This is the best recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookies you will ever find. Soft, chewy, and melt in your mouth delicious, they are everything you could ever want in a chocolate chip cookie recipe!
The Best Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
No flaxmeal
No chia seeds or egg replacer
Just 9 ingredients
No chickpeas
This is my tried-and-true best vegan chocolate chip cookies recipe that both vegans AND meat eaters love. Try the recipe out on all your friends.
How is it possible that these secretly vegan cookies taste so much like regular traditional chocolate chip cookies? It’s because the cookies are made with ONLY traditional chocolate chip cookie ingredients!
You may also like these Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Homemade chocolate chip cookies have been one of my favorite desserts for as long as I can remember.
Give me a choice, and I’ll choose chocolate chip cookies over cake or candy any day of the week. Even before I was tall enough to see above the kitchen table, I earned the nickname Cookie Monster.
Any time there were cookies around, I would be sure to find them.
So it makes sense that, upon going vegan, they were one of the very first recipes I veganized, along with these Vegan Pancakes and Vegan Cinnamon Rolls.
No one who tries the recipe can ever believe these soft and classic chocolate chip cookies are actually vegan!
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Ingredients
The one bowl recipe is easy to make using basic ingredients, with no almond flour or applesauce, and no coconut oil required.
For the flour: Try the cookies with spelt flour, oat flour, or regular white all purpose flour. I have not tried using whole wheat flour so can’t vouch for that substitution. Be sure to leave a comment with results if you do try.
The fat source: Options that work include sunflower, coconut, or vegetable oil. Or sub a full fat vegan butter spread such as Melt Organic, Miyoko’s, or Earth Balance.
For the sweetener: Feel free to experiment with different types of sugar or sugar free alternatives such as xylitol or granulated erythritol.
You can also just use all of one type of sugar instead of two. The resulting cookies might be crunchy or spread more, or they might need more or less time in the oven, but edible baking experiments are the best kind of experiments!
*For keto chocolate chip cookies, try these Keto Cookies
Is Chocolate Vegan?
And are chocolate chips vegan? I’m asked these questions quite often, and thankfully the answer is that yes, chocolate itself is vegan.
While milk is sometimes added, there are many brands—even some generic grocery store brands—of vegan chocolate chips and chocolate bars that are becoming much easier to find.
If you want to seek out vegan chocolate chips at a regular grocery store, the best place to start is the natural food aisle. Most regular grocery stores should have a natural food section. Just ask an employee if you’re not sure where it’s located.
Look for one of the following brands: Enjoy Life, Simple Truth Organic, Target Simply Balanced, Lily’s Sweet Stevia Sweetened, Kirkland semi sweet (Costco brand), Guittard semi sweet or extra dark, Equal Exchange, Scharffen Berger dark chocolate baking chunks, Trader Joe’s semi sweet, Sprouts semi sweet, or Pascha.
(Note: Some of these packages say “may contain milk” on the label because the chocolate chips are made in a facility where non-vegan products are also produced.
Most vegans still consider such products to be vegan, but of course it’s a personal choice, especially if the reason to avoid milk is due to an allergy. At press time, Enjoy Life and Pascha brands are certified dairy free, gluten free, and soy free.)
Where Can I Buy Vegan Chocolate?
As mentioned above, you can find vegan chocolate chips at many regular grocery stores. Other good places to look include Whole Foods, local health food stores, Amazon, or iHerb.
Sometimes online stores will offer a lower price. If nothing else, you can always chop up a chocolate bar to make your own chocolate chips!
There are too many vegan chocolate bar options to list them all here, but some of my favorite fair-trade options include Theo, Pacari, Taza, Loving Earth, and Endangered Species brands. And there are so many more.
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How To Make Chocolate Chip Cookies
Gather all of the cookie ingredients as well as a medium mixing bowl.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips in the bowl. Stir well.
Add the nondairy milk, oil, and pure vanilla extract. Stir to form a cookie dough. It will be dry at first, so just keep stirring and it will suddenly turn into cookie dough.
