Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
These vegan peanut butter cookies are a peanut butter lovers dream dessert. They’re chewy, made in one bowl, gluten free, and ready in just 20 minutes! Keep them plain or add chocolate chips!
You probably know this by now but I have a thing for really soft & chewy cookies. I like melt in your mouth pillowy fluffy cookies. None of that crunchy nonsense. Maybe with a *slight* crunch on the bottom (keyword: slight), but all in all just really chewy.
Well, these vegan peanut butter cookies are exactly that! Plus, they’ll be in and out of the oven in just 20 minutes and only require a few simple ingredients you probably have on hand. Yet another pantry staple recipe that’s really coming in clutch these days!
These cookies require just some good old creamy peanut butter, a bit of almond and oat flour, sugar, vegan butter, milk and a few other basic baking ingredients.
They’re naturally gluten free, dairy free, egg free and vegan! But don’t let that dissuade you if you’re none of those things, you’d never even know by the flavor/texture! Try my vegan lemon blueberry cookies, vegan snickerdoodles or tahini cookies next!
Key ingredients
PEANUT BUTTER. I suggest using a peanut butter with only two ingredients, peanuts and salt. If you use a salted peanut butter, use less additional salt in the recipe, if you use an unsalted, add a bit more. Same with in my peanut butter protein balls!
BUTTER. You need some vegan butter to help keep the cookies nice and moist. You can sub for coconut oil, but I love the flavor butter adds. I suggest Earth Balance here.
FLOURS. We’ll be using oat flour and almond flour to keep these gluten free peanut butter cookies! I do not recommend any subs here.
SUGAR. A mix of brown and white sugar helps create that perfect texture. You can use light or dark brown sugar.
MILK. A bit of milk helps add moisture. Any non-dairy milk will work here, I used soy because the protein content helps mimic an egg.
How to make vegan peanut butter cookies
Cream butter and sugar. In a medium mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and both sugars.
Add all wet ingredients. Add in all remaining wet ingredients and beat together until well combined.
Mix in dry ingredients. Add in the dry ingredients and beat again until a batter forms.
Scoop. Use a medium cookie scoop and measure into heaping balls. Roll in your hands to form an even ball, then roll in extra granulated sugar.
Repeat until all dough has been used and add to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Flatten the tops with your fingertips (see photo below).
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Bake. Bake for 11-15 minutes. The cookies will be soft when the come out of the oven. 12 minutes is ideal in my oven for nice chewy cookies, but you can bake for longer if you prefer a bit of crunch, but you risk drying them out if they stay in for too long.
Cool. Let cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Try my vegan cookie dough next!
The key to a soft texture
One of the reasons these vegan gluten free cookies are so soft and pillowy is simply because of the peanut butter. It gets whipped with the other ingredients to create a really fluffy base for these cookies.
The second key is the short baking time. These cookies only need to be in the oven for about 12 minutes. Just enough time to cook them all the way through, but not so much time that they dry out and get crunchy.
They over bake very easily, and even if they seem too soft when they come out of the oven, don’t worry, they firm up a lot as they cool! Same with my vegan oatmeal raisin cookies!
How to store and freeze
Once prepared, these cookies will keep at room temperature in an air tight container for about 3-5 days.
You can freeze these cookies either before or after baking. To freeze before, make the dough as usual, roll into balls and place in a freezer safe bag. Bake at 325, right from frozen, but for a few extra minutes to account for the frozen dough.
To freeze after baking, allow the cookies to cool completely, then place in a freezer safe bag and freeze for up to 2 months. Reheat in the oven until warm through the center.
The best peanut butter for baking
Be sure you use a peanut butter that only has one or two ingredients: peanuts and salt or just peanuts.
If you’re using one with peanuts and salt, you can omit the extra salt in the dough if you’re worried about them getting too salty.
Other peanut butters that have oil/sugar in them will change the texture, so stick to the basics!
Want to do more baking? Try these!
- Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies
- Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Paleo Chocolate Chunk Cookies
- Vegan Caramel Sauce
- Vegan Funfetti Blondies
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Protein Cookies
Lastly, if you want more recipes straight to your inbox, be sure to subscribe to my email list. As always, tag me on instagram if you make this recipe so I can see your creation!
