Vegan Ginger Cookies
These vegan ginger cookies are soft and chewy and feature the best spices like ginger and cinnamon. These chewy spice cookies are soft on the inside, with a signature crackly sugar crust. Each bite is full of rich, buttery flavors!
Be sure to enjoy a glass of iced chai latte with these tasty spiced Christmas cookies.
I don’t remember a lot of homemade goodies when I was a kid. I’m making up for lost time now because I love making all the goodies all the time! These buttery spiced vegan ginger cookies are a perfect example!
Why This Recipe is a Winner
- Using vegan butter adds a delicious butter taste to each bite
- A combination spices — ginger, cinnamon, and cloves — makes every cookie perfectly spiced
- Adding molasses makes these cookies moist and adds a rich, caramel flavor!
Ingredients
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:
- Flax egg — You’ll use one flax egg to make these cookies hold together perfectly. Or you can substitute a chia egg.
- All-purpose flour — I recommend all-purpose flour. However, whole wheat pastry flour works too.
- Baking soda + baking powder
- Salt
- Spices — We’ll use ground ginger, ground cinnamon, and ground nutmeg
- Vegan butter — Use your favorite brand or make your own plant-based butter
- Granulated sugar
- Molasses — for the best depth of flavor, use rich, unsulphured molasses.
I love making this spice cookie recipe, especially in the fall! The full recipe card is below, including ingredient amounts, but here’s a synopsis of the steps to make them:
- Mix Dry Ingredients — Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices
- Cream Fat and Sugar — Beat the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. This takes around 1 to 2 minutes
- Add Molasses & Flax Egg — Add the molasses and flax egg to the whipped butter mixture and beat some more
- Make the Batter & Chill — Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until the batter is combined. Cover the batter and allow it to chill for 30 minutes up to an hour (or even more!)
- Roll Balls & Bake — Roll the dough into 1″ balls. Then roll the dough balls in sugar before placing them on a prepared cookie sheet. Leave a gap of 1 to 2 inches between the cookies. Let the cookies sit on the pan for several minutes. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes until they’re golden around the edges. Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for 2 to 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Marly’s Tips
Never place cookie dough balls on a hot or warm cookie sheet as this can cause cookies to spread. If you have only one pan, allow it to cool between batches of cookies.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Here are the step-by-step instructions and a visual guide to making these yummy cookies.
Step One: Mix Dry Ingredients
Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices in a small bowl. Set this aside.
Step Two: Cream Fat & Sugar
Beat the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. This takes around 1 to 2 minutes.
Step Three: Add Molasses & Flax Egg
Add the molasses and flax egg to the whipped butter mixture and beat some more, until light and fluffy.
Marly’s Tips
If you don’t have ground flax seed on hand, you can use a chia egg as a substitute.
Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until the batter is combined. This is your cookie dough! Cover the dough and place it in the fridge. Allow it to chill for at least 30 minutes up to an hour (or even more!) You can leave it in the fridge for up to 2 days before making into cookie dough balls.
Step Four: Roll and Bake
Roll the dough into 1″ balls. Then roll the dough balls in sugar before placing them on a prepared cookie sheet. Be sure to leave a gap of 1 to 2 inches between the cookie dough balls. Then, let the cookies sit on the pan for several minutes. This helps the balls come to room temperature before baking.
Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes until they’re golden around the edges. Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for 2 to 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
If you want a more tender cookie, remove from the oven at 10 minutes. They will firm up as they cool. If you want a crispier cookie, cook them for 12 minutes.
Marly’s Tips
If your ginger cookies are not creating enough crackle on the top, make sure you’ve creamed the fat, that you’re using fresh baking powder and/or baking soda, and that your oven is hot enough. You can also encourage additional crackles by “scrunching the cookies” a bit when they come out of the oven.
Sure, you love these vegan spice cookies, but that just makes you want even more cookie recipes:
Storage Tips
Store these spice cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days, in the fridge for up to a week, or in the freezer, for up to 2 months.
I know it’s easy to think of these as Christmas cookies. It’s true they’re delicious during the holidays, but the sweet, spicy scent filling the air after baking a batch or two of these vegan ginger cookies is perfect year-round.
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Ingredients
- 1 flax egg
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour (See note)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¾ cup vegan butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup molasses
- ½ cup granulated sugar to roll cookies in before baking
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉/175°C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Prepare the flax egg. Set aside.
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices.
- Use a hand-held or stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar at medium speed in a large bowl until light and fluffy, between 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add the molasses and flax egg and beat until combined, up to 1 minute.
- While mixing at low speed, add the flour mixture and beat until combined.
- Roll the dough into 1" balls. Then roll the dough balls in sugar before placing them on prepared cookie sheets. Leave a 2-inch space between dough balls. Allow the dough balls to sit on the pan for 5 minutes. Then place in the oven. Note: Never put dough balls on a hot or warm cookie pan, as this will cause the cookies to spread.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until cookies are golden around the edges. If you want a more tender cookie, remove them from the oven for 10 minutes. They will firm up as they cool. If you want a crispier cookie, cook until 12 minutes. Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for up to 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, in the fridge for up to a week, or in the freezer, for up to 2 months.
Recommended Equipment
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Notes
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 2012 and was updated to include new photos, new text, and an updated recipe in 2020.
I was happy to find your post at first as I myself have been looking for good vegan recipes. However, using margarine, corn starch and soy products are extremely bad for your health. Not only is the hydrogenation process of making margarine bad, margarine also contains skimmed milk. The whole existence of margarine and soy milk is unnatural and should be omitted if one chooses vegan diet as an option for healthier life style. In my opinion, vegan diet has to be about using the pure ingredients coming from nature and not try to make modified substituents, which are even more harmful for our bodies. In no way am I trying to be disrespectful, but just because you can claim that the dish is vegan, does not imply it being healthy for you, as this recipe suggests.
Kristina,
I agree with you that it’s important to be mindful of the foods we eat and to try to include as many whole foods as possible. Some margarines, like Earth Balance, are dairy-free and those are the ones I go for. As far as corn and soy, I think science is still up in the air about those right now. I haven’t seen any conclusive evidence that they’re innately bad for humans to consume. I do think moderation is important in most everything we eat…well, maybe not with broccoli.
I try to limit the amount of margarine in most of my recipes by including things like peanut butter. You’ll see that in this recipe along with spices like ginger and cinnamon, both of which have been shown to include many health benefits. And as an egg replacer, I add ground flax seed which provide a lot of useful nutrition.
I think it’s important to include lots of healthy foods in our life. But I also think life is about living too and sometimes that means having a cookie. And when I’m going for a cookie I want it to taste knock-my-socks-off great! And I want everyone to know that living a vegan lifestyle isn’t all sackcloth and ashes. Nuts and twigs. Nine days out of ten I will have pears, bananas, and yes, lots of broccoli. But on day 10? Bring on these delicious Vegan Spice Cookies. Yes!
Can I have a cookie too, sweetie? Thanks for making me smile with your write up…and for the many smiles thereafter as I eat one cookie after another…Yummy!
Anything for you! Cookies do have a smiling effect, don’t they? Even the name alone is kinda cute!
my goodness! those look delicious!!! I LOVE spice cookies. thanks for sharing! can’t wait to try!
Thanks, Caralyn! They *were* really tasty, but, alas, now they’re all gone. The good news is…it’s time to make more of something new!