Moist, buttery, and studded with rich dark chocolate chips, these vegan chocolate chip cookies are the perfect way to satisfy your sweet tooth.
I knew I was in trouble when I started working on this one. I've always been a sucker for chocolate chip cookies. I mean, I love all vegan cookies, but good old chocolate chippers are my favorites.
It took a little while to perfect the recipe, but I think I nailed it. These are the best vegan chocolate chip cookies...no wait...the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever tasted.
As an added bonus, they're super easy to make. The recipe doesn't include any hard-to-find ingredients or unusual steps — in fact, the process in making these is pretty much the same as what you'd find in a classic chocolate chip cookie recipe.
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What You'll Need
- Flour. We're using good old all-purpose wheat flour for this recipe. You might be able to substitute another variety, but I can't promise the recipe will work.
- Cornstarch. There are lots and lots of ways to replace eggs in baked goods (learn all many of them in this guide) and cornstarch just happens to work like a charm in vegan cookies!
- Baking soda. Not to be confused with baking powder!
- Cinnamon. This is a totally unconventional and totally optional ingredient, but it really adds to the flavor of the cookies. It will make them extra delicious if you use it!
- Salt.
- Vegan butter. You should be able to find this near the regular butter at your supermarket. Look for brands like Miyoko's and Earth Balance.
- Sugar. Use organic sugar to keep the cookies vegan.
- Brown sugar. Again, use organic.
- Vanilla extract.
- Non-dairy milk. Just about any variety that's unsweetened and unflavored will work. Try soy milk, almond milk, or cashew milk.
- Vinegar. The recipe calls for white vinegar, but apple cider works as well.
- Vegan chocolate chips. I like Enjoy Life Mega Chunks for this recipe, but use what's available.
How to Make Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
The following is a detailed photo tutorial on how to make vegan chocolate chip cookies. Scroll all the way down if you'd prefer to skip right to the recipe!
- Start by whisking your dry ingredients together in a large bowl: flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cornstarch, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, beat together your vegan butter, sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer. Be sure to beat the mixture until it's fully blended and creamy. Tip: Make sure your butter is up to room temperature before getting started. Take it out of the fridge a few hours in advance, or use this method to soften it up quickly.
- Mix the non-dairy milk and vinegar together in a bowl or liquid measuring cup, then add it to the butter mixture along with your vanilla extract.
- Beat everything again until fully mixed.
- Start adding the flour mixture to the butter mixture, adding about a cup at a time and beating it in fully before adding more.
- Once all the flour mixture has been added, fold in the chocolate chips by hand.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for 30 to 60 minutes. Don't skip this step, and don't leave the bowl in there too long! You want the vegan chocolate chip cookie dough to firm up a bit, but you don't want it to get rock hard.
- Now preheat the oven and line some baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop or spoon mounds of dough onto the baking sheet. You want each mound to be about 2 tablespoons for large cookies like mine, or 1 tablespoon for smaller cookies. A cookie scoop can be super helpful for measuring the dough!
- Pop the baking sheet into the oven and bake your cookies.
- For soft and chewy vegan chocolate chip cookies like I've shown in the photos, bake them for 9 to 10 minutes, until they've spread out and just barely started to brown around the edges.
- For crispier cookies, let them bake for 11 or 12 minutes, until they're a bit more browned.
- Place your baking sheets on cooling racks for a few minutes before removing the cookies.
Variations
Want to take your cookies to the next level? Try one of these variations!
- Add chopped walnuts or pecans.
- Use vegan white chocolate chips.
- Make dipped cookies! Once they've cooled, melt some chocolate chips in a bowl and dip half of each cookie in it.
Shelf-Life & Storage
Vegan chocolate chip cookies cookies will keep in a sealed container at room temperature for about 3 weeks, or in the freezer for about 3 months.
Frequently Asked Questions
Possibly, but I haven't tried so I'm not sure. Your best bet would be to try the recipe with an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend.
I highly recommend it! If you skip this step your cookies will probably spread out too much.
Most brands aren't, so check the label! If you go to a place like Whole Foods, you'll probably find a few vegan options. I used Enjoy Life Mega Chunks for this recipe — they're available at most regular supermarkets!
This is a result of your dough not heating up enough during baking. It could mean that you chilled the dough too long, skipped the step of preheating the oven, or just that your oven didn't get hot enough (check it with an oven thermometer).
