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The Best Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies have soft chewy centers and slightly crispy edges. These vegan chocolate chip cookies call for zero funny ingredients and instead rely on nut butter and coconut oil to give them their wonderful, delicious texture.
I have made A LOT of chocolate chip cookies over the years. I get a lot of requests for veganized recipes of some of my baked goods. But I’m going to be honest: I’m sort of intimidated by vegan baking. That’s why I’m SO excited to share these perfect Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies. They truly are amazing.
As much as I would love to take credit for them, I cannot. They come from my good friend, Michelle Lopez’s new book, WEEKNIGHT BAKING!! WOHOO! It comes out today. And the premise is brilliant.
Ingredients You’ll Need for Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- All-purpose flour. These require the standard flour!
- Baking powder and baking soda. Baking powder gives them some lift and baking soda allows them to spread a bit and have nice color.
- Kosher salt. This gives the cookie a balanced taste.
- Coconut oil. Most cookies have some form of fat (usually this is butter). This coconut oil gives this cookie its moisture, texture and richness.
- Creamy almond butter. This also contributes a bit of fat and flavor to the cookies. Surprisingly they don’t “taste” like almond butter.
- Water. The water thins the almond butter out and adds a bit of mixture.
- Vanilla extract. Vanilla always gives cookies a lovely hint of flavor.
- Dark brown sugar. As a result, the brown sugar will provide the cookies moisture, sweetness and flavor.
How to Make Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Mix the dry ingredients together: all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- In another bowl, add the melted coconut oil, creamy almond butter, water and vanilla extract.
- And then, mix in the brown sugar.
- Add the dry ingredients. And then, mix it all in until you no longer see any speckles of flour.
- Pour in the chocolate chips and mix.
- Chill the dough. If the dough is super soft, you can refrigerate the dough for 1 hour. As a result, they won’t spread too much.
- Bake the cookies!
Where Can I Buy Vegan Chocolate Chips
Chocolate is inherently vegan. But most chocolate chips we use for baking and eating has a bit of milk in it. Hence the reason why it’s called “milk chocolate” or “semi-sweet.” So you’ll need to seek out vegan chocolate chunks/chips OR, as Michelle advises, use a vegan chocolate bar. I went for vegan chocolate chunks I had in my pantry already.
Of course, if you’re serving non-vegan friends, then use whatever you like.
How to Freeze Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough For Later
I’m convinced that you haven’t experienced true joy in life if you don’t know the feeling of having frozen cookie dough your freezer. It’s an amazing feeling because it truly means freshly baked cookies are mere minutes away. Here’s how to save them for later:
- Scoop the dough out and place on a baking sheet, making sure they’re about 1-inch a part.
- Place them in the freezer for about 30 minutes. As a result, their outside will be solid and won’t freeze adhered to each other.
- Then transfer the super cold cookie dough balls to a freezer-safe bag or container.
- Label the container with the date and the type of cookies they are (so you don’t forget)
- Stick ‘em in the freezer and that’s it!
I also have a whole post dedicated to the subject matter if you need to read something a bit more lengthy.
Looking for more dessert recipes? Here are some of my other favorites:
- Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Corgi Chai Cookies
- Pumpkin Tahini Loaf
- 10 Cookies to Make and Freeze
- Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies
- Strawberry and Cream Cookies
- 15 Christmas Cookie Recipes
Best Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Equipment
- 1 (half sheet) baking sheet
- 1 sheet of parchment paper
- 1 cookie scoop
Ingredients
- 10 ounces vegan chocolate chips or from a bar, (at least 70% cocoa), if from a bar, chopped
- 2 cups (9 ounces/250g) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup (4 ounces) coconut oil, melted
- 1/3 cup (3.15 ounces) unsweetened creamy natural almond butter
- 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) water
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups (9.35 ounces) tightly packed dark brown sugar
Instructions
- Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two half sheet pans with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, almond butter, water, and vanilla until smooth. Add the sugar and whisk until combined. Add the dry ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula until just combined. add the chopped chocolate and mix until evenly distributed throughout.
- Use a 3-tablespoon cookie dough scoops to portion the cookie dough into balls and place them at least 3 inches apart on the prepared sheet pans. If the cookie dough seems too soft to scoop, refrigerate for about 45 minutes to an hour. Bake one pan at time for 12 minutes, until the edges have set but the centers are still gooey.
- The cookies will look puffed when you pull them out of the oven, but will fall and crack into the perfect cookies as they cool. Cool the cookies on the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes, or until the edges and bottoms of the cookies feel firm to the touch. Repeat with remaining cookie dough balls (or freeze it to bake later). Serve warm or at room temperature. Top with flaky salt, if you like. The cookies can be stored, in an airtight container at room temperature, for up to 3 days.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi Adrianna,
Nice job creating a delicious vegan cookie!
Do you have an update for the nutrition information you provided?
These cookies have way more that 1 gram of sugar (one cup of packed brown sugar has 220 grams carbs)
Also the percentage of fat exceeds the total calories for one cookie.
Sorry, but I am cursed with an eagle eye for details and I would exchange it in a minute for your ability to transform a butter and egg laden recipe into a vegan version.
Hi, I’m confused also by the nutritional information. I don’t see how the calorie count could possibly be only 25 per cookie and 1g sugar with that amount of brown sugar and nut butter in the recipe.. .
hi there! i just updated it through my nutrition calculator. it was definitely off–sorry about that!
I made these yesterday and my family LOVED them. My husband said they’re the best vegan cookies he’s ever had! I REALLY love chocolate chip cookies and agree these were fantastic – nice and chewy on the outside and a nice crisp on the outside, just as the recipe promised. I’ll definitely make them again.
love hearing this! 🙂
These cookies were delicious! I used runny tahini in place of the almond butter and decreased the amount of water. Had to chill them in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm the dough up and when baked I got really thick cookies that were crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. I’d recommend flattening them a bit before baking if you do decide to chill them.
love these changes you made. you have great instincts! and so glad they worked out 🙂
Easy. Delicious. Kind of surprising that anything this easy and without weird crap can taste so good.
I know–it blew me away too. Zero vegan butter! Just simple ingredients! 🙂
I have made 4 batches in just over a week. I LOVE this recipe! The second time I was almost out of almond butter, so I used hazelnut butter instead. Even more amazing!
Thanks so much.
LOVE HEARING THIS! hazelnut butter sounds delicious.
Ah I LOVE this idea! Okay, this is definitely going on my list for recipes I can share with my co-food coordinator for our Food Science Club meeting! Our members love cookies, especially chocolate chip cookies. Since we have people with different dietary needs, this is fabulous!
Do you think the results would be the same with gluten free flour? I have a friend who has a wheat and egg allergy.
YES, these should work. a reader made these on instagram and said they used gluten-free flour mix from bob’s red mill and it worked great!
I just wanted to say that these were incredibly, surprisingly, delicious! I told my husband I was going to make these and he was skeptical, and they turned out amazing! I was intrigued because the recipe seemed too simple to pass up for some quick weeknight cookies 🙂 Thank you for sharing and I will be making these again!
Could this work with vegan butter instead of coconut oil?
unfortunately i don’t know the answer to this! i only made it this way and michelle (i just asked her) just texted it with coconut oil (not alternatives). sorry!
ahhh these look so good! thank you for making the recipe and troubleshooting the flour issues! xo
thanks boo! x