Press the dough into one big ball. Refrigerate at least two hours or overnight, or freeze until the dough is cold.
Once chilled, preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll chocolate chip cookie dough balls, and place the balls on a greased cookie tray. Leave enough room between cookies for spreading when they bake.
Cook for eleven minutes on the oven’s center rack. The cookies will look underdone when you remove them from the oven. This is what you want, because they continue to firm up considerably as they cool.
Let the chocolate chip cookies cool for at least ten minutes. If for some reason the cookies don’t spread enough (climate sometimes interferes), simply press down with a spoon after baking.
Storage And Baking Tricks
- If you’d like to freeze the cookie dough to have on hand whenever a chocolate chip cookie craving hits, roll into balls and freeze in an airtight container for up to three months. When ready to bake, there’s no need to thaw the cookie dough first. Just add an additional 1-2 minutes to the cooking time.
- For soft chocolate chip cookies, store leftovers in an airtight plastic container, and add about 1/4 slice of bread if you have one, which helps keep the cookies soft. For crispier cookies, store in a glass container. Baked cookies will last for 2-3 days.
- I’ve made these cookies so many times, and climate can definitely affect the shape and texture of the results. But despite not always looking the same, each batch has always tasted ridiculously delicious. I’ve never made a bad batch yet.
- The vegan chocolate chip cookies are great for lunchboxes or parties where someone else is hosting and you need a portable vegan dessert that you can take from point A to B without a mess.
- Over one hundred more dairy free and plant based vegan cookie recipes can be found by visiting the following page: Healthy Cookies Recipes
Above, watch the vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe video
The recipe was adapted from these Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup white, oat, or spelt flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup sugar, unrefined if desired (For no sugar, try these Breakfast Cookies)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips
- 2 tbsp milk of choice, plus more if needed
- 2 tbsp oil or melted vegan butter
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, then stir in wet to form a dough – it will be dry at first, so keep stirring until a cookie-dough texture is achieved. If needed, add 1-2 tbsp extra milk of choice. Form into one big ball, then either refrigerate at least 2 hours or freeze until the dough is cold. Once dough is chilled, preheat oven to 325 F. Form dough balls, and place on a greased baking tray, leaving enough room between cookies for them to spread. Bake 11 minutes on the center rack. They’ll look underdone when you take them out. Let them cool on the baking tray 10 minutes before touching, during which time they will firm up. If for whatever reason the cookies don't spread enough (climate can play a huge role), just press down with a spoon after baking. You can also choose to make extra cookie dough balls and freeze them to bake at a later date. I can only vouch for the flours listed, but feel free to experiment!View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
Vegan Dessert Recipes
I see that the dough can be frozen to bake later, but can the baked cookies freeze as well without changing texture/taste?
Hmm no idea, but be sure to report back for the rest of us if you experiment!
Hey Katie, thanks a ton for this vegan recipe, our guest of the restaurant loved it and me too.
What type of oil do you use? I tried olive oil and if I were to do it again, I’d double the salt, as the olive oil overpowers the yummy taste.
Vegetable oil, melted coconut oil, canola, or sunflower oil all have much more neutral flavors for baking. I’ve done both vegetable and coconut here!
Perfect! I’ll give one of those a try next time. Thank you!
I made these cookies last night to start of spring break. The whole family loved them and it is now my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. I’m only a beginner at baking but this recipe was so easy for me, thank you for this delicious recipe 🙂
These are almost tooooo good! I like that they are vegan yet taste exactly like my grandmother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, which I’m pretty sure includes about 3 sticks of butter. I only had coconut sugar so used that twice (I doubled the recipe, so used 1 cup total of coconut sugar) and they turned out great! I did have to add an additional splash of almond milk as they were a little too dry at first. Overall, I have definitely found a new favorite recipe 🙂 Katie, I can honestly say your recipes never disappoint! Thanks!!
That picture looks so delicious!
forgot to mention that I used avocado oil as it was all I had! it worked fine!
