This vegan flan is silky smooth, rich, and irresistibly creamy. Made with vegan vanilla custard topped with sweet caramel sauce, it tastes just like traditional flan, but is totally egg and dairy-free!
Have you ever had flan before? It might be one of those dishes that you thought you'd never get to enjoy again!
Flan is a dessert with roots in Latin America and Spain. You might also know it as creme caramel. It's a rich, creamy vanilla custard topped with caramel sauce. This dish is all about eggs and dairy — especially those eggs! I'll admit, there was a time when I thought a vegan flan was impossible.
But that was before I created vegan recipes for eggy dishes like vegan custard pie and vegan quiche. I'm now of the belief that pretty much anything can be veganized, even flan.
This recipe is surprisingly simple to make, though you might need to track down a few ingredients. Don't worry though! I've given you some guidance in the section below.
I think you're going to love this decadent dessert!
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Ingredients You'll Need
- Sugar. Use organic sugar to keep the recipe vegan. Conventional sugar isn't always vegan, as it may be processed using animal bone char! You'll need the sugar for both the caramel and the custard. If you'd like, you can use light brown sugar instead of white sugar for the caramel. This is totally not required, but it will give the sauce a deeper, more caramelly color.
- Water.
- Coconut milk. Use full-fat coconut milk, from a can. This will give your custard a super rich and creamy consistency.
- Vegan sweetened condensed milk. There are a few varieties of this stuff, and you should be able to find them at Whole Foods and similar vegan-friendly grocery stores. I used sweetened condensed coconut milk.
- Agar agar powder. This product is what we're using to set our custard. It's totally vegan, but behaves a lot like gelatin in recipes. You can even use it to make vegan jello! You can find it at some health food stores, as well as online. I've linked to the brand I use within the recipe card. Take note that this recipe calls for agar powder, and not agar agar flakes. Since the powder is much denser, you'd need to use quite a bit more if substituting flakes.
- Salt.
- Vanilla extract. Vanilla is the predominant flavor of this recipe, so I'd recommend using a high-quality vanilla extract.
How It's Made
Below is a detailed photo tutorial on how to make this dish. Scroll all the way down if you'd like to skip right to the recipe!
To make your caramel sauce place sugar and some water into a small saucepan, and heat the mixture while stirring just until the sugar fully dissolves — no longer! This should only take one or two minutes.
Immediately pour the mixture into an 8-inch round cake pan. Let it sit and cool while you prepare the custard. It will cool pretty quickly since it's just a thin layer.
Tip: While this recipe was created using an 8-inch round cake pan, there's nothing stopping you from using a different sized cake pan or individual ramekins. Just make that whatever you use will fit into another container that can work as a hot water bath for releasing the flan from the pan.
To make the custard, combine coconut milk, vegan sweetened condensed milk, sugar, agar agar, and salt in a small saucepan. Heat it up and bring it to a boil. Let it boil for a full four minutes.
Make a cornstarch slurry by combining cornstarch with cold water, then pour the mixture into your custard. Bring it back to a boil and it will thicken quickly. Take it off of heat, then whisk in the vanilla.
Tip: Don't cut the cook time for your custard short! Agar agar needs a few solid minutes of simmering in order for it to fully activate and gel.
Carefully pour the custard over the caramel in your cake pan. Pour slowly and gently to avoid disrupting the caramel. Pop the cake pan into the fridge to set. It'll need at least three hours.
When it's time to release the flan, place the pan into a bath of just-boiled water for five minutes. Gently run a knife along the edges before inverting the cake pan onto a plate.
Now you can slice up and enjoy your vegan flan!
Leftovers & Storage
Vegan flan is best served right after you take it out of the pan, so if you're not planning on enjoying it right away, just leave it in the pan! Once it's out, the caramel will start to run off of the top, and some will sink into the flan. In any event, it will be good for about three days in an airtight container in the fridge.
More Vegan Dessert Recipes
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Flan
Ingredients
For the Caramel
- ¾ cup organic granulated sugar (Note 1)
- 2 tablespoons water
For the Custard
- ½ cup cold water
- 1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 (13.5 ounce/398 gram) can full-fat coconut milk
- 1 (11.25 ounce/325 gram) can vegan sweetened condensed milk
- â…“ cup organic granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon agar agar powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- To make the caramel, stir the sugar and water together in a small saucepan. Place it over medium heat and bring the mixture to a simmer. Let it simmer while stirring just until the sugar is completely dissolved, which should take no longer than one to two minutes. Remove the pot from heat.
- Pour the caramel mixture into an 8-inch round cake pan (Note 2). Set it aside and let it cool. The caramel should firm up as it cools, but it shouldn't become hard (Note 3).
- To make the custard, first stir the cold water and cornstarch together in a small container. Set this mixture aside.
- Stir the coconut milk, sweetened condensed milk, sugar, agar agar, and salt together in a small saucepan, then place it over medium-high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil while whisking.
- Once the mixture comes to a boil, lower the heat so that the mixture is cooking at a simmer. Let it simmer while whisking frequently for four minutes.
- Whisk the cornstarch slurry into the coconut milk mixture in the saucepan. Raise the heat back up to medium-high and bring it just back to a boil. It should thicken slightly once it starts to boil again. Remove it from heat.
- Stir the vanilla extract into the coconut milk mixture.
- Carefully pour the custard into the cake pan, over the caramel, being careful to disturb the caramel as little as possible.
- Place the cake pan into the fridge and let it chill until the custard has fully set, about 3 hours.
- To remove the flan from the pan, prepare a hot water bath by pouring about an inch of boiling water into a pan large enough to fit your flan. a 9-inch square cake pan should be perfect.
- Place the pan containing the flan into your hot water bath. Let it sit for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, while the flan is still in the hot water bath, gently run a knife around the edges of your flan (Note 4).
- Take the pan out of your hot water bath and place a plate over it. Invert the pan to release the flan onto the plate, being careful as the caramel will run out of the pan as this happens.
- Slice and serve the flan.
Notes
- For a deeper caramel color, you can use organic light brown sugar instead of white sugar.
- An 8-inch cake pan was used to make the flan in the photos, but there's nothing stopping you from using a different sized pan or multiple ramekins. Just make sure that whatever bake wear you use, you can fit it inside of some other vessel (such as a larger cake pan) for your hot water bath when the time comes to remove it from the pan. It's not a huge deal!
- If the caramel does harden, it means you cooked it a bit too long. This won't ruin your flan, as some of the caramel will soften in the hot water bath. It just means that all of the caramel will probably not soften, and some will stick to the pan.
- You can skip running the knife around the edges of the pan if it's obvious that the flan has already released from the pan, for example if it spins around in the pan when moved. This does happen sometimes.
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