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A new year comes with new recipes and where better to start than this tried and tested classic; the chocolate chip muffins. As always this recipe is easy, delicious and of course, vegan.
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Whose mouth doesn’t water at the sight of anything that has got chocolate chips in it? I bet no one. And today you are about to get your mouth watering over these fluffy, sweet, and delicious vegan chocolate chip muffins.
They are honestly one of the easiest and most delicious muffin recipes that you can make while staying at home! I’m very pleased to introduce you to this delicious muffin recipe as the first recipe of the new year!

My first vegan chocolate chip recipe in Japan
It may come as a surprise to some of you guys as much as it is to me, but this is actually the very first recipe that I made with chocolate chips in it! I posted my lovely vegan chocolate chip cookie bars a while ago, but these muffins were definitely the very first thing I baked with vegan chocolate chips. And I wondered, why did I not try to create any recipes with chocolate chips in them sooner?
And I realised, one of the reasons was that vegan chocolate chips were not available in Japan when I started creating recipes for The Chestnut Bakery, so frustrating! But thankfully, I recently came across some vegan chocolate chips online that stay in shape in the oven, hurray! I love that we are all seeing more and more of our favourite baking goods without dairy in them.
So of course the first thing I baked as soon as the package arrived was these lovely vegan chocolate chip muffins. Are you all chocolate chip lovers ready for this recipe?
Here we go.
Must Read: The Ultimate Guide to Perfect Muffins – A complete guide to baking your perfect vegan muffins with easy and delicious muffin recipes!
How to make vegan chocolate chip muffins
Muffins are one of my absolute favourite things to bake. Mainly because they are just plain delicious, make my day brighter just looking at them on my breakfast table(and eating them of course!) and they are also super easy and takes relatively short amount of time to bake. This makes muffins a beginner friendly thing to bake for moms with kids or anyone who wants to take up baking during quarantine.
I remember the very first time I baked muffins, I was apprehensive as to how that batter I was mixing could turn into the delicious muffins with puffy little tops I see in fancy bakeries and cafes. And I can feel your apprehension too, especially if this is your first time baking muffins.
So here are some of the tips I use to make this muffin recipe or any muffins with that puffy top.
Dry and liquid in ingredients ratio
If you bake often, I guess you know how important it is to get the dry and liquid ingredients ratio right to make certain baking goods to give them their signature features. For this recipe, is that fluffiness and puffy muffin top combined with that soft and moist texture. To achieve this, do use the scale or very carefully measure with measuring cups, otherwise the texture won’t be right or you won’t get that cute muffins tops.
No over mixing the batter
It is easy to over mix the batter when mixing the dry ingredients and liquid ingredients. But be careful not to! Over mixing the batter causes gluten(if using regular white flour) in the flour to develop, which results in tough texture. For muffins we want to get fluffy, puffy, soft, and moist texture so when mixing try to mix as gently as you can.
I always mix with a big wooden spoon instead of a whisker with cutting motion from top to bottom, rotating the mixing bowl slightly to make sure everything is combined but just before it’s mixed too much.
It is ok to have some lumps of flour left in the batter, don’t worry! They will all incorporate once the batter is rested and baked in the oven.
Must read: The Ultimate Guide to Perfect Muffins – Complete guide to your perfect vegan muffins with easy and delicious muffin recipes!
Patience, it’s resting time
It wasn’t until I baked the second batch of my muffin butter at my first attempt that I realised the muffins of the second batch raised higher and made that perfect muffins top!
Turns out, resting muffin batter for good 20-30 mins gives it time to incorporate the dry and liquid ingredients well and relax the gluten developed in the mixing step. So patience my friends, the key to good tall muffins!
Keep aside some chocolate chips to sprinkle
To make this recipe both delicious and looking pretty (who doesn’t want their muffins to look pretty?), keep aside about ~half a cup of chocolate chips to sprinkle on top right before they go into the oven.
This way you have chocolate chips both inside the muffins and on top of the muffins which will make them look pretty to anyone’s eyes when they come out of the oven!
Use vegan chocolate chips that don’t melt in the oven
I did… I did try to bake things with regular vegan chocolate chunks when I couldn’t find any vegan chocolate chips that don’t melt in heat. But the thing is, muffins don’t do well with regular chocolates!
So do use vegan chocolate chips that don’t melt away in the oven, so the ones you sprinkle on top won’t all melt and run down to the side of them.
In supermarkets or online, pay attention to the package to see if the chocolate chips are dairy free and don’t melt in the oven. They look the same as regular ones, so be careful!
Want to master your muffin baking skill?

Get my free ebook The Little Guide to Perfect muffins now!
This ultimate guide has all the tips and tricks to bake your perfect muffins + 3 easy and delicious vegan muffin recipes you can bake straight away as you finish reading the guide.


