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Not only are these vegan pumpkin donuts the perfect fall treat, but I’ve also given you everything you need to absolutely nail them, whether you are frying, baking, or making them in an air fryer. I’ve made thousands of them over the course of the last 15 years from my award-winning restaurants and food trucks, and they impress even the most skeptical anti-vegan. Now your family can enjoy them, warm and perfectly made, in your home kitchen!
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Autumnal baking holds such a special place in my family. On a cold day, we get together to rock out some vegan gingerbread cake, a warm mug of vegan eggnog getting passed around. On fall and winter days like these, pretty much nothing can top a still-warm tray of maple-glazed pumpkin donuts though.
Honestly, nailing the right texture on a pumpkin donut took some trial and error, but these deliver on all fronts. I have been making donuts professionally since 2008, and some of my early attempts admittedly sucked.
But with years of tinkering and practice, the rosewater pistachio variant of my vegan apple cider donuts graced the cover of the New York Times dining section, I was featured on a Food Network donut-making show, and I won a Vendy award for my vegan creme brûlée donuts! So despite it taking me forever to get these right, I can confidently say I have a killer recipe for you that you are going to love.
Grab your apron and fall in love with these pumpkin donuts—just don’t expect them to last long on the plate!
Jump to:
- 🥰Why you’ll adore this vegan pumpkin donut recipe
- 🍩 Vegan Pumpkin Donut Ingredients
- 🤯Variations
- Gear you need for this baking project
- 📖 How to make vegan pumpkin donuts
- 🍩 Donut Cooking Methods
- 👉Top tips
- 🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
- ✌️You'll love these other vegan donuts too
- Vegan Pumpkin Donuts (Baked, Fried, or Air-Fried)
🥰Why you’ll adore this vegan pumpkin donut recipe
⏱️ Quick as Heck: Whip up a batch for brunch before anyone else gets up. These will be done, start to finish, in under 30 minutes!
🥰 As You Like Them: I’ve included detailed instructions along with step-by-step photos whether you want to bake, fry, or air fry these.
✊ Vegan AF: Like all of my vegan donut recipes, no animal products are used in this banger, and they are completely cholesterol-free.
🛒 Simple Ingredients: Nothing weird or hard to find here—just classic baking staples like flour, sugar, and baking powder, plus canned pumpkin and a few spices. You’re likely already stocked up, and I have included substitution suggestions in case you are out of anything.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Like all of the vegan recipes I share, after perfecting this vegan pumpkin donut recipe, I shared it with a team of recipe testers who loved them. I specifically had testers double-check and approve each cooking method I provided instructions for.
🍩 Vegan Pumpkin Donut Ingredients
Pumpkin Purée
I make these with regular ol’ canned pumpkin purée. I want to make sure you know I am NOT talking about canned pumpkin pie filling, which has sweeteners and other stuff in it.
If you have some leftover from this project, another couple of autumnal desserts you can rock out with it are my vegan pumpkin muffins, vegan pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and maple pumpkin flan.
This recipe also works great with canned butternut squash purée if you want to give that a shot!
The Sugar
Granulated sugar not only sweetens the donuts but is also important for moisture retention and to create a nice, tender crumb.
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 like the plague.
I especially like making them with granulated palm sugar, which I always have on hand for making Southeast Asian treats, like Filipino karioka donuts, cekodok pisang (Malaysian banana donuts), Indonesian ondeh ondeh, Vietnamese kem chuối, and bubur cha cha from Singapore.
The Spices
The flavor of these easy pumpkin donuts truly shines with fresh, high-quality spices. While you can substitute with a generic pumpkin pie spice blend, the taste won’t have the same depth and comustomization.
For my spice selection, I’m all about Burlap and Barrel’s products. Their buffalo ginger, which I use in this recipe, is insane—it’s seriously the best dried ginger I’ve come across.
Their ground cinnamon, and cloves are all top-notch too. As a bonus, I have a special deal for a free jar of their wild mountain cumin seeds (which are incredible!) through the link below.
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.
