Easy vegan gluten-free chocolate chip cookies that are thick and chewy with crisp edges and pockets of gooey chocolate. This one bowl vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe is so good, your friends won't believe they're vegan and gluten-free!
A couple weeks ago, an online instagram "friend" asked if he could pay me to bake chocolate chip cookies for his girlfriend's birthday. I didn't hesitate to say yes as long as he brought the ingredients and came bake them with me.
We'd never met. He seemed perfectly normal online - he's a runner who hangs in the same running crew as my husband, though they'd never met either. He's also gluten-free and we've been chatting about the best flour combos for pizza crust through Instagram for awhile now. Don't worry, mom - I also told my 6ft+ tall next door neighbor about our baking plans, just in case he turned out to be a weirdo. Spoiler: He wasn't.
Over the week leading up to the big bake day, I baked so. many. cookies. I had to get the recipe just right - to match his girlfriend's ideal chocolate chip cookie.
Best Vegan Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
In the midst of all that cookie testing, these gluten-free vegan chocolate chip cookies happened on a whim. Zoella had a spontaneous playdate with her friend G, who happens to be vegan. I decided we needed homemade cookies (naturally). So I googled how to make a flax egg and scratched down a gluten-free vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe in less than 5 minutes, drawing tips from Cake Over Steak's single serve vegan chocolate chip cookie. As I threw them into the oven, I turned to G's mom, "These might not turn out. But it's sugar, flour, and chocolate, so they can't be too terrible..."
Much to my surprise they turned out AMAZING - more than amazing. They're perfect and, as someone who is definitely not vegan, I'd eat these any day of the week. Chewy and not too thin with subtle notes of olive oil and gooey chocolate chips. I add dry roasted almonds because I think they belong in a good chocolate chip cookie, but you could leave them out for a more classic version. I've tested them with and without.
How to Make the Best Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Butter and eggs are the two elements of classic chocolate chip cookies that need to be swapped out in a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe.
To replace eggs in chocolate chip cookies, you need something to bind the cookie together. A flax egg works great to sub out for eggs. This vegan chocolate chip cookie is super easy because you can just add the flaxseed meal and water directly to the dough without having to whisk a flax egg together ahead of time. Just treat them like regular ingredients, adding flaxseed meal with the dry and water with the wet!
In these cookies, butter gets swapped in for olive oil (or, if you prefer, canola/vegetable oil). I thought removing butter would make the greatest (and disappointing) flavor concession, but not so! Olive oil makes a great stand-in in this recipe, offering some subtle rich flavor notes. The gluten-free flours used in this cookie recipe also lend flavor notes that seem to sub in for the butter requirement!
Vegan Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies
These aren't just the best vegan chocolate chip cookies, they're the best vegan gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. To make these cookies gluten-free, I've using a combination of teff flour and tapioca starch.
Teff adds softness and flavor - it seems to melt into a chewy gluten-free cookie, creating rich toffee notes that sub in for butter's traditional role in cookies. Tapioca starch creates chew that helps bind the cookie together, and also give the cookies the crisp edges.
These cookies are thick and chewy with crisp edges, pockets of melted gooey chocolate, and a crunch from dry roasted almonds. Your friends won't believe they're vegan and gluten-free!
More Vegan Desserts
- Raw Vegan Golden Milk Cheesecake
- No-Bake Vegan Pumpkin Pie Bites
- Vegan Coconut Matcha Rice Pudding
- Cinnamon Raisin Seed & Nut Bread
- Vegan Cardamom Ice Cream
Recipe
30-Minute Vegan Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup + 1½ tablespoon (88 g) teff flour
- ¼ cup (30 g) Bob’s Red Mill tapioca flour
- 5 tablespoons (63 g) granulated sugar
- 5 tablespoons (64 g) dark brown sugar , I use organic dark brown sugar which has a higher molasses content
- 2 tablespoons (14 g) flaxseed meal
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4½ tablespoon olive oil or canola oil
- 2½ tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips chips
- ⅓ cup chopped dry roasted almonds
- Optional: Flaky salt
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together teff flour, tapioca starch, sugar, dark brown sugar, flaxseed meal, salt, and baking soda.
- In a glass measuring cup, whisk together olive oil, water, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Add chocolate chips and chopped nuts and mix until evenly distributed.
- Divide the dough into 12 pieces and/or drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto the parchment paper, 2-3 inches apart.
- Bake for 10-11 minutes until the edges are slightly firm to the touch. The center of the cookie should look a bit under-baked. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes. While cooling, sprinkle with flaky salt, if desired. Serve warm or transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Is -
I just made these, substituting oat flour for teff flour by weight, and they collapsed when they cooled. Do you have any suggestions for troubleshooting? Thanks so much. The flavor was great anyways!
Sarah Menanix -
Hmm - did they spread too much in the oven or did they still puff up but collapse a bit when cooled? If they spread too much (ie. were too thin), I would suggest adding a tablespoon more oat flour and chilling the dough for 30 minutes before baking. If they puffed up and didn't spread too much, but collapsed a bit when cooling, then I think possibly another minute in the oven might do the trick to keep the structure of the cookie. I haven't tested this specific cookie with oat flour, but I do often use oat flour in place of teff flour in my cookies. Whenever I'm substituting with a new flour, I bake a "test" cookie first then, if needed, I can add a bit more flour to the rest of the dough. Hope this helps!!
Sarah Menanix -
Also one more note! If you happened to leave out the nuts, then the cookies will definitely be thinner. In that case, I would still go the route of adding in a tablespoon more oat flour!
Debbie Feely -
Sarah! This is so timely! Yesterday test results added brown rice, dairy and apples to my do not eat list. Yours and Alanna’s recipes are my go to, using applesauce or yogurt for egg sub. While I’m figuring all that out I can make these. I love Teff. Haven’t always liked flax egg so I’ll see what it does here. But thank you for a rescue just in time.
Karla -
These are seriously addicting! I've made them three times, and they turned out great each time. When I made them yesterday, I was out of chocolate chips. So I used a tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder, and a teaspoon of instant espresso, and those flavors with the teff flour is really yummy.
Sarah Menanix -
Aw thank you so much for letting me know! Oh also those substitutions sound so good - going to have to try that next time!!
Sara @ Cake Over Steak -
Oh heeeyyy thanks for the shout out on my single serving vegan cookie! These look amazing and now I totally need to try this for a GF version. And I think teff flour might be my favorite GF flour sooooo even better. YUM!
Shim -
Can I use Spelt flour instead?
Sarah Menanix -
Sorry I cannot advise you here. Spelt flour isn't gluten-free, so I don't have any experience with it....
Alanna Taylor-Tobin -
Cannot believe how delicious these cookies are, and that they're vegan and gluten-free to boot. You are a baking genius!
Emilye -
These look so good! Any recommendations on what to use in place of teff flour? It’s not available where I live.
Sarah Menanix -
Hi Emily! I would use oat flour in place of the teff flour - make sure to substitute by weight!
Barbara -
I followed this recipe exactly as stated. The cookie dough was runny and then the cookies all ran together on the pan. Any thoughts?
Sarah Menanix -
Hm - they definitely should not be runny! I just made this recipe again a couple of weeks ago. Did you measure the flours by weight? Did you use flaxseed meal (as opposed to whole flaxseeds)?