The BEST Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
The BEST Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies you’ll EVER make and no one will even know that they’re egg-free, dairy-free, and completely VEGAN! They come together quickly and with simple ingredients that you probably already have on hand! 🍪
Remember when I first started my food blog (have you been around that long!?) and I constantly talked about how much baking scared me. Well I’ve come a long way over the past 5 years because I’ve been working on (and honestly enjoying) SO MANY great baking recipes lately. 3 of the next 4 recipes coming to the blog are baked goods. #notsorry
This vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe is one that I have been working on for quite a while. Chocolate chip cookies are SO CLASSIC and I knew that I needed to totally nail the recipe if I was going to do it.
I’m happy to say that after MANY (many) batches, I have created the BEST Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe and I’m so excited to finally be sharing it with you!
Hopefully you are familiar with my approach to vegan baked goods by now: take a classic recipe and change as little as possible to get it vegan and delicious. That’s exactly what I did with this vegan chocolate chip cookies recipe.
THIS cookie recipe from Pinch of Yum has always been a favorite of ours. I used that recipe as a starting point and then worked backwards to make it vegan. The butter and the egg is the issue. I simply swapped out the butter for a vegan butter.
After a bit of testing, I discovered that I could leave the egg out completely and still get a totally delicious cookie! I did add in a bit of plant-based milk to to get the consistency of the batter where it needed to be. I’m always so pleased when I can get a DELICIOUS final result without needing to change things too much.
Because these are eggless cookies, the final result does look a little different. They don’t brown up quite as well and they do not spread very much. I promise that they still taste AMAZING though!
But since they don’t spread, it’s necessary to kind of flatten them out a bit before baking.
Which chocolate is vegan?
Not all store bought chocolate chips are vegan so you’re going to want to read the labels first to be sure.
I love dark chocolate in these cookies! Enjoy Life is a great dairy free option and I typically find other various brands depending on the store that I go to.
PETA has a great article where they rounded up all of the best vegan chocolate chips!
Ingredients we’re working with:
Besides the fact that these cookies are fully vegan, they’re pretty run of the mill when it comes to the ingredients. Nothing weird or hard to find, promise! Let’s quickly go over everything:
- Flour– I used all-purpose flour in this recipe. If you’re wanting to make these gluten-free, your best bet is to use a gluten-free 1-1 flour. I have not tested these with oat flour or almond flour or anything like that and I’m not sure how well it would work.
- Brown Sugar– I tested this so many different ways trying out different combos of white and brown sugar. In the end, I settled on ALL brown sugar for optimal look AND taste for the BEST vegan chocolate chip cookies.
- Cornstarch– In place of the egg, I’m using cornstarch. It helps give the cookies a nice shape and acts a bit as a binding agent. I originally tried this out with my vegan sugar cookies and LOVED how it turned out.
- Plant-based milk– the original recipe called for almond milk but I’ve since tested it with oat milk and soy milk and both turned out great!
- Vegan butter– Similarly, I’ve tested these cookies with so many different kinds of vegan butter. They’ve all gotten so much better over the best couple of years but I still have my favorites. The Country Crock plant butter is my absolute FAVORITE but I also like the Melt brand as well as Miyoko’s.
- Vanilla
- Chocolate chips PLUS chunks– please just trust me on this: chocolate chips AND chocolate chunks are a TOTAL game changer when it comes to these cookies. Seriously do it! Those big pockets of chocolate that the chunks provide are just SO so gooood.
How to make Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies:
I first started testing this recipe in a way that required the dough to rest or chill for an extended period of time. LUCKILY I was able to re-work the recipe so that it all comes together in ONE bowl and can be whipped together (from start to finish) in just 30 minutes. The BEST kind of baking recipes are one bowl and FAST!
While you can mix these cookies by hand, I consistently get much better results when I use a stand or hand mixer.
1. First, the softened butter gets creamed together with the brown sugar.
2. Then the vanilla and almond milk are mixed in. until just combined.
3-4. Then all of the dry ingredients get mixed right into the same bowl and mixed together until just combined.
5-6. Finally the chocolate chips get folded in and the batter is ready to go!
7-8. Roll the dough into balls as you would with the regular cookies and place them on the prepared baking sheet. I press the cookies down just a little so that they’re flat (see video for reference). These don’t spread quite like regular cookies so this helps them get the right shape. Now just bake and they’re DONE.
PLEASE let me know if you try these easy vegan chocolate chip cookies and how you like them! While I was testing the recipe, I ended up making these more times than I want to admit :) And we ate ALL OF THEM! No one in the house complained about it.
More vegan desserts you’ll LOVE:
See how to make these vegan cookies here:
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons of room temperature vegan butter
- ¾ cup of light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- ¼ cup of plant based milk I’ve tested this with almond milk, oat milk, and soy milk- all were great!
- 2 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- ½ teaspoons of baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon of cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- ¾ cup of dairy free chocolate chips and/ or chunks
- Optional for sprinkling: flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.*
- In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Once fully combined, scrape down the sides, add in the milk and vanilla and mix until just combined. The mixture will look a little curdled but it’s okay!
- Add in the remaining ingredients minus the chocolate and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips and chunks until mixed in. The dough will be sticky but should not stick to your hands when you go to roll it in a ball. If it’s too sticky, mix in a little extra flour.
- Taking 1 1/2-2 tablespoons of the dough, roll it into a ball and place them on the prepared baking sheet about 2 inches apart. They will not spread as much as regular cookies so I use my fingers to flatten them down just a little bit so they’re no longer in balls.
- Bake for 9-12 minutes (if you made larger cookies, they’ll need closer to the 12 minutes to be done) or until the cookies are slightly browned on the bottom. They’ll seem a tad underdone when you first take them out but are perfect at this point! Let cool as long as you can and ENJOY!
Video
Notes
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