Chewy Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
by: claire cary
Ingredients
Wet:
- 1 cup unsalted natural peanut butter
- ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons vegan butter softened
- ¼ cup non-dairy milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup white sugar
Dry:
- 1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
- 1 cup fine oat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt omit if your PB was salted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a medium mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and both sugars.
- Add in all remaining wet ingredients and beat together until well combined.
- Add in the dry ingredients and beat again until a batter forms. Be sure to spoon and level the flour, don’t scoop from the bag or you’ll end up with more than you need!
- Use a medium cookie scoop and measure into heaping balls. Roll in your hands to form an even ball, then roll in extra granulated sugar.
- Repeat until all dough has been used and add to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Flatten the tops with your fingertips, they won’t spread a ton while baking!
- Bake for 11-15 minutes.
- The cookies will be soft when the come out of the oven. 12 minutes is ideal in my oven for nice chewy cookies, but you can bake for longer if you prefer a bit of crunch, but you risk drying them out if they stay in for too long.
- Immediately when they come out of the oven, I like to slam down the cookie sheet on the stove to encourage spreading/crackling of the tops.
- Then, I take a large round cookie cutter and swirl it around each cookie to shape it into a perfect circle.
- Let cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Notes
Comments
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I made these last year and they were AMAZING! I have celiac and since then, I’ve learned I can’t tolerate oats (even GF oats). Any suggestions on what I could substitute for the oat flour?
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I’d try almond flour!
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Just made these! I used just coconut sugar, did the coconut oil instead of vegan butter. Didn’t roll them in sugar either (I actually missed that note!) And only had one teaspoon of vanilla.
These turned out really lovely! I was going to cut some of the sugar and then ended up adding a bit more when I realized that the recipe is actually a decently large size! So I’m not entirely sure if I used the same amount of sugar. But they were so good! Was careful not to over cook them, the texture was dreamy! I was careful to cool them on the pan for your recommendation of 10 mins before moving to a cooling rack. They held together beautifully. Really so good! Excited for this recipe to now be a staple of yummy recipes I go to. !!! It’s a large recipe for one person but my boyfriend (non vegan) was stoked to help out eating them, and really enjoyed them too!-
Perfect! So glad you both loved them.
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These cookies are so so good! Had to comment and say that we used all brown sugar 1:1 and they turned out GREAT! Thank you! Breastfeeding mama who has to eat dairy free 🙏🏼 (we did slam it on the counter with 5 mins left)
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Amazing, thank you, Jessica!
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Hi, Claire,
My husband is gluten intolerant and I’m diabetic. Finding recipes that work for both of us is challenging to say the least! Could I substitute monk fruit golden and granular for the regular sugars in this recipe?
Thank you-
You can try a 1:1 sugar substitute like the one from In The Raw!
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Made this with chick pea flour instead of almond flour. I got the flours mixed up as I purchased from a bulk store. They came out great!
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Perfect, so glad that worked out!
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These turned out really well. I reduced the sugar to 1/3 white and 2/3brown, and no one would ever miss it. I did add a little extra salt cause my peanut butter was pure peanuts with no salt.
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Perfect! So glad they worked with those subs.
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HI THERE, how should we substitute the peanut butter for regular PB?
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I’m not sure what you mean by that. Peanut butter is regular?
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Hi there! Wondering if you can just use gluten free flour instead of the almond and oat?
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I don’t recommend that as it would completely change the recipe and wet ingredients proportions.
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Hi! I love your recipes but have one question…..
We are not a gluten free family. Can I sub regular flour for the oat flour? I can still use the almond flour where called for.
Thanks for all your good vegan work!!!-
Thank you, Cheri! In any of my recipes, you can safely sub the gluten free all purpose flour for regular all purpose flour, but I don’t recommend going from oat flour to regular AP flour as the absorption of these flour is very different. Hope that helps!
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Just wanted to let you know that these are the best peanut butter cookies we’ve ever made and eaten!!!!!! My daughter and I have autoimmune diseases and need to eat gluten free and dairy free in order to feel good. I want to thank you for this recipe. Wow!!!!! Absolutely phenomenal!!!!
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Amazing!! That makes me so happy to hear, thanks Jill!
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This looks like the best vegan recipe for the cookies I’ve seen.. I have all ingredients on hand.. I can’t wait to make..
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can’t wait to hear what you think!
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