This recipe for vegan eclairs is a variation of our vegan cream puffs recipe that uses Just Egg. It’s really difficult to find reliable vegan choux recipes online, so we wanted to share these to help offer more options to people who are searching. These vegan eclairs are just as good, if not better, than non-vegan ones. This recipe and our cream puffs recipe are both small-batch recipes in case you don’t need a party’s worth of pastries! Feel free to double the amounts in the recipe. Try them with our vegan pastry cream recipe or vegan chocolate pastry cream recipe.
Sep 2022 Update: When we started creating these recipes, Just Egg was on version 2 of its formula, and they are currently on version 4. You can see “V4” on the bottle near the best-by date. The past few times making these, they have been deflating and coming out very greasy, which might be due to the formula change. So I experimented making some new changes to the recipe to get it working again. Mostly, I reduced the amount of butter and don’t do the double piping method from the vegan honey eclairs anymore. These changes to the measurements below will also probably apply to all our choux-based recipes, it will just take some time to edit each recipe.
We are not yet aware of any substitute for Just Egg in our choux recipes.
If you try this recipe, leave us a comment below to let us know how it goes. We would love to hear from you!
Vegan Eclairs
These delicious pastry-cream-filled eclairs covered with chocolate ganache will satisfy your sweet tooth any time!
Ingredients
Pastry Cream (estimated 1 cup)
Choux Pastry
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup unsweetened soy milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
- ½ tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp vegan butter
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup Just Egg
- 2 tbsp unsweetened soy milk (to mix with the Just Egg)
Chocolate Ganache
- 1 bar vegan chocolate (60g)
- 1 ½ tbsp unsweetened soy milk (20g)
Instructions
- Prepare the pastry cream. If using our vegan pastry cream recipe, prepare it first and place it in a piping bag in the refrigerator.
- Prepare and gather the ingredients for the choux pastry. Using the second listed amount of soy milk, mix it together with the Just Egg. Set aside for later.
- Combine the water, soy milk, sugar, and butter in a small saucepan on medium heat. Mix it with a rubber spatula until the butter dissolves and then leave it for a few minutes until it starts to simmer. For a nice sweet aroma, we like adding a couple teaspoons of vanilla to the milk. This makes the dough smell really nice while it bakes.
- Once the liquid ingredients begin to simmer, carefully add in all the flour. Turn the heat to low. Continue to mix until the flour is incorporated and no white flour spots remain. The mix will thicken into a dough and almost form a ball. It should come off the sides of the pan easily. This shouldn’t take more than about 3 minutes.
- Scoop the dough out of the pan and into a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Avoid using a plastic bowl as the dough will be hot. Smash the dough down and flatten it to help release the heat. Leave it to cool for a few minutes. Alternatively, you can mix the dough over some ice or some ice packs to help it cool more quickly. You can also mix the dough for a few minutes in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment.
- Once your dough is just barely warm or room temperature, add in the Just Egg mixture a few tablespoons at a time. The amount is up to you. We’re just trying to avoid mixing a ball of dough sitting in egg soup—that would be more difficult to mix! Mix it with the rubber spatula and allow it to fully incorporate in between each addition. The final consistency should just barely run off the spatula and look pipe-able. Add more soy milk a tablespoon at a time if your mixture is still too thick.
- Preheat the oven to 400° F.
- Line a half sheet tray with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Scoop the choux mixture into a piping bag with a 1/2 inch opening or smooth tip.TIP: You can pipe or dab a small amount of the choux mixture onto each corner of the baking tray underneath the parchment paper. This will help keep the paper from sliding around as you pipe.
- Keeping the tip very close to the tray, squeeze continuously and pipe a strip of the mixture approximately 4 inches long. It should also be about 1 inch wide. There should be enough mixture to make at least 8 eclairs. Wet the tip of your finger and gently flatten the little pointy tips that form on the ends from piping.NOTE: Pipe slowly! If you pipe too quickly, you're going to make a thin strip of dough!
- Place the tray in the oven on the middle rack. Bake for about 40 minutes until mostly golden brown. Do not open the oven at all until the last few minutes of baking. The pastry needs consistent heat for the moisture to turn to steam and cause them to rise. You can check on their color in the final few minutes of baking.NOTE: Bake for a few minutes longer if they are not hollowing out enough in the middle. Also every oven is different. The actual temperature of your oven might run a little lower or higher than what you set it to. This will affect how your eclairs bake and how long they will take to finish. We use an oven thermometer to make sure we don't put the eclairs in until it is actually 400°.
- While the eclairs are baking, prepare the ganache. Microwave 1 bar (60 grams) of vegan milk chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 20 seconds at a time until melted. Heat 20 grams (approx. 1.5 tbsp) of soy milk. While stirring the chocolate, slowly pour in the milk until it becomes a smooth mixture. Set aside to cool.NOTE: You can also use the same amount of chocolate chips or any other form of chocolate by weight. The amounts listed here are for how we like to make ganache using this brand of chocolate. Whatever chocolate you use, just make sure that you stir the chocolate enough to dissolve and melt any remaining little chunks. You might need to add a little more milk if your chocolate is still looking grainy.
- Once the eclairs are the desired color, turn off the oven. Leave the tray in for about 10 minutes. Keep the oven door slightly open to allow the eclairs to continue to dry out while slightly cooling.
- Remove the tray from the oven. The eclairs will still be warm. Using a sharp small knife, make three small holes spaced evenly along the bottom of each eclair to allow any remaining steam to escape. Rotate the knife after inserting the tip to create the hole. The eclairs can deflate if left to continue cooling without making the holes.
