Deck the Halls With Plant-Based Goodness: 6 Vegan Christmas Pudding Recipes to Enjoy

Apparently, to have a Merry Christmas, you must have figgy pudding, according to the popular holiday tune “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” Bob Cratchit’s wife also served her family the dish in A Christmas Carol.

Traditional Christmas pudding is made of dried fruit, sugar, flour, and butter or suet, per the Food Network. There are several ways to make vegan Christmas pudding without butter and meat-based suet. Let's look into the tradition and some of our favorite recipes for vegan Christmas pudding.

Christmas pudding, also called figgy pudding or plum pudding, is usually cooked through steaming for several hours in a pot of simmering water. The dish also incorporates good alcohol, usually brandy or rum. When served, the alcohol is poured over the pudding and set aflame for a festive treat.

Here are six recipes for making a vegan version of Christmas pudding. Most of these recipes substitute vegetable suet, coconut oil or vegan margarine for butter or meat-based suet.

This super rich dairy- and egg-free vegan Christmas pudding recipe from Tesco Real Food uses grated apple and vegetable suet instead of butter to give it a moist consistency. The pudding is “cooked” by steaming it in a pot of simmering water for four hours.

Guinness, or another stout beer, is what gives the vegan Christmas pudding from The Veg Space it's "wow-factor." The recipe also incorporates vegetable suet and sherry, but make sure the sherry you use is vegan. Dessert wine or brandy can also be used if you can't find vegan sherry.

Vegan blogger Holly Jade of The Little Blog of Vegan recommends soaking the dried fruit in alcohol overnight to soften up the fruit. For an alcohol-free pudding, use orange juice instead of brandy. Also, per tradition, Jade suggests putting a coin into the pudding mix. Whoever gets the coin in their pudding will have good fortune for the year.

Melanie McDonald at A Virtual Vegan uses coconut oil instead of vegetable suet in her recipe for The Ultimate Vegan Christmas Pudding. The recipe also includes a pureed apple and aquafaba, which is the liquid in a can of chickpeas.

This recipe from BBC Good Food uses dairy-free margarine. Much like a fruitcake, this vegan Christmas pudding can last for up to a year when stored in a cool, dry cupboard.

Hannah at Domestic Gothess also uses coconut oil, aquafaba, and non-dairy milk in lieu of vegetable suet for her vegan Christmas pudding recipe. She recommends using refined coconut oil instead of virgin coconut oil to prevent your pudding from tasting like coconut.