Vegan Irish Soda Bread Recipe (Dairy Free)

Irish soda bread is a type of “quick bread” that requires minimal kneading and uses baking soda to rise (instead of yeast). It’s traditionally made with butter, buttermilk and sometimes eggs, but can be made into a vegan recipe with a few easy substitutions.

Soda bread is crusty, soft-yet-dense, slightly sweet and is great to serve with butter, jam or other preserves. It has a rustic look and feel.

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Vegan Soda Bread Ingredients

The ingredients for this vegan soda bread are quite basic and you should find them at most grocery stores. As this is a baking recipe, substitutions aren’t always possible, so make it as written in the directions below to get the best result possible.

• All purpose flour: The base of this bread is simple all purpose flour. I haven’t tested this recipe with any other type of flour and can’t comment on how well another flour would work (or not).
• Granulated sugar: Soda bread is slightly sweet compared to a basic loaf of bread, and this is from its sugar content. I haven’t tested this recipe using any other type of sugar or sweetener.
• Salt: Round out and enhance the flavor of this bread with some salt.
• Baking soda: This is where soda bread gets its name! Use baking soda to leaven the loaf and let it rise. This makes it a simpler bread to prepare as you don’t have to worry about using active yeast.
• Vegan butter: Soda bread is typically rich in texture; this is partly because you’ll incorporate some butter into the dough. Cut the butter in to add a slightly flaky texture and pockets of delicious butter flavor throughout the bread. Select a vegan butter substitute as margarine is too soft to cut into flour properly.
• White vinegar: Baking soda needs an acid to react with to make the bread rise. Traditionally, bakers use buttermilk (a type of sour milk). To make this recipe vegan, make our own simple vegan buttermilk substitute using white vinegar and soy milk. I haven’t tested this recipe with any other type of vinegar, but any vinegar should work if it contains 5% or more acetic acid (check the label).
• Soy milk: Soy milk naturally has the more protein content than any other type of plant-based milk, and a thicker texture. This makes it the best vegan buttermilk replacement. Other plant-based milks tend to be thinner and, when mixed with vinegar, remain thinner in texture compared to soy milk. I highly recommend soy milk for best results, although technically any plant-based milk should work.

Raisins are another common ingredient in soda bread recipes. I’ve left them out of this recipe because it gives the bread more versatility. I haven’t tested this bread with raisins, but it should work well if you want to add some.

How to Make Dairy Free Soda Bread

Bread can be intimidating to make sometimes, but this is an easy loaf to prepare and requires minimal (almost no) kneading.

Step 1: Prepare Buttermilk

Start by making a vegan buttermilk substitute. In a liquid measuring cup, add 1 ½ tablespoons of white vinegar.

Then pour in the soy milk until you reach a total volume of 1 ¾ cups. To measure liquid properly, you need to be at eye level with the markings on the liquid (often glass) measuring cup.

If this sound tricky, the alternative is to measure 1 ¾ cups of soy milk, then remove 1 ½ tablespoons of the milk. After this, add in 1 ½ tablespoons of white vinegar and you’ll get the same result.

Whisk the vinegar into your milk and set it aside.

Step 2: Whisk Dry Ingredients

Add flour, sugar, salt and baking soda to a large mixing bowl. Whisk these dry ingredients together until well mixed.

I highly recommend using a kitchen scale to weigh ingredients (especially flour) for this recipe.

If you don’t have a kitchen scale, it’s critical to measure the flour properly. Gently scoop flour into the measuring cup, then use a flat edge (like the back of a knife) to scrape off excess flour.

Step 3: Cut in Butter

Next, add cold vegan butter to the flour. I like to cut the butter into small pieces as I add it to the flour.

Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter (ideally), or if you don’t have a pastry cutter, a fork can also work.

The goal is to have very small pieces of butter, each coated in flour, distributed evenly throughout your flour mixture.

Step 4: Form Dough and Bake

When you’ve cut in the butter, pour in the buttermilk you prepared in step 1.

Use a spoon to stir the buttermilk into the flour until a ball of dough forms. At this point, switch to using your hand and gently knead the dough a few times to incorporate all the flour.

You don’t want to knead the dough much at all; simply make sure all the flour is incorporated. This dough is fairly sticky, so do your best to not over-knead the dough.

Turn out the ball of dough onto a baking tray (you can also use a well-seasoned cast iron pan or a greased Dutch oven). I line my baking tray with a silicone baking mat, but parchment paper also works.

Shape the dough into a round ball, keeping as much height in the dough as you can manage. Then, use a sharp knife to score an X into the top of the dough.

Place the loaf into an oven preheated to 400 °F. Bake for 45-50 minutes.

Your dough should be crusty and golden brown all over once baked.

Remove the bread from your oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

This bread is easiest to slice once fully cooled (but you can carefully slice when still warm).

You may find that the bread crumbles slightly, especially around the edges, so be careful when slicing.

How to Store Soda Bread Leftovers

Transfer leftover bread to a storage bag or container after it’s fully cooled. It should be fine on your countertop for 1-2 days. Any longer than that (for up to a week) you should refrigerate the bread.

As with most breads, this vegan soda bread is best served freshly baked.

Other Vegan Bread Recipes

If you’re looking to learn more about vegan bread, check out my recipes for:

• 100% whole wheat dinner rolls
• Focaccia bread

If you make this recipe, please rate and comment below to help others benefit from your experience!

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