Best Gluten-Free Vegan Challah

This gluten-free vegan challah made using Just Egg is about as close as you might come to the “real thing.” Bake one for Shabbat, your next special occasion, or any day you want a delicious, homemade bread that holds up to slicing, sandwiches, toasting, and more!

Growing up Jewish, challah featured prominently in my life on special occasions. A traditional challah is an egg-rich yeast-leavened bread traditionally eaten by Jews on Shabbat (the Sabbath, which runs from sundown Friday through sundown Saturday) or special occasions. We only had it on special occasions and I always LOVED it. Until recently, I hadn’t eaten challah in the 9 or 10 years since we became plant-based and subsequently gluten-free.

I had pretty much given up on ever eating it again until my youngest son told me recently that he really missed eating challah. That was enough to motivate me to see what I could do. I scoured the internet for vegan challah and gluten-free challah recipes. I found only a small handful of recipes for gluten-free vegan challah and many of them were really involved or had slightly strange ingredients.

Just Egg to the Rescue. Again.

Fresh off my success with making vegan quiche using Just Egg, I thought I’d see how versatile it was when used for baking. And where better to try Just Egg than in an EGG BREAD? After many hours of research, of combining ingredients in different ways to optimize for being gluten-free and vegan, and some plain old luck, I managed to bake my new favorite bread. This challah was everything I remembered challah to be: moist, sliceable, not too dense and slightly sweet. It tasted yeasty. Ahhhh. Don’t be nervous about baking with active dry yeast because it is GLUTEN-FREE. The Just Egg was the perfect egg substitute. So, I’m adding this challah to my list of Just Egg recipes. Just Egg is simply life-changing for us vegans.

One of the things of which to be aware when making challah is making it worthy of saying hamotzi or calling it a challah. To qualify, the Torah (or old testament) specifies that challah can only be made from one of the 5 grains: barley, rye, wheat, oat, and spelt. Well, 4 of those five grains contain wheat and/or gluten. So that leaves oat flour (certified gluten-free of course). A Rabbi has suggested that one of those 5 grains must comprise at least 50% of the total flour in the bread. This recipe uses >50% oat flour so it qualifies. Hooray!

What’s even funnier is that I never attempted to make my own challah before I was vegan or gluten-free because I could just buy one. It seemed really involved, what with all the rolling and braiding and such. This isn’t that kind of challah and that is the only thing that might make it slightly less authentic.

Of course, if you want it to look fancy and authentic, like you spent hours braiding raw dough, you can buy one of these challah molds. I haven’t tried one yet because my loaf pan works just fine, and that lets us use this bread for sandwiches too.

How to Make Gluten-Free Vegan Challah

First pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees F. Add 3/4 cup of warm water to a measuring cup or small bowl, add 1 teaspoon of sugar and the package of yeast. I like this brand of yeast and have had great success with it. A note on the sugar – I don’t digest processed sugar very well, even organic cane sugar and typically stick to sucanat, organic palm sugar or something like that but I found that using one of these more natural sugars didn’t make the yeast bubble the same way as the organic cane sugar does. So stick to that if you can. Mix these together and let them sit for a few minutes. The yeast mixture should begin to bubble. If it doesn’t, it may be old and your challah won’t rise properly. You don’t want a short, stubby challah.

Then measure out your dry ingredients in a bowl and combine them. To save yourself time in the future, measure out 2 or 3 more sets of the flours and store them in sealable zip bags in your refrigerator. When it comes time to make your next challah, you have all the dry ingredients ready to go!

I highly recommend a stand mixer with the whisk attachment to make this. I suppose you could use hand mixers but I haven’t tried it. If you do, please let me know how it goes. Add the maple syrup, oil, almond milk and Just Egg to the bowl. Mix on high until combined (a minute or so). Next add the yeast mixture and mix again.

Now slowly add in the flour mixture, being sure to scrape down the sides periodically. Mix until just combined and not any longer. The dough will be very sticky, which is why it isn’t suitable for rolling and braiding. Use a silicon spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl and into a loaf pan or challah mold.

The Rising

TURN OFF YOUR OVEN. I repeat, turn off your oven. We pre-heated to 200 degrees to have a warm place for your challah to rise, but we’re not cooking it just yet. Cover the challah with a clean, dry cloth and place it in the warm but TURNED OFF oven. Let it rise for 2 hours.

The Baking

Remove it from the oven, remove the cloth and set your oven to 375 degrees F. Bake the challah uncovered for 30 minutes, until golden and a toothpick removed comes out clean. Let it cool and then remove from the loaf pan. Slice it as needed to prevent it from getting stale and store it wrapped in aluminum foil. I leave mine on my counter for the first day or so, then move it to the refrigerator.

This challah should make your whole house smell amazing and you don’t have to be Jewish to make this bread. It is wonderful for sandwiches, especially toasted cheesy sandwiches, smearing with Miyoko’s butter or Violife Cream Cheese, making french toast or just pulling a piece off for a quick snack.

Try our challah with:

• Just Egg Quiche (Vegan)
• Creamy Vegan Tomato Soup
• Tuscan Bean Soup
• Mango Jicama Salad

I hope you enjoy this Gluten-Free Vegan Challah as much as we do.

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