 tablespoons) granulated sugar
- 2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast *see note 2
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
Filling
- 60 g (½ cup) raw pistachios
- 35 g (3 tablespoons) granulated sugar *see note 3
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 150 g (⅔ cup) vegan pistachio cream spread room temperature, or pistachio butter *see note 4
Pouring Cream (optional - for gooey rolls)
- 80 ml (⅓ cup) single oat cream or soy cream
- 1 tablespoon pistachio butter
Glaze
- 120 g (1 cup) powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons pistachio butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 teaspoons non-dairy milk
Instructions
- Please read the recipe thoroughly before getting started. For the most accurate results, measure with a digital kitchen scale.
- Preparation: Make a batch of vegan buttermilk. Slowly melt the vegan butter (for the dough) in a saucepan over low heat or in the microwave. Be careful not to heat it, you just want to warm it enough to melt.
- Make the dough: Add the melted butter and vanilla extract to the vegan buttermilk and mix. In your stand mixer bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt.Pour the buttermilk mixture in with the dry ingredients.
- Knead (Stand mixer): Using the dough hook attachment, knead the dough on medium speed for 5-7 minutes until it forms a ball. It will be sticky, but if it sticks to the bowl too much, knead in 1-2 tablespoons of flour.Or knead by hand as shown in this cinnamon roll recipe.
- 1st proof: Clean and dry the bowl and lightly grease it with some oil. Place the dough ball into the bowl and cover the top of the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Place in a warm part of your kitchen to proof for 1-2 hours until the dough has puffed up and doubled in size.
- Filling: Meanwhile, add the raw pistachios, sugar, and cinnamon to a food processor and blitz to a powdery consistency. Set aside.
- Roll out dough: Punch the air out of the dough + roll it out on a lightly floured surface into a large rectangle (about 11”x16”).
- Fill: Carefully spread the pistachio cream in a thin layer using a spatula or your fingers - going all the way to the edges. Sprinkle the pistachio sugar-cinnamon mixture on top in an even layer.
- Roll: Mark the log into 9 portions, then use a pizza cutter or dough cutter to cut it into strips. Individually roll each bun, or roll into a log and use unflavored toothfloss as shown in this cinnamon roll recipe.
- 2nd proof: Place the buns in an 8x8" or 10.5"x7.5" dish lined with parchment paper and cover the plastic wrap or foil. Let them proof in a warm place for 1-2 hours until they rise and double in size.Alternatively, to make overnight cinnamon rolls, place them in the fridge for up to 24 hours at this stage. Then take them out to sit at room temperature for about 2 hours, or until they double in size.
- Optional pouring cream: Whisk together the oat cream and pistachio butter. Pour it over the proofed cinnamon rolls just before baking. Note this makes them extra gooey, they are still perfectly delicious without it.
- Bake: Preheat the oven to fan-forced 160°C/320°F or conventional 180°C/356°F. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the tops are light golden brown. Cool slightly for 15 minutes.
- Glaze: Whisk together the ingredients until smooth + swirl on top of the warm buns.
Notes
- Vegan Buttermilk: Use this buttermilk recipe.
- Instant Yeast: This recipe calls for instant dry yeast, if using active yeast, it will need to be activated first. To activate, add the yeast to warm buttermilk with a spoonful of sugar and stir. It's ready once the mixture begins bubbling and foaming (about 5-10 minutes).
- Granulated Sugar: Double the sugar amount if you are using pistachio butter instead of pistachio cream spread for the filling.
- Vegan Pistachio Cream Spread: I used this pistachio spread, you can also use this recipe for homemade pistachio cream.
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I do not like cooking and I like baking even less. However, for Christmas, I wanted to make something different and "fancy" for the family.
This is one of those recipes that involves several sub-recipes (pistachio spread, pistachio butter, pistachio cream) and it took me the better part of an entire day and I hated it the whole time.
I followed the recipe exactly and it came out delicious and everyone loved it. I will never make this again.
PS- I have no idea what "oat cream" and "soy cream" are and neither did anyone in the multiple grocery stores I went to. For the pouring cream, I used Elmhurst Pistachio Creme Oat Creamer (with the pistachio butter) and that came out perfectly fine.
PS2- I also couldn't find raw pistachios in any of several grocery stores so I used roasted unsalted pistachios and that was perfectly fine too.
Hi TJ,
Thank you so much for taking the time to make it, especially for someone who doesn't enjoy baking, yeasted bread recipes are definitely a commitment! Here in Europe we have single creams in the ambient aisle, they are also known as soy cooking cream etc, so that's interesting to know that they aren't available everywhere, the pistachio creamer sounds like the perfect solution though!
I'm so happy everyone loved the recipe, and thank you for your wonderful feedback. Even if you will never make it again - that part made me giggle!
Hope you have a wonderful rest of the holiday season 🙂