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Vegan Lemon Bars

5 from 30 votes

These completely delicious vegan lemon bars can be a gluten free, sugar free, dairy free, nut free, oil free, and egg free recipe, with NO coconut milk required!

Vegan Lemon Bars

Easy vegan lemon bars

You will fall instantly in love with the smooth texture and bold lemon flavor.

Light, soft, sweet, and lemony, the simple vegan recipe is perfect for summer barbecues, dinner parties, baby showers, weddings, book clubs, potlucks, or your average Monday evening dessert.

One rich and luxurious bite, and you’ll swear the healthy lemon squares taste so good that they must be packed with butter and heavy cream. Yet they are not at all!

Readers also love this Vegan Carrot Cake

Egg Free Dairy Free Lemon Squares

Vegan lemon bar ingredients

You will need lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla extract, sweetener, coconut or cashew butter, a little salt, and soft tofu. (There’s also a soy free option included in the recipe.)

Unlike many other vegan lemon bar recipes, this one needs no coconut cream, no agar agar, no sugar, no lemon curd, and no vegan butter.

The fat source can be any neutral nut butter, such as cashew, macadamia, raw almond, or coconut butter. For a nut free option, plant based butter also works.

Tofu gives these vegan bars a delightful eggy texture without eggs. Soft tofu should be readily available in the refrigerated section of many regular grocery stores and health food stores. Any firmness of Mori Nu vacuum packed tofu will also work.

For the best lemon bar texture, do not use refrigerated firm or extra firm tofu.

Want more lemon? Make Vegan Lemon Bread or Vegan Lemon Cake

Watch the step-by-step lemon bar recipe video above

Healthy Lemon Bars Tofu Dessert

Crust recipes

Graham cracker crust: pulverize ten full graham cracker sheets in a food processor with three tablespoons oil or plant based butter. Press crumbs down into a parchment-lined pan. Then spread the filling on top.

(Note: many packaged graham crackers contain honey. At press time, both Nabisco grahams and original Keebler’s graham crackers are vegan.)

Low carb crust: Stir one and a half cups of almond flour with five tablespoons of melted coconut oil or vegan butter and one tablespoon of liquid sweetener of choice or water. Press into a parchment-lined pan. Spread the lemon filling on top.

More crust options: Swap gingersnaps, shortbread cookies, or sugar cookies in the graham cracker crust recipe above. Or use a store bought or homemade pie crust, or omit the crust entirely for crustless lemon squares.

Easy Vegan Lemon Bar Dessert

How to make vegan lemon squares

Gather all of your ingredients, and line an eight inch square pan with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine the ingredients in a blender or food processor until completely smooth.

Spread the thick lemon mixture into the prepared pan. Place on the oven’s center rack.

Bake for 35 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool. Once no longer hot, refrigerate the citrus fruit bars until they are cold. They will firm up during this time.

Slice with a sharp knife. The bars can be left out for a few hours in an air conditioned environment if serving at a party. For freshness, I recommend refrigerating leftovers.

Store leftover lemon bars in a covered container for up to four days, leaving a small opening to let out excess moisture.

Silken Tofu Dessert Recipe in 8x8 baking pan

How to color lemon bars

To get the yellow color shown in the photos, I chose to add a pinch of turmeric.

You should only need about an eighth of a teaspoon, and no need to be exact.

Add the turmeric along with the other ingredients before blending. The color will not change much until after the bars go into the hot oven.

The turmeric is optional and can be substituted with a few drops of yellow food coloring or omitted entirely if you prefer.

The recipe was adapted from my Vegan Cheesecake and Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars.

Homemade Vegan Lemon Squares
Pin it now to save for laterPin Recipe

Vegan Lemon Bars

This easy and delicious recipe for vegan lemon bars will quickly become a family favorite dessert.
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Yield 9 – 12 squares
5 from 30 votes

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 16 oz soft tofu (for soy free, try these Keto Lemon Bars)
  • zest of one lemon
  • 1/3 cup pure maple syrup or agave
  • 1/3 cup coconut butter, cashew butter, or plant based butter
  • 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp salt (if using salted butter, only use 1/8 tsp salt)
  • up to 1/4 tsp turmeric, optional for color
  • see above for crust options

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 F. Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor until completely smooth. Spread into a parchment lined 8-inch pan, with a crust if desired. Bake for 35 minutes, then let cool. Refrigerate until cold before slicing, because they firm up once chilled.
    View Nutrition Facts

Notes

Also be sure to try these Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies.
 

Have you made this recipe?

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Published on September 28, 2022

Meet Katie

Chocolate Covered Katie is one of the top 25 food websites in America, and Katie has been featured on The Today Show, CNN, Fox, The Huffington Post, and ABC's 5 O'clock News. Her favorite food is chocolate, and she believes in eating dessert every single day.

Learn more about Katie

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44 Comments

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  1. Marina @ A says

    I can’t believe these are only 4 ingredients minus the crust!! They look absolutely lovely Katie 🙂 By the way, I’ll be in DC on Friday 🙂

  2. Katie Sue says

    Wow, these look amazing. I love lemon desserts, especially in the spring. But I was wondering if regular homemade yogurt would work instead of Greek??? Definitely plan on trying these ASAP.

  3. Kate says

    I’m curious; how much does using coconut butter vs. Greek yogurt change the texture and flavor? Those have pretty different consistencies/tastes/fat amounts.

  4. Bites for Foodies says

    These sound DIVINE! I used to be all about chocolate desserts but lately my new fave is lemon. I make some amazing lemon coconut energy bars and they surpass my chocolate ones by far, in terms of flavour and texture!

