This coconut French toast is the ultimate weekend breakfast! Thick slices of Italian bread are soaked in a blend of coconut milk, chickpea flour and cornstarch to create a cake-like texture. Fry the pieces up on a hot griddle and serve with a ton of vegan butter, maple syrup and powdered sugar.
French toast: the best weekend food!
Weekend breakfast is the best. I’m not a huge fan of sugar, but my husband is. This French toast recipe can be adapted to be sweet or savory, depending on what you like.
Full-fat, organic coconut milk is essential for this recipe. Be sure to get a good quality brand of coconut milk—you can tell its a good brand if the cream is packed tightly towards the top of the can when you open it. The coconut milk binds perfectly with the bread, giving it a rich, cakey-like texture and flavor.
How to crisp up your French toast
I love using olive oil to sear the French toast here. It gives it a savory quality that works well with the sweet components. You can also used a neutral-flavored oil here, like canola or grapeseed.
The bread: leave it out all day to dry out
The day before you make this recipe, slice up and leave the bread out on a countertop. This allows it to dry out and get stale. Then place the staIe slices into the coconut milk mixture overnight. This will let it soak up the coconut milk mixture to create a cake-like texture.
For more breakfast ideas, check these recipes out!
Easy Tofu Scramble with Potato Hash
Vegan Spanish Omelette {Tortilla Española}
Loaded Baked Potato Hash Brown Waffles
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Coconut French Toast
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This coconut French toast is such a delicious weekend breakfast! Thick slices of Italian bread are soaked in a blend of coconut milk, chickpea flour and cornstarch. If you like a cake-like texture in your French toast, this will hit the spot. Fry this up on a hot griddle and of course serve with a ton of vegan butter, maple syrup and powdered sugar.
Ingredients
- 1 can organic coconut milk (13 fl. oz)
- 1 1/2 cups soy, almond or hemp milk
- 3 TB garbanzo bean flour
- 1 TB cornstarch
- olive oil or canola oil
- 1 loaf of italian bread, sliced (sandwich bread will work too—if you use it, though, skip the overnight soaking and dunk the bread into the mixture for 5 minutes or less before browning in a pan)
- Optional toppings: earth balance, powdered sugar, maple syrup, agave, nutritional yeast
Instructions
- If using an italian loaf of bread, slice into 1 to 1.5-inch thick slices and leave out to dry during the day. The dry bread will soak up the coconut mixture better than fresh bread.
- Before bed, empty the entire can of coconut milk into a medium-sized bowl. Whisk until smooth. Add the soymilk, garbanzo bean flour and cornstarch and stir until the ingredients have blended together. Empty the mixture into a large glass pyrex dish, enough for all of the bread pieces to fit. Dunk the bread in, making sure all pieces are well-covered with the mixture, cover with saran wrap and place into the refrigerator.
- In the morning, heat 2-3 TB of olive oil or canola oil in a large flat saute pan or griddle over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Add the slices of french toast and saute for 10 minutes. Flip and saute the other side for 10 minutes more. Dial up the heat to medium-high and flip again, for 5 minutes more on each side or until a nice browning has been achieved.
- Toppings: If you like sweet french toast, cover in earth balance, powdered sugar and pure maple syrup. If you like a more savory french toast, cover in earth balance, a touch of powdered sugar and some nutritional yeast.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
Keywords: vegan french toast, coconut french toast
Plain Gourmet says
i love coconut milk… i'm a pesco-vegetarian but i like your recipes a lot… you might make a vegan out of me eventually. : )
will definitely try your recipes!
Angela@RecipesFromMyMom says
I love letting my bread dry out too before making French toast. Great recipe.
briarrose says
Beautiful stack of French toast. I could not resist this tasty treat.
Tiffany says
Garbanzo bean flour?!?!? OOooo, I'm intrigued! This french toast seems like an all around winner!
Justin (Lotus Artichoke) says
Looks beautiful! Thanks for reminding me I've totally got to get my French Toast recipe online, too. I've never soaked overnight; might try that next time. Also, do people really put nutritional yeast on French Toast?
erinwyso says
Thanks Justin! I am not sure if others put nooch on their french toast, but it tastes heavenly with powdered sugar and a bit o' melted earth balance!
Nikolina says
I am exactly in the middle of making this and am very excited, because a vegan french toast is very hard to come by. You mention cornstarch in your directions, but there is nothing about it in the ingredients list. Since I'm already knee deep into this, I'm going to put a moderate amount of cornstarch in, but do you mind letting me know the exact amount of cornstarch that you used?
Thank you in advance!
erinwyso says
whoops! I use about a tablespoon — I've updated the recipe to include that — good luck!
Nikolina says
Thanks! That's how much I decided to go with. 🙂 Thank you for the recipe. They were delicious!
We had two snow days in a row and this French Toast is perfect for a special no-school morning. 🙂
I am really enjoying your recipes and your take on flavors and textures in vegan food. It is helping me to keep variety at our table. Thank you, thank you, thank you!:)
erinwyso says
so happy you liked! : )