The softest, most aromatic vegan garlic knots you’ll ever find! Tossed in garlic and parsley butter, these guys will melt your heart as they melt in your mouth!
I’ve been meaning to make these damn fine vegan garlic knots for absolutely AGES! I have a notes file on my phone because my memory is terrible. Every time I think of something I want to make, I add it to the file. The words “VEGAN GARLIC KNOTS” have been on that file for (no joke) about 9 months. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get round to this!
The thing I love about them is that they’re SO simple to make but are absolutely one of the most satisfyingly delicious things to eat. They make a great starter, side dish or addition to a pot-luck and they dip so well in marinara sauce!
Why Vegan Garlic Knots?
I first had garlic knots in America, which makes sense! They’re simply KNOT a thing here (ugh Dad joke) in the UK. We occasionally get dough balls, but they’re different. Garlic knots are so special because of how they pull apart and how DRENCHED they are in that garlic butter.
There’s the B word. The reason these guys have been off the menu for so long! Garlic knots are made with butter usually, which mean’s they’re not V-friendly. That’s why I decided to treat y’all to my vegan garlic knots!
What’s That Dough Like!?
I’m glad you asked! The dough is basically my go-to pizza dough. It’s nothing fancy – no sourdough yeast or anything like that. Just straight up quick rise yeast. The dough includes a little olive oil, to keep everything moist and smooth and glossy. It also helps the dough to crisp up and brown on the outside!
If you’re feeling extra fancy and want mega MEGA soft knots, replace the plain flour for type ’00’ flour. This stuff is reserved for pasta and pizza and is SUPER fine, meaning super soft once baked! You can get type ’00’ flour here and I’d highly recommend getting some!
Any Specialist Ingredients?
These vegan garlic knots are pretty damn simple on the ingredient front, but that’s your opportunity to make sure you use the best quality ingredients you can get your buttery, garlicky mitts on!
There’s only one ingredient I’d recommend you really use for this recipe: A GOOD PLANT MILK! Being the only liquid element of the dough, you’ll find it has a huge effect on the flavour. Here are my two faves!
Bonsoy
Bonsoy has been my fave soy milk for a pretty damn long time. It has a really subtle flavour and a nice, creamy texture thanks to a high fat and protein content.
You can grab Bonsoy here!
Oatly Barista
Hopefully all the shortages of this magical milk have come to an end. These guys exploded onto the plant-milk scene a few years ago and I can honestly say this milk played a huge role in me making the transition to vegan. It works perfectly in this recipe and is the best milk for coffee!
You can grab Oatly Barista here!
How Do I Make It?
As usual, there’s a full recipe at the bottom of this page, but I’m going to walk you through the steps to make the garlic knots below.
1. Make the dough!
Because of the slightly high liquid and oil content, the dough for these garlic knots can be a little sticky to begin with. However, if you leave the dough to hydrate properly, it’ll be much more pleasant to knead and form.
Activate your yeast in the warm, sugary milk, then mix together all your ingredients until you have a really shaggy, sticky dough. Cover and leave for ten minutes. After ten mins it should be much easier to work with – NO MORE DOUGHY HAND PANIC!
Dough before hydration 
Dough after hydration
2. Knead the dough!
My technique for kneading isn’t hugely labour intensive. It involves kneading for a few minutes before allowing the gluten to relax for ten minutes. It’s really not necessary to do this process more than twice, but if you’d like to experiment with the texture of your dough, feel free to do it a couple more times.
One thing to note is that you won’t need to flour the surface at this stage. The oil in the dough should keep it from sticking. Once kneaded, it’s time to prove the dough!
Tip out the dough 
Knead and repeat
3. Prove the dough
The next stage is to allow the dough for the vegan garlic knots to rise or prove. The aim is to let it double in size, and this should take roughly an hour. I tend to place my dough in a bowl, cover with a damp tea-towel, then place in a cold oven.
If you like, you can put a small bowl of hot water at the bottom of the oven too. The steam stops the dough from drying out and also raises the temperature of the oven a little, to help speed up the proving.
4. Shape the dough!
Once proved, your dough is ready to shape. Push out some of the larger air bubbles with your fingers and divide the dough into two. Roll out one dough half into an oblong and slice into 10 ribbons. Sprinkle with a little mix of garlic granules and flour before tying in a knot.
Repeat with all of your dough and arrange the knots on a lined baking tray. Brush with a little oil. You now need to prove them again, this time I’d recommend only doing between 30 and 45 minutes. Meanwhile, prove your oven!