Vanilla
This isn’t optional! Like in my blue corn pancakes, vanilla truly elevates these donuts. Use a quality natural vanilla extract or, for a richer flavor, vanilla powder.
Vanilla powder is espeically awesome in anything that you want little specs of vanilla bean to be seen, like coconut panna cotta or vegan bomboloni.
The Plant Milk
Milk quantity here depends on which method you use to form the donuts. Don't stress—in the recipe, I've given you the exact amount to work with depending on the cooking technique you want to follow.
Unsweetened soy milk is ideal for the best texture as it curdles well with the acid in the pumpkin and vinegar, but oat milk, almond milk, and cashew milk all work too.
Oil
A neutral oil like vegetable or canola keeps the donuts soft and moist without overpowering the flavors. Coconut oil can also work in the dough (not to be fried in), but choose refined coconut oil to avoid adding a strong coconut taste. If you’re looking for an oil-free option, unsweetened applesauce is a suitable replacement, although the donuts may be slightly denser.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
🤯Variations
Cream Cheese Frosted Pumpkin Donuts
Let the warm donuts cool to room temperature, and then pipe a circle of cream cheese frosting onto the tops using a piping bag fitted with a star tip. My vegan cream cheese frosting recipe can be made either with store-bought cream cheese or my easy, 4-ingredient cultured vegan cream cheese.
Bourbon Cranberry Glazed Vegan Pumpkin Spice Donuts
Pour 1 ½ cups of vegan royal icing into a blender with 2 tablespoons of bourbon cranberry sauce. Blend until smooth and glaze the donuts, one at a time in the glaze. Let the glaze set for at least 5 minutes before serving. This glaze is also pretty epic to use on warm vegan cinnamon rolls, just FYI.
Gear you need for this baking project
If you are baking:
For the baked variation of this recipe, you will need one or more donut pans.
If you are air-frying or making old-fashioned rolled donuts:
You will need a rolling pin, a donut cutter, and of course, an air fryer if that’s how you plan to cook them.
For the most professional results, use a donut dropper!
Droppers allow you to work with a wetter batter, yielding perfectly shaped, moister cake donuts. In my opinion, Belshaw Type K droppers are the gold standard, especially if you’re serious about making donuts at home, like the ones I teach in my vegan cake donut class.
They aren’t cheap to buy. If you’re buying one used, make sure to verify that the plunger creates a donut shape (some only make circles for depositing pancakes and muffins). If the seller doesn’t know, ask for test photos with a simple flour-and-water mix. There’s also a reasonably high-quality Belshaw knockoff available on Amazon, though it produces slightly smaller donuts than a normal dropper.
📖 How to make vegan pumpkin donuts
Nail this baking project on your 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
Wet Ingredients:
In a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle), combine canned pumpkin purée, apple cider vinegar, sugar, brown sugar, oil (or melted vegan butter), and vanilla extract.
If you’re baking these donuts or using a donut dropper, add the non-dairy milk and stir until smooth.
Step Two
Sift Happens
In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, and allspice.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing gently until a smooth batter forms. For the roll-and-cut method, mix only until a tacky dough comes together.
🍩 Donut Cooking Methods
Cooking Method 1: Dropped Cake Donuts (My Personal Fave!)
- Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat to 350°F (175°C).
- Fill the hopper of your donut dropper with the batter. Test the batter by dropping one or two initial donuts back into the batter bowl to ensure even flow (you can return these to the hopper).
- Carefully drop the batter into the oil in rounds, being careful not to overcrowd the pot.
Fry each donut for 2-3 minutes on each side until golden. - Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to a cooling rack over a lined baking pan for easy cleanup.
Cooking Method 2: Baked Pumpkin Donuts
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly grease a donut pan.
- Spoon or pipe the batter into each cavity, filling them about ¾ full.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into a donut.
- Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack set over a lined baking pan for easy cleanup.
Cooking Method 3: Roll-And-Cut Fried
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Pat the dough down, and roll it out with a lightly floured rolling pin to about ¾-inch (about 2 cm) thick. Use a bench scraper or knife to make sure the dough isn’t sticking to your work surface and its gluten is fairly relaxed.