Q and A
Can I make them gluten-free?
Yes you can! Simply swap the plain flour with 1:1 gluten-free flour. The texture is going to be slightly dense, like one of my favourite muffin recipe gluten-free vegan lemon muffins.
I am planning on creating more gluten-free recipes for those who follow gluten-free diet so keep tuned!
Need some recipe inspiration while you wait t for my new recipes?
Join The Chestnut Bakery mailing crew to never miss a recipe and receive my free recipe ebook The Little Guide to Perfect Porridge where you can find colourful and delicious porridge recipes that kick start your day in the morning for the whole week! Plus 2 exciting Japanese style porridge recipes inside, hurray.
Can I use vegetable oil instead of vegan butter?
Yes, you can use vegetable oil instead of vegan butter if you prefer. Just use the same amount of your preferred vegetable oil in the recipe. The texture and flavour will be slightly different, slightly lighter in texture and flavour would be subtle.
I like the flavour that vegan butter gives in this muffin recipe so I recommend you to use vegan butter but you can use any other oils you like!
How and how long can I keep them for?
Muffins are best eaten fresh but you can also put them in an airtight container and keep them in the fridge for up to 2-3 days to enjoy in the morning or as a snack. Simply take the muffins out of the fridge and warm up in the microwave whenever you fancy having these delicious vegan muffins.
You can also keep them in the freezer for a longer shelf life. Put them in an airtight container and keep them in the freezer for up to 2-3 month, warm up in the microwave for 2-3 mins until it’s soft and fluffy again!
Want to master the basics of vegan baking?
Check out Vegan Baking 101 – the beginner’s guide to vegan baking for you to become an excellent vegan baker and familiar with the basics of vegan baking, ingredients, and techniques with useful tips!

You will LOVE this vegan chocolate chip muffins if you:
– are chocolate chip lover
– love muffins
– are vegan
– are not vegan
– love chocolates
– want easy thing to bake
Want more recipes like this?
Try my other delicious muffin recipes you might enjoy!
- Raspberry muffins
- Lemon Muffins – gluten-free
- Banana Tahini Muffins – oil-free
- Simple blueberry muffins
Visit the muffins page and breakfast page for more delicious recipes!
Please leave a comment and rate this recipe in the comment section below if you like this vegan chocolate chip muffins! Let me know and tag me @thechestnutbakery on Instagram too. Thank you for making my recipe friends!
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Vegan Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 12 muffins 1x
- Diet: Vegan
Description
A new year comes with new recipes and where better to start than this tried and tested English classic; the chocolate chip muffin. As always this recipe is easy, delicious and of course, vegan.
Ingredients
- 3 cups (310g) plain flour
- 1 & 1/2 cups (225g) caster sugar
- 1 cup (250ml) soy milk
- 1/3 cup (100ml) melted vegan butter
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup (150g) vegan chocolate chips + more to sprinkle
Instructions
- Preheat the oven 180C(356F)
- Mix the soy milk and apple cider vinegar to make vegan buttermilk. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
- Add the vegan buttermilk and melted vegan butter into the dry mixture and mix gently with a large wooden spoon. Be careful not to over mix! Little lumps of flour left in the mixture is ok, don’t worry.
- Fold in the vegan chocolate chips to the batter.
- Rest the batter for 15 to 20 mins if you have time. If you are in a hurry skip this step.
- Scoop the muffin batter into muffin cups in a muffin tray. Leave a little space on top so that the muffins have room to raise. Sprinkle some vegan chocolate chips on top.
- Bake for 25-30mins until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
- Let cool on a cooling lack. Enjoy!
Notes
Don’t overmix the batter, see the tips in the blog post for more infomation.
You can add 1 tsp of baking soda if your muffins don’t rise tall enough.
Rest the batter for the muffins to rise tall and become fluffy.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Muffins
- Cuisine: English
Keywords: easy, gluten-free option, muffin, simple, vegan
Muffin tray
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Quick, Easy, and Vegan! These sound delicious! Cannot wait to give them a try!
Thank you! Definitely try they are so good!
Yum, those look absolutely DELISH.
Thank you!
I love Chocolate Chip muffins and I’m for sure saving it for later! A great option for a Valentines day treat!
It definitely makes a lovely Valentine’s Day treat! Let me know how it went Joana!
That seems like a very good idea, to leave the muffin batter rest before cooking to encourage them to rise higher. I do that with pancakes too and it makes them so fluffy!
Do you think I could also increase the amount of baking powder to 3 tsp, or would it affect the taste too much?
The reason I’m asking to increase it to 3 tsp is because my pancake recipe calls for 3 tsp of baking powder, so I am hoping it will have the same effect on the muffins–making them as tall and fluffy as possible!
I want to try to get the tallest rising eggless muffins ever! XD
Hi Brooklyn! The baking powder I use leaves a little bit of bitter taste in the baked goods when I use more than 2tsp so I never use more than 2tsp in my recipe. But if your baking powder does’t do what mine do, then 3tsp should be fine! Or alternatively, this is what I do when I really really want my baked goods to raise tall, you can use 1 tsp of baking powder AND additional 1tsp of baking “soda” which has stronger powder than baking powder. Baking soda is activated when mixed with acid, and this vegan chocolate chip muffin recipe calls for apple cider vinegar as the acid so it should work perfectly and should have stronger powder to raise the muffins tall! Hope this helps. Let me know how it goes when you make them 🙂
Thank you very much for your reply. ^_^ I used 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp baking soda and they rose very nicely!
I love your recipes so much. <3 Do you know how I could adapt this recipe to become a double chocolate chip muffin, or do you have any recipes for double chocolate muffins?
★★★★★
Hi Brooklyn! That’s wonderful to hear it went well, I’m so happy you liked it! I haven’t posted any double chocolate muffin recipes yet, but I definitely will post a recipe soon! In the meanwhile, I do have a chocolate muffin recipe on the blog, you can try adding chocolate chunks or chips to it to make double chocolate muffins, I think it will work!
Ok, thank you. I will check out your chocolate muffin recipe.
Maybe I can add some vegan white chocolate chips as well, to have triple chocolate muffins.
Well, I know they’re going to rise beautifully at least! ^_^
Thanks again.
Yes go for it! Triple chocolate muffins sound amazing. I have a muffin guide/recipe ebook that is launching in May/June and free to download which I think you will enjoy, so stay tuned for that too 🙂