Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
This vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies recipe is a delicious treat with favorite ingredients like peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. This thick and chewy cookie recipe is the best cookie ever!
Baking cookies is one of my favorite past-times. One of my favorite cookies is my vegan oatmeal raisin cookies recipe. So, combining it with chocolate chips seemed like the next best thing to do!
Why This Recipe is a Winner
- Toasting the oats before adding them to the dough brings out the nutty flavor and a chewier texture
- Chilling the dough for a few minutes before baking helps create soft, chewy cookies
- Adding molasses is another trick to making soft, chewy cookies
- Pressing additional chocolate chips to the top of cookie dough balls before baking gives them a perfect baker shop cookie look!
What Molasses is Best?
Sulfur dioxide used to be added to molasses as a preservative and clarifier, but it can cause allergic reactions, so most molasses is now unsulfured. Most of the time you’ll want to use fancy or light molasses (referred to as treacle in the UK) rather than blackstrap, which has a bitter flavor and is not preferred for baking.
What You Need
You can find the full printable recipe, including ingredient quantities, below. But first, here are some explanations of ingredients and steps to help you make this recipe perfect every time.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this recipe:
- Sugar — We’ll use a combination of brown sugar (use light, dark, or homemade brown sugar) and granulated sugar.
- Vegan butter — I recommend Earth Balance or Miyokos or make your own homemade vegan butter.
- Flax egg — Or you can substitute a chia egg.
- Vanilla extract — I like the mild flavor vanilla adds, but this is an optional ingredient if you don’t have it available.
- Oats — We’ll be using old-fashioned or rolled oats.
- Flour — I recommend all-purpose flour or whole wheat pastry flour (not the same as whole wheat flour) or you can substitute a high-quality gluten-free flour.
- Cinnamon — We’ll add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. You can substitute pumpkin pie spice.
- Molasses — You’ll need just one tablespoon of molasses. I buy this in the baking aisle of my local grocery store.
- Baking soda + Baking Powder — Make sure yours is fresh by testing a bit of the baking soda in vinegar and baking powder in hot water. If it bubbles, then your batch is good to go.
- Salt — I used plain table salt, but you can substitute sea salt.
- Chocolate Chips — There are so many tasty dairy-free chocolate chips to choose from these days.
- Toast the oats in a preheated oven for 10 minutes. Then set them aside to cool.
- Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until smooth and creamy.
- Stir in the flax egg and vanilla.
- Mix the dry ingredients and add them to the mixing bowl. Use your mixer to beat the flour ingredients, followed by the oats.
- Stir in the chocolate chips. Then cover the dough and chill for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Drop dough by rounded spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake for 9 to 10 minutes. Let cookies cool for a minute on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Here are more detailed step-by-step instructions.
Step One: Toast the Oats
Let’s make the flavor of oatmeal come to life in these cookies by toasting the oats. It’s an optional step, but one that I highly recommend.
To do it, spread the oats on a prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes until toasted and lightly golden.
- Place the butter in a mixing bowl. Use either a handheld or stand mixer on medium speed and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute.
- Add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy.
- Add the flax eggs, vanilla, and molasses and beat to combine.
- Mix the dry ingredients and add them to the mixing bowl. Use your mixer to beat the flour ingredients, followed by the oats.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Cover and chill the dough for 15 to 20 minutes.
Step Three: Roll and Bake
- Use a cookie scoop to drop dough by rounded spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. (add some chocolate chips to the top of each cookie ball).
- Bake for 10 to 11 minutes, until golden.
- Remove cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the pan for a minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Storage Tips
Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the fridge for up to 10 days. You can freeze these cookies in an appropriate freezer-safe container or bag for up to 2 months.
Want more make-ahead ideas? Here are my favorite tips for freezing cookie dough.
Marly’s Tips
- Use softened butter, by leaving the butter out on the counter about 30 minutes before baking
- I recommend creaming the butter and sugar with a mixer. Here’s why it’s important to whip butter with sugar when making cookies.
If you’re into soft vegan cookies, check these out:
That’s it for these vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 2 flax eggs
- 3 cups old-fashioned oats
- 1 cup vegan butter, softened
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (plus 1 tablespoon of flour)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups dairy-free chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F/165°C. Lina cookies sheets with parchment paper.
- Make the flax eggs and set it aside.
- Measure the oats and then spread them out across one of the baking sheets and bake in the heated oven for 10 minutes. Stir the oats one time during baking. Set aside to cool completely.
- Place the butter in a mixing bowl. Use either a handheld or stand mixer on medium speed and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the flax eggs, vanilla, and molasses and beat to combine.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour (1 ¾ cup + 1 tablespoon), baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir to combine. Pour the flour mixture with the butter mixture and mix at low speed until combined. Add the cooled oats and beat on low speed until combined.
- Stir in the chocolate chips, reserving some to press into the tops of the cookie dough balls. Chill the dough for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Increase the oven temperature to 350°F/175°C.
- Use a cookie scoop to drop dough by rounded spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. (add some chocolate chips to the top of each cookie ball). Bake for 10 to 11 minutes, until golden.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for a minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the fridge for up to 10 days. You can freeze the cookies in appropriate freezer containers or bags for up to 2 months.
Recommended Equipment
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The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
This post was originally published in 2016 and was updated to include new photos, new text, and an updated recipe in 2021.
They sound awesome. I would like to try making them with stevia. It’s the only sweetener I will use. I don’t trust the others. Trying to cut down as much as I can on calories. I’ve lost 30 pounds in 11 weeks. I can enjoy recipes like this on skinny fiber. Thank you so much for the awesome recipes . SharonPilson.SkinnyFiber.com
I want to add orange zest! Can’t wait. THANK YOU!
Orange zest do you say? YASSS!!!