- Use a donut cutter to cut out your donut shapes, re-rolling scraps as necessary.
- Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat to approximately 350°F (175°C). Use a frying thermometer to check the oil temperature.
Carefully transfer the donuts into the hot oil, cooking them for 2-3 minutes on each side until they’re golden brown. - Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a cooling rack set over a baking pan lined with parchment paper for easy cleanup.
Cooking Method 4: Roll-And-Cut Air Fried
- Follow the rolling and cutting instructions (in the role and cut fried section)
- Preheat your air fryer to 350°F (175°C), spraying the basket liberally with cooking spray.
- Arrange the donuts in a single layer in the basket and cook for 6-8 minutes, flipping halfway through, until they turn golden and are cooked through.
- Check for internal doneness with a toothpick.
Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Donuts
While the donuts are still warm, toss them in a large bowl filled with cinnamon sugar topping until fully coated for that perfect cinnamon sugar finish.
Maple Glazed and Confused
Otherwise, in a medium bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, maple syrup, and a pinch of salt until smooth. Dip your homemade pumpkin spice donuts in the glaze, allowing any excess to drip off before placing them back on a wire rack to set.
Want to serve them with another seasonal donut? a great one to make while you still have the donut-making gear out is my vegan gingerbread donut recipe.
👉Top tips
- Do Not Overmix: Overmixing the batter will lead to tough donuts. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together gently until just combined. Stop mixing as soon as you see no more streaks of flour in the bowl. A few lumps are okay and will bake out in the oven.
- If baking—Pipe the Batter: For neater donuts that release more easily from the pans, use a piping bag or make a piping cone with parchment paper to neatly fill the donut pan with batter.
- Use a Thermometer! If your oven is like mine, the actual temperature differs quite a bit from what the dial says. An oven thermometer is essential if you are baking these. Likewise, a frying thermometer is essential, even if you are frying these in a countertop deep fryer, which, like your oven, isn’t always completely accurate.
- If You’re Using a Donut Cutter: Dip the cutter in flour before each cut to prevent the moist dough from sticking.
- Avoid Overcrowding When Frying: Leave space between donuts to make flipping easier and prevent misshaping. Overcrowding also drops the oil temperature, which can make the donuts absorb more oil.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
Keep the donuts in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days, or freeze them for up to 2 months. When ready to enjoy frozen donuts, let them thaw for a couple of hours (still in the container), and then heat them up in an oven at 350°F (175°C) for a few minutes to bring them back to life.
Absolutely! Swap in a measure-for-measure gluten-free flour, and they’ll turn out just as delicious without the gluten. This works best with baked donuts, but can work fine with roll-and-cut fried or air-fried cooking methods too.
You just have to be a little more careful when transferring the formed donuts to your oil or air fryer so that they don’t break. Use a bench scraper or thin metal spatula that’s been lightly floured (with a GF flour, of course) to make that easier.
You will need to bake these to make them oil-free. Make sure your donut pan has a reliable non-stick coating on it. Replace the oil with an equal amount of applesauce to make these donuts oil-free while still keeping them moist.
The oil from these donuts will not be strongly flavored, so it can be reused.
A few fried food projects I recommend if you have some extra oil on hand are Tempe Mendoan, Bakwan Sayur, Vegan Fried Chicken, Thai Spring Rolls, and crispy Onion Bhaji.
If you aren’t going to use the oil within 24 hours, strain it through a fine mesh strainer or a frying oil filter paper to remove debris, cool it completely, and store it in an airtight container in a cool, dark place.
Make sure to use the oil within a couple of weeks. Reusing oil more than a few times is unhealthy.
✌️You'll love these other vegan donuts too
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Learn to make award-winning vegan donuts in this super-fun cooking class with Chef Adam Sobel!
