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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.
To double the recipe would you just double the ingredients?
yep! 🙂
Just made the cookies (with tahini) and they are delicious. Thanks for the recipe Adrianna.
LOVE TO HEAR THIS!
So. I love this recipe. However, I am a modifier, and tend to modify to my taste/liking.
First time I made these I used vegan butter. Came out fine. A few weeks later, I decided to try again. This time using only whole wheat flour and browning some miyoko’s butter to add some depth of flavor. Little did I know I had actually doubled the butter…but by golly, they may have actually been better. Not better for you, but they are cookies.
So, vegan butter seems to work fine (for me), whole wheat flour is a go, and if you feel like browning the butter a little, or, maybe, doubling it…go for it!
Oh, and I used non dairy milk in place of water, too!
Awesome!
This recipe is stolen gram for gram from America’s Test Kitchen: Vegan for Everybody with no mention or credit to them. It’s a gem, but credit to them would be appropriate. Your friend appropriated them.
hi ryan! i believe she gave credit to them in her cookbook. i also believe she said she adapted it a bit changing the baking soda/salt and brown sugar.
Tried these last night and they turned out amazing! Thanks for sharing!
I have been looking for a vegan chocolate chip cookie that doesn’t call for vegan butter and this is finally it! I’ve made it for vegan and nonvegan friends and family and they all LOVE them! I use peanut butter instead of almond butter and they are perfect!
Super good! I used tahini but will definitely be trying this with cashew butter next time to see how it is! Thank you for such a good recipe!
BEAUTIFUL, DELICIOUS recipe! Quick question—i put it into my nutrition calculator, and got 181-200 calories. It says 89–how are these only 89 calories?
Can you tell me what I did wrong? I only subbed all purpose flour with coconut flour and used peanut butter instead of almond, and my cookies look like the same round shape they went into the oven as dough balls! Can you help??
hi! yes coconut flour can’t be subbed for all-purpose flour, unfortunately. you’re better off finding a gluten free vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe if that’s what you’re trying to do!
Delicious cookies! My friends liked these better than my non-vegan chocolate chip ones! They couldn’t even tell they were vegan! One question— mine ended up puffy, how do I flatten them?
ahh i had this problem too on my first try of this recipe. i would use a scale if you have it. even an extra teaspoon of flour can make them more puffy. most recipes aren’t THAT sensitive to an extra teaspoon or two of flour but these cookies are.