Push out air bubbles 
Roll out and divide 
Tie dough in knots 
Brush with oil
5. Bake the knots!
Time for the oven! The proved knots should be nicely puffed and should jiggle when you shake the tin. Pop them in the pre-heated oven and bake for roughly 15 minutes, rotating the tray half way through baking.
When done they should be golden brown on the top and bottom. Remove from the oven and enjoy that smell!
Knots before baking 
Vegan garlic knots after baking
6. Make the garlic butter and dress!
While the knots are cooling slightly, melt the vegan butter in a small pan and add the garlic. Allow it to cook for a minute or so but make sure that garlic doesn’t brown! You want it nice and fresh tasting!
Stir in parsley and salt. Pop all the knots in one large bowl then drizzle over the butter. Toss or stir to make sure all the knots are dressed. you’re ready to serve!
Garlic and parsley butter 
Dressing the knots 
Dressed knots
Made this recipe?
Did you give this a go!? I’d love to hear what you think! Either rate and comment on the recipe below or head over to my instagram and leave your thoughts over there!
I really enjoyed developing this one, and I hope you’ll love eating it too!
Need more similar recipes!?
Not had your fill of Italian/American classics? Why not try these vegan bad-boys for your next cook-fest!
– Vegan Beyond Burger Lasagna
– The Perfect Vegan Pesto
– Vegan Ricotta Stuffed Pasta Shells
Disclosure: some of the links above are affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you, I may earn commission when you click through and make a purchase.
Vegan Garlic Knots
Equipment
- No specialist equipment necessary
Ingredients
For the Knots
- 230 ml soy milk ((or your favourite plant milk))
- 2 tbsp caster sugar
- 1½ tsp instant yeast
- 200 g plain white flour
- 160 g strong white bread flour
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 30 ml olive oil
- 1 tbsp plain white flour
- 2 tsp garlic powder
For the Garlic & Parsley Butter
- 110 g vegan butter
- 5 cloves garlic ((finely minced garlic))
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley ((finely chopped))
- 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
Instructions
To Make the Knots
- Place the soy milk in a small saucepan and place over a low heat. Bring the milk to around 30c (drop a tiny bit on the back of your hand. It should just feel very slightly warm).
- Remove from the heat and pour the milk into a small bowl. Add the sugar and yeast and mix well. Set aside and leave the yeast to bloom for around 5 minutes.
- In a large bowl, mix together the flours and sea salt.
- Once the milk and yeast mixture has bloomed and is very frothy on top, add 20ml of the olive oil and mix well. Add the milk mix to the flour mixture and mix together until you have a sticky messy dough. Cover with a damp tea-towel and leave to hydrate fully for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove the dough from the bowl and knead well on a clean surface for around 2 minutes. Return the dough to the bowl, cover and leave for a further 10 minutes. Repeat the process of kneading for 2 minutes and cover again.
- Place the covered bowl into a cold oven. Place a small bowl of freshly boiled water on the bottom of the oven to help keep the temperature of the oven slightly warmer than room temperature. Leave to prove for one hour.
- After an hour is up, the dough should've doubled in size. Tip the dough from the bowl onto a clean, lightly floured surface and press out the large air bubbles.
- Using a sharp knife, slice the dough in half. Form each half into a ball, then roll out into a rough oblong. Slice the oblong into 10 strips.
- Mix together the 1 tbsp plain white flour and the garlic powder. Sprinkle over the slice dough, then one-by-one, tie each strip into a loose knot and place on a baking tray, lined with baking parchment. Repeat with the second half of the dough until you have 20 knots on the tray.
- Brush the knots with the 10 remaining ml of olive oil. Cover with cling film or a damp tea towel and leave to second-prove on the counter for 40 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200c.
- Once proved, place the risen knots in the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. While the knots are baking, prepare the garlic and parsley butter.
To Make the Garlic and Parsley Butter
- In a small saucepan over medium, melt the vegan butter. Add the minced garlic and allow to cook for a minute or two. Do not allow the garlic to brown. Remove from the heat.
- Add the parsley and salt to a large bowl an top with the garlic butter. Stir to combine. Add the warm knots and toss well to coat. Serve hot with your favourite marinara sauce for dippin'!
Just made these for myself and my husband – so good! Would definitely make again. Thanks!
Thanks Kim! Is there honestly anything more satisfying than a carb/garlic combo!?
delicious! i tried several recipes and they came out like hockey pucks. Yours delivered soft, billowy, delicious clouds of heaven! thanks for recommending flour and milk. I used them and I think that contributed to the success! thanks
Squeeeee! Thanks mate! So glad you liked them!
