Are croissant vegan or vegetarian-friendly?

Hosting brunch this weekend? Have you thought about serving croissant to your guests? Then you might be asking yourself are croissant vegan? Let’s find out.

Traditional croissants are not vegan-friendly. Butter is a key ingredient in any croissant recipe. It’s what gives croissants their flavour and texture. It adds a richness to the pastry and creates the flaky texture we all associate with a good croissant.

To get scientific about it, the low melting point of butter creates steam during the baking process, and this steam helps the croissant rise. All to create a light and flaky brunch essential. Also perfect for any vegetarian croissant lovers.

Supermarket Vegan Pastries and Bakery Products

You may find that many cheap supermarket pastry products don’t actually contain any diary. That’s because butter is an expensive ingredient.

Any baking fans will likely know that shop-bought pastry is often vegan-friendly because of the oil added instead of butter. So is that true of shop-bought croissant?

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The history of the croissant

The French croissant. Considered to be one of the most popular baked goods in the world. And utterly French. The elegant and sophisticated breakfast choice.

So it might surprise you that some historians say croissants originate from Austria. Vienna, to be precise.

In the 19^th century, a crescent shaped pastry filled with nuts or chocolate was created in Vienna. Bakers named it the Kipfel. And this Kipfel is said to be the predecessor of the French croissant.

Decades later, in the 20^th century, the croissant was created by French bakers.

Where can you buy vegan croissant?

In the UK, supermarkets have been steadily introducing more and more vegan products over the years. Some months it seems the vegan shelves take up a little extra space than the previous months. It’s all a positive move in the right direction.

Sainsbury’s sells Pret’s vegan croissant in a pack of 6 and La Boulangere Vegan Croissants in a 6-pack.

Ocado sells a 4-pack of vegan croissant by La Boulangere.

M&S has a 2-pack of vegan croissants.

Tesco sells a 6-pack of La Boulangere croissants and Pret’s bake-at-home frozen vegan croissants. That’s almost as good as a homemade vegan croissant.

Vegan croissant recipes

You can make vegan croissant easily. The ingredients in a traditional croissant are simple, it’s just flour, butter, yeast, sugar and salt.

So, if you want to make your croissant vegan, you just need to find the dairy replacements. Luckily, only one ingredient needs replacing. That’s the butter.

As a substitute to butter, margarine or vegan butter can be used. That being said, it’s often a good idea to read through a whole recipe before you start doing a straight swap. Vegan recipe testers experiment with a lot of substitute animal and dairy products before settling on the best replacement for the recipe.

We’ve done some research on good vegan croissant recipes so you can skip to the good part – making vegan croissant at home.

The best vegan croissant recipe

We’ve saved you work and found the best vegan croissant recipes. And there’s only one you need to know about. This one has the best reviews and comes highly recommended from a lot of his followers.

So if you follow Carlo Cao’s vegan croissant recipe to a T, you’ll have vegan croissants in a matter of hours! And what could be better than homemade vegan croissant on a Sunday morning?

So, what was the answer again?

So are croissant vegan? That’s a firm no for traditionally-made croissant. But you can certainly hunt down a vegan croissant in supermarkets and cafes with a good vegan offering. When you start looking, you might just be surprised at how many vegan-alternatives are available. Enjoy.

Have you tried making a vegan-croissant? Or have you found the best vegan croissant around and you want to share your experience? Please let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

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