I came across your website while searching for sugar-free, vegan chocolate chip cookies. — My doctor has put me on a very strict diet in order to heal two esophageal ulcers that were discovered. He has me on a vegan diet and his list of foods are very, very restrictive. I can have NO SUGAR at all, in any form. It’s been two months now and I’m “dying!” I want something crunchy and sweet to eat for a snack at this point. Is it possible to make this recipe using powdered Stevia for sweeetness? If so, what would be the measurement of Stevia I could use? I can’t have any white flour or anything refined at all. I have other flours and I’m hoping I could use one of them. Please advise. I really need a cookie!!! Thanks.
Hi! You could possibly use erythritol or xylitol (I haven’t tried it but think it would probably work). Or what about these? https://lett-trim.today/2018/10/08/keto-cookies-recipe/%3C/a%3E%3Cbr /> Jason
Oh, thank you very much for your link to the Keto cookies. Those I can try!!! It gives me something to look forward to! 🙂
In general, when measuring flour, do you spoon the flour into the measuring cup, or use the measuring cup to scoop flour straight from the container? Thanks!
Using the measuring cup to scoop out the flour loosely, then level it is standard, but if you have a food scale that’s even better! 1 cup most regular flours is around 125 grams.
Jason
How many grams of oat flour are in 1 US cup? The answer is:The change of 1 cup us ( US cup ) unit in a oat flour measure equals = into 90.00 g ( gram ) as per the equivalent measure and for the same oat flour type.
Hello I need to use oat flour for a summer camp because a lot of the kids are gluten-free celiac. I’ve seen online here that flower weighs quite a bit less than regular flour. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you very much!
I’ve made 3-4 batches now and can’t stop won’t stop! Mine open up like cracks after baking and the inside is all gooey and delicious. This is by far my favorite recipe I have found that uses oat flour and no other added bs I don’t like or can’t have. These my family love too. I can eat eggs but I love it doesn’t call for eggs so much easier to make. Thank you!
Those look so cute!!
Whole wheat flour for cookies is terrible. Every time , no matter what
This came out dry for me. Is it only 2tbsp of coconut oil? I’m gonna try to do this again.
Hi, yes but melted! What flour and sugars did you use? Do you live in a dry climate, might need more moisture if that’s the case? I’ve never had a problem with them but I know air temperature can change baked goods, and it’s pretty humid here on the east coast!
Jason
Ok.. I tried making it again after watching the video.. I had to add 1 more tbsp of water to make my dough stickier. It worked! I made 10 cookies.. easy and ingredients that are already in my pantry. Yum! Will make these again!!
So glad it worked! And thank you so much for reporting back as to what worked for yours! If I ever encounter that issue, now I’ll know what to do 🙂
Jason
these are really good! i only made them because we didn’t have any eggs and I’m only 13, so I can’t just go buy some. but super good. recommend for anyone that is vegan, or just doesn’t have eggs like me ?
These look absolutely delicious! Can’t tell you how much I love and appreciate your blog!
I’d love to know if these work with just coconut sugar instead of brown sugar?
The texture and taste will be different, but they’ll still be just as good in a different way!
Jason
Just made these! Came out delicious!! I used oat flour, Swerve for white sugar, coconut sugar, and almond milk. They tasted a bit more like oatmeal chocolate cookies, no surprise there considering the oat flour. They were so good though. My entire non-vegan and non-health-food-eating family loved them. Thanks so much Katie! Also, what spelt flour would you recommend? After reading your thoughts on wheat flour, I want to try a new type of flour. I have sprouted whole wheat right now, but I’ve been using oat flour for baking. Just doesn’t look as pretty. 🙁
Thank you so much for making them! I usually buy Bob’s Red Mill brand (it’s whole grain) :).
Oh, great! Thank you! I feel so cool for talking to the real Chocolate Covered Katie! I love love love your blog!!! ?
I’ve made these cookies 2x now. I use coconut oil and coconut palm sugar. It’s my go to chocolate chip cookie recipe! So easy and quick.. with all the ingredients you already have in the pantry.. and items that everyone knows. Love love love this recipe!