Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

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:

• Vegan butter — Use storebought like Earth Balance or make your own vegan butter.
• Peanut butter — Use either creamy or crunchy peanut butter.
• Chia seeds — You can buy these at many grocery stores, health food stores, or online.
• Granulated sugar
• Brown sugar — Use light, dark, or homemade brown sugar.
• Flour — I used whole wheat pastry flour (different from whole wheat flour) or substitute all-purpose flour.
• Baking soda + Baking powder
• Vanilla
• Plant-based milk — Use almond milk, soy milk, or your favorite plant-based milk.

Ingredient Spotlight

What Peanut Butter is Best for Cookies?

There are three basic types of peanut butter: 1) Natural (the kind that has to be stirred, 2) Creamy, and 3) Crunchy. Some types of peanut butter work better for different recipes. Most of the time I prefer using natural peanut butter because it doesn’t have added hydrogenated oils or sugar. For this recipe, I recommend using creamy or crunchy because it’s hydrogenated and the oils won’t separate as easily.

How to Make Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

1. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer.
2. Beat in the chia seeds and vanilla extract. 
3. Mix the dry ingredients from the flour to the salt.
4. Make the batter by stirring together flour and peanut butter mixtures.
5. Add plant-based milk to achieve a soft dough.
6. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
7. Shape chilled dough into 1-inch balls, roll them in sugar, and place them on cookie sheets.
8. Create crisscross marks on the top of each cookie dough ball, slightly flattening each one. 
9. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until light brown. Cool cookies on a wire rack to cool.

Egg Substitutes for Cookies

Making eggless peanut butter cookies is easier than you think. For this recipe, I’m using chia seeds as an egg replacer, but you can also use a flax seed egg. Here are even more great egg substitutes for cookies:

• Mashed Banana — You can use 1/4 cup of mashed bananas per egg, but bananas are flavorful and it will impact the flavor of your finished cookie.
• Applesauce — Another go-to favorite egg replacer is applesauce. Use 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce for each egg in a recipe.
• Vegan Yogurt — Substitute 1/4 cup of vegan yogurt for each egg in your recipe.
• Egg Replacer — You can purchase egg replacer mixes. Follow the instructions on the package to mix your egg for these cookies.

Make-ahead Tips

There are a couple of ways to make these cookies ahead of time.

1. Freeze the cookie dough balls — Place them on a tray in the freezer. Once they’re frozen, transfer them to a freezer bag. To bake, place frozen cookie dough balls on a cooking sheet and add 2 to 3 minutes to the baking time.
2. Make the cookies, allow them to cool completely, and then freeze them. Allow an hour for the cookies to thaw, and then serve! They’ll keep up to 2 months in the freezer.

This is a perfect recipe for freezing. See my tips for Frozen Cookie Dough.

My preference is to have a tender, healthy peanut butter cookie. There should be a little soft crumb in the middle and just a bit of crispy on the outside. I found baking for 8 to 9 minutes was perfect to achieve this result. Of course, if your cookie dough balls are frozen, it will require a little extra baking time.