Wish these worked but the dough did not rise. Bummer. Maybe because it was hard to covert to US metric system correctly. Going to whole foods…
Hi Laura, that’s a real shame. Yours is the first complaint I’ve had about this recipe. You shouldn’t have to convert anything as all of my new recipes are converted for you. You just need to select “ US Customary” under the ingredient list. Two bits of advice. 1. Always check that your yeast is still fresh. Yeast which has been open for even a few days can become completely inactive. Assuming you used at least a teaspoon of active yeast and that you left it to prove long enough, the recipe should’ve worked. 2. If you plan to do much baking, buy a set of electric scales. They’re accurate, unlike US customary measurements.
Have you ever made these ahead of time? We’re going to a potluck and I’m curious if I should reheat and dress them when we arrive, or if they’d freeze, thaw and warm okay? Any tips would be appreciated!!
Made these in the middle of the night while on COVID19 lockdown in Los Angeles and they turned out WONDERFULLY. Will definitely be making these again and again! Totally cheered our house up. Thanks
So amazing! At home with nothing to do- and this was the perfect solution. This recipe is perfect. YUM
I only have all purpose flour on hand. Do you think these will turn out okay if I only use all purpose flour? I’d rather not make a trip to the store if I can avoid it. Also flour and yeast have been hard to come by with all the COVID hoarders!
Hi! Just wanted to say I have made these using just only all purpose flour and they still come out beautiful and soft!
These were absolutely AMAZING! Perfectly browned on the outside, perfectly chewy on the inside. So happy to have these in my life!
Amazing! Very Soft!
I just wanted to say a MASSIVE thank you for sharing this recipe! I first tried the garlic knots a week ago (everything you described and more *drool*), and since then have played around with the dough recipe to make pizza bases, cheeseymite bread scrolls, pesto pizza twists, and currently have some bread-wrapped vegan sausage rolls in the oven. It’s such a fool proof, fluffy, versatile dough and I can’t wait to make some sweet stuff with it as well. Lockdown is for carb-loading, right? Thanks again!
Just made these and they disappeared in 5 minutes, amazing!!!
I’ve made these garlic knots THREE times already and I’m about to make them again. THEY ARE JUST THAT GOOD. Each time they came out super soft and so garlicky. Yum!
Thank you for this delicious recipe!
This is the third time I’ve made these and each time they have turned out beautifully!
So good! Made tonight and coupled with a summer pasta. Super easy and delicious. Highly recommend. We will definitely make these again!
Hey… I am immensely thankful for sharing this recipe. They turned out really good and fluffy and tastes heaven. ❤
Hey… I am immensely thankful for sharing this recipe. They turned out really good and fluffy and tastes heaven.
Have a good day.
Hey… I am immensely thankful for sharing this recipe. They turned out really good and fluffy and tastes heaven. I tried many but nothing taste better than made this from recipe
Have a good day.
Im so beyond excited to make these for pub night! Can I use active dry yeast? Does anyone know?
Amazing! So soft and buttery.
I made these tonight and it was my first time ever making dough. They were delicious!
I used all purpose flour only. I didn’t have any vegan butter or parsley on hand either, so I used olive oil and some dried herbs and it worked great.
So delicious! The dough is pretty wet and soft to work with, so I do tend to add about 1/2 cup more flour during the kneading process. The end result though is still a fantastically light and fluffy knot (with delicious crisp bottoms!). We make our “butter” with olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, and rosemary. So good, we have made them twice this week!
Richard – these were the absolute bolloc@&!!
Thank you so much for the effort and ultimately, achievement, in making this recipe.
Was eating my way through the lot, when my partner swiftly Tupperware-d up. My night was scuppered, but lunch tomorrow is already looking 100x brighter.
Everytime I try out a recipe and like it I leave a review. My God! These are amazing! I asked you on IG about bread flour which has yeast in it already and you said to use a teaspoon. I did and they turned out amazingly! I will be making them for christmas.
Best thing I’ve ever tasted. Just one question, can I make them the night before and reheat? Will they dry out or harden?
Made these for New Years Eve dinner and they went down so well! Delicious and went so well with the pasta dish.
Fantastic!!
Absolutely delicious and easier than I expected. My whole family loved them.
Is there anything I can use to replace caster sugar ?
If i could give more than a five i would, these are the best ever, my friends rave about them, ive passed the recipe to them but they say it doesnt work for them ( i think they just want me to make it for them ) definitely will save these forever. Making non vegans love vegan food thats for sure.