Easy Vegan Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

🎃 Ingredients for Vegan Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns

Pumpkin Purée

Just like I do for my vegan pumpkin muffins, maple pumpkin flan, and vegan pumpkin donuts, I make these buns using canned pumpkin purée. Mark m’words, my dear lovely, you don’t want to use pumpkin pie filling. So make sure ya grab the paper can, ok?

The Flour

I like to make these with bread flour because it has more gluten and makes for a fluffier crumb. It’s really the same thinking for why I use that flour in my regular vegan cinnamon roll recipe. You can, for sure, get away with using all-purpose flour in them if you don’t have any bread flour.

Before you ask—you can pull these buns off with a gluten-free flour mix if that’s your thing. They just will not be nearly as tender and lovely as with regular flour.

Vegan Butter

Vegan butter provides richness and moisture to the dough and gives the cinnamon sugar filling its juicy, yummy vibe. You can make your own vegan butter, following the recipe I share in my vegan dairy crash course, or use any store-bought butter you like (which is often what I do out of laziness for making my vegan pastry crust, vegan oatmeal cookies, and eggless chocolate chip cookies).

I’ve also pulled them off beautifully with refined coconut oil, although they somewhat lack the yummy butter flavor that makes these better than most non-vegan buns.

The Sugar

I make this with brown sugar, but if you don’t have any you can use regular sugar with a dash of molasses added to it.

If you want to make these with a less refined kind of sugar, coconut sugar or palm sugar work great in it, and I know this because my wife avoids regular sugar for reasons which I will never fully understand. I guess that’s why I’ve spent 10X what she has at the dentists over the past 20 years…

I especially like making them with palm sugar, which I always have on hand for making Southeast Asian treats like Filipino tupig, Malaysian cekodok pisang (they are dead-easy banana donuts), Indonesian putu ayu cakes, Vietnamese kem chuối, and bubur cha cha from Singapore.

The Spices

While you can just use a generic pumpkin pie spice blend, the taste won’t have the same depth and precision. For my spice cabinet, I’m straight-up head-over-heels in love with Burlap and Barrel. Their buffalo ginger, which I use in this recipe, is unparalleled—it’s easily the best dried ginger I’ve come across. Their ground cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves are all top-notch too.

Because I love their spices so much, I worked out a deal with them where my readers can get a free jar of their wild mountain cumin seeds (which are the BOMB!) through the link below when you order other spices you might need for this recipe.

Get my fave cumin seeds for free!

Using this link, add the wild mountain cumin to your cart, spend at least $15 on some of the other absurdly good spices from Burlap & Barrel (they all seriously slap) and the bottle of this bangin' wild mountain cumin becomes FREE, and you will love it so much.

Yes Please!

Instant Yeast

Instant yeast speeds up the rise time and is also a little more forgiving to over-fermentation. That’s why it’s sorta a foolproof choice I use in my Korean donuts and my Moroccan msemen too.

If you’re using dry active yeast, watch that the dough doesn’t more than double; over-proofing will exhaust the yeast, resulting in less fluffy buns.

Powdered Sugar (in the glaze)

Not all powdered sugar is vegan, as it’s often refined with bone char. For a cruelty-free option, use a vegan powdered sugar, like this one that I use in my vegan lemon pound cake, zeppole recipe, and vegan cream cheese frosting.

Optional, but Super-Fun Additions:

Raisins soaked in rum, for a burst of flavor and complex natural sweetness. I am also really into adding nuts to these buns. Chopped pecans are an obvious choice, but walnuts, slivered almonds, heck, even chopped pistachios can be mad delightful.

📖 How to Make Vegan Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

You will rock the heck outta these easy vegan pumpkin buns on the first shot by following these step-by-step photos with helpful tips. Or scroll down to the bottom of this page for the easy-to-print recipe card.

Step One

Foam Wasn’t Built in a Day:

Warm the pumpkin purée, plant-based milk, and vanilla extract over medium-low heat until it’s just cozy to the touch—not hotter than 110°F (45°C).

Stir in the brown sugar, then sprinkle yeast on top and let it hang out for 10 minutes until it gets nice and foamy.

✅ If your yeast is dead or the milk was too hot and killed it, you will not see any signs of life on the surface. This is a good opportunity to just toss it and start over with fresh yeast before you waste more ingredients and time on buns that will never rise.

Step Two

🎃 I'm David Pumpkins…

Once the yeast is ready, add the warm mixture to a mixing bowl along with flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, vegan butter and salt. Mix until the dough starts coming together, then knead by hand (or use a stand mixer with the dough hook) for 5-8 minutes until smooth and a bit springy.

Step Three

Dough You See What I See?

Cover the dough with a damp towel and let it rise in a warm place for 1-1 ½ hours, until it doubles in size.

Step Four

Fillin’ Like a Villain:

While the dough rests, in a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the brown sugar, vegan butter, molasses, cinnamon, cardamom, and allspice. Stir for 2 minutes just until melted and smooth.

Step Five

Spready Krueger:

Roll the dough on a floured surface into a rectangle about ½ inch (1.25 cm) thick and 24 by 10 inches (60 by 25 cm). Spread the filling evenly across the dough, leaving a little border along the far edge. Evenly sprinkle on the rum-soaked raisins and pecans, if you’re using them.

Step Six

Captain’s Log:

Starting from a long edge, roll the dough tightly into a log. Slice the log into 12 equal pieces and arrange the slices in a lightly greased baking pan. Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm place for 25–30 minutes until puffed up.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

✅ While you can get away with cutting this with a knife, using strong thread or unflavored dental floss to loop and cut the dough will keep the buns more perfectly round.

Step Seven

Baking and Entry:

Once the rolls have risen, bake them at 350°F (175°C) for 22-25 minutes or until they’re lightly golden brown.

Step Eight

Glazed and Confused:

While the rolls bake, in either a food processor, or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, mix together the powdered sugar, vegan cream cheese, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and salt until smooth.

Step Nine

Frosty the Roll Man:

After baking, let the rolls cool for 5 minutes before spreading the cream cheese icing over them. Use a brush to reach every nook and cranny, and serve these rolls warm!