Make Light, Fluffy, Egg-Free Meringues With These Delicious Recipes for Inspiration

With its light, airy, crisp texture, subtly sweet taste, and elegant appearance, meringue is one of the world’s most popular desserts. It’s particularly popular in the US, where it is the key ingredient in lemon meringue pie, a quintessentially American treat.

But while delicious, meringue isn’t plant-based, and that’s because egg whites are considered to be integral to the recipe. However, just about anything can be made vegan (for proof of that, check out our extensive recipe database!), and meringue is no exception. Here’s how to make meringue vegan, and how to incorporate it into delicious recipes, too.

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How to make vegan meringue

Considering how important egg whites are to making traditional meringue (the recipe is just egg and sugar), it’s easy to assume that making a vegan meringue would be complicated. But actually, with the help of aquafaba, it’s easier than you might think.

Aquafaba is the starchy liquid that is often leftover from a can of legumes (the name “aquafaba” is derived from Latin, “aqua” means water and “faba” means bean). It’s incredibly versatile, and can even be whipped into a foam, similar to egg whites, to create treats like macarons, mousses, and even meringues.

Loving It Vegan

In this recipe, for example, Loving It Vegan simply empties a can of chickpea water into an electric mixer with cream of tartar. “Start off slow to get it nice and foamy,” blog founder Alison Andrews explains. “Then you speed it up and things start to get very creamy and glossy.” After that, she adds sugar and vanilla, before piping dollops of the mixture onto a lined baking tray and popping it in the oven to bake.

But aquafaba isn’t the only way to make delicious vegan meringues. You can also opt for an egg replacer instead. This recipe from Glow Steady, for example, mixes Free and Easy Egg Replacer with water, icing sugar, and caster sugar to achieve a “light and fluffy” tasty vegan meringue.

But if you don’t want to make vegan meringue from scratch, you can also buy pre-made vegan meringue mixes, too, from brands like Judee’s and Vör.  

6 recipes with vegan meringue

Aside from its taste and texture, one of the best things about meringue is how versatile it is. It can be used in pies, cookies, tarts, cakes, and so much more. For sweet treat inspiration, below, we’ve gathered a few of our favorite dessert recipes to make with vegan meringue.

Little Pine

1 Vegan Chocolate Pecan Cheesecake With Toasted Meringue and Fudge Sauce

This decadent, indulgent cheesecake, taken from The Little Pine cookbook,  features a sweet brown sugar graham cracker crust and a crown of fluffy toasted meringue. The best part? Not only does it taste great, but it’s more simple than it looks to make, too.
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2 Vegan Tropical Passionfruit and Mango Pavlova

Pavlova originated in Australasia, but today, it’s popular all over the world, and for very good reason. It’s refreshing, light, and filled with flavor, especially when it’s packed with tropical ingredients, like this version, which features pineapple, passionfruit, mango, lime, and coconut. From the Vegan With Bite cookbook, it’s a fool-proof recipe that uses aquafaba for a technically easy yet delectable dessert.
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Nourish Books

3 Mixed Berry Vegan Pavlova

If tropical fruits aren’t your thing, you can top your pavlova with some of your favorite berries. And for a little touch of elegance, you can also place some edible flowers on top (find out more about which flowers are edible here!).
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Hannah Kaminsky

4 Vegan Indoor S’mores Bars With Toasted Marshmallow Topping

Fancy a bite of vegan s’mores bliss? Check out this recipe from The Everyday Vegan Cheat Sheet cookbook, which combines a tasty toasted meringue marshmallow topping with a gooey chocolate filling and a thick graham cracker crust.
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Lauren Toyota

5 Vegan Lemon Meringue Pie Tarts

Tangy lemon and fluffy meringue are a match made in heaven, as anyone who grew up eating lemon meringue pie can attest to. If you want this delicious dessert to go even further, these individual lemon meringue pie tarts are the perfect solution. They’re flaky, buttery, and incredibly decadent.
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Yuki Sugiura

6 Vegan Black Pepper Pavlova With Fresh Mango and Vanilla Cream

If pavlova is usually too sweet for you, this recipe from Plentiful will guide you through how to balance out the sweetness with a little black pepper. It also features homemade vanilla bean cream and delicious, juicy mangoes.
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Charlotte is a writer and editor based in sunny Southsea on England’s southern coast.