Sadly, no, you typically can't. As much as I love the idea of taste-testing cookie dough before baking, wheat flour isn't meant to be eaten raw and can carry contaminants that need to be killed by cooking. You may be able to eat the cookie dough for recipes that call for other types of flour, such as oat.
More Vegan Cookie Recipes
- Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
- Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Vegan Peanut Butter Blossoms
- Vegan Sugar Cookies
- Vegan Gingerbread Cookies
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Irresistible Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Moist, buttery, and studded with rich dark chocolate chips, these vegan chocolate chip cookies are the perfect way to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional, but highly recommended)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup vegan butter (brought up to room temperature)
- ¾ cup organic sugar
- ¾ cup organic brown sugar
- ¼ cup unflavored and unsweetened non-dairy milk
- ¼ teaspoon white vinegar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 10 ounces vegan chocolate chips
Instructions
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Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together in a large mixing bowl.
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In a separate large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat together the butter, sugar and brown sugar. Beat the mixture until the ingredients are completely combined and creamy.
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Stir the milk and vinegar together in a small cup, then add them to the butter mixture along with the vanilla. Beat the mixture again until combined.
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Begin adding the flour mixture to the butter mixture, adding about a cup at a time and beating it in before the next addition.
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Fold in the chocolate chips.
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Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge. Chill the dough for 30 to 60 minutes, until it has firmed up a bit but isn't rock solid.
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Preheat the oven to 375°F and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
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Use a cookie scoop or spoon to drop rounded 2 tablespoonfuls* of the dough onto the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between them.
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Place the baking sheets into the oven and bake the cookies until the dough has spread out and the edges are just barely beginning to brown, 9 to 10 minutes**.
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Transfer the baking sheets to cooling racks and allow the cookies to cool until set before removing them from the baking sheets.
Recipe Notes
*This will give you large cookies. For smaller cookies, use 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons of dough for each mound — this will give you 3 to 3 ½ dozen cookies.
**This will give you soft cookies. For crispier cookies, bake for 11 to 12 minutes, until the tops are slightly browned.
Tganks for the recipe! I love this recipe. They came out perfect!
Glad you enjoyed them!!
The aquafaba replaces about 2 eggs - I usually go with 3-4 tablespoons per egg. :)
Thank you sooooo much for this recipe!! My husband and I have been vegan for about a year. His favorite dessert is chocolate chip cookies, and I have tried so many recipes but was not able to recreate the classic cookie he missed. Some of them were gloriously bad. We love the numerous other recipes of yours that we have made, so I was overjoyed to see you had a chocolate chip cookie recipe. Let me tell you - my husband says this is the one! We may have done a little happy dance tasting them in the kitchen. We also may take our cookies too seriously. They turned out SO GOOD, and look and taste just like classic chocolate chip cookies. We can't wait to try out some of your other cookie recipes too! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!!!
Yay!! I'm so glad you both enjoyed them!! Thanks so much Mel!
My cookies didn't turn out like the pictures. Any ideas on why? They didn't flatten down at all.
Hmmm...did you by chance cut back on the amount of butter? If not, maybe check your oven temperature. Usually cookies not spreading is caused by one of those two things.
My first baking adventure using aquafaba. These turned out perfect. Just what my husband and I need during our stay-at-home "quarantine".
how did you used aquafaba? it is not liested in the ingredients
The ingredient has since been omitted.
How long do these keep once baked?
If you store them in a sealed container they should be good for at least 4 days at room temperature, up to 3 months in the freezer.
I don’t see aquafaba in the recipe???
The recipe calls for vanilla but it doesn’t say where in the instructions to include it. Also, the post says to use wheat flour but the ingredients say “all purpose flour” which I would think means white flour and is what I used. They’re cooling now so we’ll see how it goes! They look amazing in the post!
They’re amazing! The chocolate chips are gooey inside!
Yay! I'm glad you like them!
I just updated the instructions to add the vanilla - sorry about that! You're right about the flour - all purpose and white flour are the same thing. :) Enjoy!
These turned out really good, but I also didn't see aquafaba, is the milk/vinegar mixture the same thing?
Turned out really good. Consensus was to leave the cinnamon out next time, but that was just my family......
There are comments with aquafaba mentionned, but there is no aquafaba at all in the recipe! Could you please clarify?
Sorry about that! An older version of the recipe included aquafaba.
These were a huge hit! So good. I had some pumpkin pie spice made up, so I used that instead of cinnamon, and I didn't have a beater so I hand mixed it with a fork. Will definitely make these again!