  5. Chloe says

    These look amazing! Finding your blog, and seeing that you publish healthy deserts was like a dream come true for me! Love it!

  6. Michelle says

    Made these today and yet another success! I doubled the recipe and made it an 8×8 because the kids had friends coming over after school. Worked equally well in the bigger size.

  7. Paige says

    Oh my goodness, how have I only just come across your website. These look delicious, cant wait to try them.

  8. Sarah says

    This filling is delish but I made your crust recipe but there is wayyyyyy too much for the amount of filling. I took some out of the loaf pan since it seemed too thick. And even half of the crust recipe still seems like too much. Did I follow something wrong? Thanks!

    • Chocolate Covered Katie says

      Hi, sorry for the confusion! I realize now that the way I’d worded that was very confusing. (I’d just meant to use it as a base, not those proportions.) I went back and fixed the post – you’ll need about half of that crust recipe for these bars, as a full recipe will cover the bottom of an 8×8 pan.

  9. Diana says

    I made these yesterday. I think they taste delicious with the crust I used (graham cracker crumbs + melted Smart Balance + Splenda), but I think they would taste better with more filling, as they are rather flat.

  10. Kate says

    I made the Greek yogurt version, and my whole family loved them! I actually liked eating them pretty much straight out of the freezer–kind of like a tart lemon sorbet, which was perfect for the hot weather. I’ve been looking for a lemon bar that wasn’t too sweet, and this was it! The only problem was that my graham cracker crust was very crumbly; next time I will definitely add a tablespoon or so of coconut oil to it.

  11. christie pellow says

    Katie, I am absolutely obsessed with everything you make (so is my boyfriend)! You are my hero and so sweet from your posts. I can’t wait to make these tomorrow! Citrus desserts are my favorite. I was wondering if I could also use this recipe but substitute limes for lemons to make a “key lime pie” rendition? If not I would love for you to eventually publish a key lime pie healthy alternative. <3

  12. Dalila says

    Made this today for 4th of July 2016. It was pretty good but not like AMAZING. I used agave with yogurt instead of coconut butter.
    Also added some coconut flakes into it and made my own crust.

    I plan to try some other of the lemon recipes u have. It was pretty good though, i enjoy cold lemony things 🙂

    • Meechey says

      How can you make a comment that they were NOT amazing when YOU decided to alter the recipe? That’s your fault, not the recipe.

      • Anna says

        5 stars
        To be fair, it seems that this recipe was updated, and the old version contained yogurt as one of the options. You will see the CCK media team’s comment if you scroll down further.

  13. Josie sidleck says

    Hi, these sound great but I was wondering can you use full fat coconut milk instead of the yogurt or coconut butter?

  14. Katherine says

    Hi Katie,

    Your Vegan Lemon Bars recipe is fantastic.
    I would love to feature this in our website, Greenthickies. I will not be posting the actual recipe but will use only one image from this post and a small quote and link back here.
    Is that okay?

    Thanks 🙂

    Katherine,
    Greenthickies

    p.s. I did read your FAQ, but I just thought I’d let you know anyway 🙂

  15. Teresa says

    Katie, thanks so much for this spectacular blog! It’s really everything I’ve always wanted in a food blog. I really appreciate how you share recipes that aren’t just vegan, but don’t include or rely on cane sugar as well. I am vegan and also have an intolerance of cane sugar, so it exasperates me sometimes when I’m trying to look up vegan recipes on other blogs and just see cane sugar everywhere, even though it’s usually relatively easy to swap out for something I can eat. It’s really refreshing to come to your blog and not see cane sugar as the first option for sweetener in a recipe. 🙂 I also really appreciate your knack for veganizing classic favorites and how you don’t shy away from desserts, because I firmly believe in healthily indulging my sweet tooth. There are so many recipes on this blog that I’m excited to try (including this one) and I wish you all the best in your future culinary endeavors!

  16. Helen says

    Hi Katie, your recipes look amazing. I would love to try them. Would it be possible for you to put in measurements in metric please as in the U.K., we tend to use metric or imperial.
    Sorry to be ungrateful. Helen x

    • CCK Media Team says

      Hi Helen! Good news 🙂 Katie is trying to remember to add this section to new posts as she writes them. So you will be seeing more and more of Katie’s recipes that have a section called “converting to gram measurements” in the commentary above the recipe. So far, I think she’s done three recipes (banana muffins, chocolate zucchini bread, and upcoming cranberry bars) and will continue to do many more.

  17. Bett says

    I’m confused. I see comments that make it seem like the recipe doesn’t call for an 8 inch pan.
    But that’s what it says in the recipe I see.
    I also don’t see Greek yogurt in the recipe but there are references to that also.
    Am I missing something? 🙂

    B

  18. Bett says

    P. S. Do you have a recipe for cashew butter? I’m trying to use as little oil as possible, especially not coconut oil or other saturated fats.

    Thanks again!

    • CCK Media Team says

      Hi Bett! This is an updated/improved recipe and no longer contains yogurt. We do not have a cashew butter recipe, but it should be pretty simple if you have a high speed blender like a vitamix. Just blend the cashews until they are smooth like butter 🙂

  19. Katie O'Grady says

    looking so forward to trying this!

    We have gluten, dairy and nut allergies in our family, so super happy to see recipes modified for folks with food allergies.

    Thank you, Katie 🙂

    ~Katie O’Grady
    Los O’Gradys in Mexico

5 from 30 votes (29 ratings without comment)

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