- Grab the piping bag with pastry cream that is resting in the refrigerator. Insert the tip of the piping bag into one of the holes on the bottom of the eclair. Carefully squeeze the pastry cream into the eclair. You will feel the cream push back a bit when you’ve filled each hole with enough of the pastry cream. Wipe off any excess cream from the hole. Repeat on each of the three holes on all of the eclairs.
- The last step is to cover the tops of the eclairs with a thin layer of chocolate ganache. Use a small rubber spatula or a small spoon to apply and spread some of the ganache to the top of each eclair. The ganache should be room temperature—if it’s too warm it will run down the sides of the eclairs.
- And that’s it! We chose to top half of the eclairs with milk chocolate ganache and the other half with white chocolate ganache. They can be filled with any flavor of vegan pastry cream or filling of your choice.
Is it possible to make this using OGGS aquafaba egg alternative? I can’t get Just Egg where I live.
Thanks for the comment, Jay. Unfortunately, we don’t think aquafaba would work in our recipe. Aquafaba is mostly water, whereas Just Egg has higher amounts of protein and fat. Most vegan choux recipes that use aquafaba also use some sort of leavening agent like baking powder. If you search online for vegan aquafaba eclair recipes, you will find a few different ones. We hope that you can find a recipe that works for you.
If you’re in the UK Morrisons sells Crackd which is like Just Egg!
This recipe is great!! My eclairs puffed up perfectly, didn’t collapse, and have a beautiful golden brown and crispy exterior! So delicious. Thank you so much for sharing.
So glad the recipe worked out well for you!
Amazing recipe! I had to bake them for around 30-35 minutes instead of 40-45, though that might just be my low-quality oven causing problems. They taste great though!
Good thing you realized yours wouldn’t need as much time as the recipe says! Glad you enjoyed the recipe!
BEST. RECIPE. EVER! It was sooo easy to follow along – These Éclairs we’re gone in less than a minute 😄 thank you so much for this incredible recipe!
Wow! Thank you so much for the kind words. We’re really glad you enjoyed the recipe. We have a few other eclair recipes on our site, if you want to try some other flavors. Or you can definitely try experimenting with flavors on your own.
You will fall in love with these!! They are absolutely delicious! I am really impressed by how sweet and creamy these turned out to be! If you want to try the recipe don’t think twice! Do it! The instructions are very clear and easy to follow and perfectly illustrated! Love them, love them, love them and will definitely make them again.
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and rate the recipe. We really appreciate your kind words, and we’re thrilled that you enjoyed the eclairs!
Can this be made with regular milk and butter while still using the Just Egg? Would it turn out the same?
They would probably turn out very similar. However, we haven’t baked with non-vegan ingredients in several years.
Hey! I was just wondering if you did try it out with regular milk and butter? I want to do the same and was also wondering about the same thing.
So excited to try these! How well do they store in the fridge? Thanks!
They’re best eaten the day they are made, of course. But we have stored them in the fridge for a couple days and they still taste good.
This recipe is amazing!!! I just made it tonight and they turned out so well!
I followed the recipe very closely, this was my first time ever making a choux- better yet without eggs.
Thank you so much for sharing this!! I am so amazed these delicious vegan eclairs came out of my oven!!
Easy and delicious! Thank you! My family can’t wait for me to make these again — and double the recipe! I’ve missed pastries since going vegan and these really hit the spot. I used non-refined sugar (Swerve).
These are amazing! I’ve tried eclairs before using aquafaba but they don’t get the definitive hollow center, but these turned out perfect! I was able to easily fill them with pastry cream and they were delicious. Thanks for the recipe!
First time making Eclairs and they turned out beautifully! I made the cream and the pastery, which was so delicious! Can’t wait to make them again!
Is it possible to use flaxseed in place of the just egg?
We don’t get just egg here, so would also like to know of this works with flaxseed?
These look amazing. I can’t wait to try them. I do have a question though. After you insert the cream and you top it with the ganache, are we supposed to put the chocolate on the same side with the 3 holes?
The holes go on the bottom, at least with my experience with eclairs
How long should I preheat for? A few minutes after I put them in the oven, they all went flat🥲 I’m tryna get it right next time!
put it in for 39 minutes only! burned hard as rocks. I’m eating the cream in a bowl with a spoon.
That’s probably because your oven cooks at a higher temp. I saw another comment saying they almost burnt theirs but realized they were already done ten min earlier. You should try it again!
This is amazing, impressive, out of this world!
I never believed we could actually make pate a choux vegan. I’m still baffled by how perfect they got. Perfect texture, perfect flavor. A beautiful pastry to work with.
Congrats and thank you ; )
Hi, eclairs looks so delicious I started to look for Just Egg in Poland 😉 what exactly do you mean by “½ cup Just Egg”? Is it the amount of power I’d need to use? By any chance do you know how much it is in ounces or grams? I’m not quite sure how big should be the bag of this egg replacer if I decide to buy it 🙂
I used to replace eggs with flax seeds, chia, banana, corn starch and other “one ingredient” things so this eclairs seems to be a new adventure
Thank you!
It’s me again 😉 after looking on just eggs website I realized that what they sell here is a powder to mix with water so I’ll try to adjust it on my own. Happy baking!
Hi! Thanks for the recipe! The dough tasted fantastic better then regular version. But unfortunately i can’t get similar results. My eclairs collapsed and a little losses the shape during baking. I didn’t open the door while baking. And the dough came out very stuffy so i add 5 more spoons of almond milk to see consistency that need to be reached. Can you please point where the error can be? Usually i baked eclairs on the 350F and lower after they rise. Here i baked them on 400f as it was described.
Mine didn’t work at all. They burned on the outside but were completely raw in the middle and didn’t puff at all. Also for someone with an egg allergy I realized the just egg stuff was made in the same place as eggs so it was a good thing I didn’t eat them
Hoping to make this for valentine’s day! Is oat milk OK or soy preferred? So happy I found this blog!