Vegan Pumpkin Donuts (Baked, Fried, or Air-Fried)
Equipment
- Optional equipment:
Ingredients
Wet Ingredients
- 1 cup pumpkin purée not pumpkin pie filling
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- ½ cup sugar
- ¾ cup brown sugar or coconut sugar
- ½ cup canola oil sunflower oil, or vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
If Baking Or Using a Donut Dropper
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour or gluten-free flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
If Air-Frying or Using a Donut Cutter
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour additional
Optional Maple Glaze
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- ½ cup maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Mixing The Donut Batter (or dough if you are following the roll-and-cut method)
- In a large mixing bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the pumpkin purée, apple cider vinegar, sugar, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla extract. If you are baking the donuts or using a donut dropper, add the plant-based milk to this mixture and stir until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, and allspice. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, folding gently until a smooth batter forms. For the roll-and-cut method, mix only until a tacky dough forms.
Cooking Options
Roll-and-Cut Donuts (Fried):
- Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Roll it to roughly a ¾-inch (about 2 cm) thickness and cut out donut shapes with a donut cutter, re-rolling scraps as needed.
- Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat (to approximately 350°F/175°C).
- Carefully lower the donuts into the hot oil, cooking them for 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden.
- Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to a cooling rack suspended over a baking pan that’s lined with parchment paper for easy cleanup.
Roll-and-Cut Donuts (Air Fried):
- Follow the instructions for rolling and cutting.
- Preheat your air fryer to 350°F (175°C).
- Place donuts in a single layer in the basket and cook for 6-8 minutes, flipping halfway through, until they are golden and cooked through.
- Transfer to a cooling rack.
Baked Donuts (Donut Pan): Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly grease a donut pan.
- Spoon or pipe the batter into the pan, filling each cavity about ¾ full.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a donut comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan.
- Transfer to a cooling rack suspended over a baking pan that’s lined with parchment paper for easy cleanup.
Drop Donuts (Using a Donut Dropper):
- Preheat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat to 350°F (175°C), using a frying thermometer to make sure you have reached that temperature range.
- Fill the hopper of the donut dropper with batter and drop one or two initial donuts back into the batter bowl to make sure the batter is coming out evenly. (You can put those initial test drops back into the hopper).
- Carefully drop the batter into the oil in rounds, making sure not to overcrowd the pot.
- Fry each donut for 2-3 minutes on each side until golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and transfer to a cooling rack suspended over a baking pan that’s lined with parchment paper for easy cleanup.
Finishing Options
- Cinnamon Sugar Coating While donuts are still warm, place them into a large bowl with the sugar and cinnamon, and toss until fully coated.
- Maple Glaze In a medium bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, maple syrup, and salt until smooth. Dip the cooled donuts in the glaze, allowing any excess to drip off before returning them to a wire rack to set.
Notes
Avoid overmixing the batter to keep donuts tender. Gently combine wet and dry ingredients just until they come together. 🪈 Pipe Dreams
Pipe the batter into the donut pan for cleaner edges and easier release. Use a piping bag or make a quick piping cone with parchment paper. 🌡️ I want my Thermommy
Use an oven thermometer to ensure accurate baking temps. If frying, a frying thermometer is key for even, perfectly cooked donuts every time. 🥸 Fool-Proof Storage
If you are storing the donuts for later, let them cool fully before icing and store in an airtight container. Never refrigerate them—it makes donuts stiff and sorta terrible.
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Matthew Wolf says
Just got out of the oven. These are delicious on their own, but definitely going to have to try the suggested glazes.
Jennifer Margopulos-Kelenske says
Who knew it was so easy to make donuts!? I baked these in the donut pan that you recommended above. It was a very tender cake donut with good flavor. Since I baked them the cinnamon sugar was harder to adhere. I think it would have stuck better if I fried them which I'm going to try next time to see the difference. They were a hit with the family. Try not to eat all the batter before you cook them. 😁
Paige says
I did the baked version. Super easy, great light texture and definitely pumpkin spice flavor.
Kelly McLaughlin says
This pumpkin donut recipe is fantastic. I followed the baked recipe with a GF flour and they turned out perfectly!
Kimbi Walton says
These donuts exceeded my expectations. They were easy to bake, soft and yummy. I used cream cheese frosting made with a recipe from Cinnamon Snail. Really wonderful!