Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies (eggless, vegan, gluten-free)
These really are the best healthy chocolate chip cookies you'll try. They're perfectly soft and chewy, with slightly crisp edges. These healthy vegan cookies use better-for-you ingredients. They are also gluten-free, refined sugar-free, egg-free, and oil-free. Seriously!
Servings: 12 -13 cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup creamy almond butter with no added sugars/oils
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar brown sugar, or another granulated sugar will also work
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 flax egg 1 tbsp ground flax seeds + 3 tbsp warm water
- 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp fine oat flour
- 2 tbsp blanched almond flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips or as much as your heart desires I like to use mini chips for best texture, or these oil-free, coconut sugar sweetened chips
- optional pinch of salt
Instructions
- Start by pre-heating your oven to 350F while you prepare your cookie dough.
- In a large bowl, whisk almond butter, maple syrup, coconut sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. Gently fold in your flax egg with a spatula.
- Next, sift in all your dry ingredients (excluding chocolate chips), folding until dough is even and starts to pull away from edges of the bowl. See reference photo for texture. Add chocolate chips and refrigerate dough if needed (see "expert tips").
- Scoop about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough and quickly roll into a ball shape* then lightly flatten onto a non-stick baking mat lined tray. Leave about 2 inches between cookies as they will spread a little bit as they bake.
- Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until tops are lightly golden brown and edges are cooked.* Remove from oven and let cool before lifting off the tray (don't worry, they'll still be soft and chewy!).
Video
Notes
Expert Tips
Because there's no gluten in these cookies, you don't risk overworking the dough or making your cookies tough. However, there are a few tricks to ensuring your cookies have the perfect texture.
- To make the best healthy vegan cookies, I strongly recommend using a nonstick baking mat or parchment paper. They can be somewhat delicate, especially right as they come out of the oven and you'll risk breaking them if you try to scrape them off of foil or directly from a baking pan surface.
- Next, as you're placing your vegan cookie dough onto the baking sheet, if you run into any issues with dough sticking to your hand, try refrigerating or rolling with lightly damp hands. Work quickly, as the heat in your hands does warm the dough as well. Make flat cookie-shaped discs, keeping in mind they will spread a little bit.
- Finally, make sure you pull them from the oven before they're fully cooked. They will continue to cook on the baking sheet for several minutes. If they don't seem firm enough at first, wait until they cool.
- If you're making cookies on a hotter day, you may find your dough a little sticky. If so, you can add a touch of additional oat flour (by the tablespoon) or refrigerate the dough for about 10 minutes before prepping to bake.
- Be aware that any substitutions will impact the final outcome of your cookie. Please do your best to follow the recipe steps to a tee for the best results.
- In a pinch, you can swap out the almond butter for tahini, cashew butter, or peanut butter. However, I find that roasted unsalted almond butter works the best. Peanut butter will impact the flavour so your cookies taste mostly like peanuts. Cashew butter tends to be a bit on the drier side, and tahini a little looser.
- Because this is an eggless chocolate chip cookie recipe, there are no eggs included. While there are many other egg replacements out there, this recipe has been tested specifically with a flax egg, so if you try a different replacement, keep that in mind!
- Once cooled completely, store these healthy chocolate chip cookies at room temperature in an airtight container for up to five days.
- You can also freeze the raw vegan cookie dough for up to six months. I recommend shaping the dough into cookie-sized balls before freezing. Then you can pop them directly into the oven, just add a few extra minutes to the baking time.