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    Recipes » Recipes » Baking & Desserts

    Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

    Last updated - July 14, 2021; Published - April 18, 2018 By Rhian Williams 15 Comments

    Jump to Recipe Jump to Video Print Recipe
    A stack of five peanut butter cookies on a marble slab against a grey background

    These Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies are soft and chewy, perfectly salty-sweet and are made using just 5 ingredients! And they're refined sugar free, grain-free, date-sweetened and oil-free too. Perfect for Christmas and gift-giving!

    A pile of gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies on a plate

    How to make this recipe

    Scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe.

    • Place the dates, peanut butter, salt and vanilla in a food processor or blender.
    Dates, peanut butter, salt and vanilla in a food processor
    • Whizz until completely smooth.
    Blended up dates, peanut butter, salt and vanilla in a food processor
    • Transfer into a glass mixing bowl and add the ground almonds. 
    Raw gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookie dough in bowl

    Tip: Place the cookie dough in the fridge for at least 10 minutes for it to firm up slightly.

    • Take a heaped tablespoon of the mixture and use your hands to form it into a little patty - don't worry, unlike traditional cookies, these ones won't spread out as they bake.
    • Lay it out onto a rectangular baking tray lined with greased baking paper.
    • Repeat until the rest of the batter is used up - you should be able to make 9 cookies.

    Tip: I shaped the cookie dough mixture into cookies using my hands, but if you find the mixture too gooey to shape with your hands, you can use a cookie scoop instead, and use your hands or the back of a spoon to flatten them slightly.

    • The criss-cross pattern on top of the cookies may look fancy, but it's super simple to do! All you need to do is to press the prongs of a fork on top of the cookies.

    Tip: Using a wet fork makes it much easier as otherwise the fork might have problems getting unstuck from the cookies!

    Eight raw gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies on a baking tray lined with baking paper with a fork making criss-cross patterns on top
    • Bake in the oven for 10 minutes - don’t worry if they’re quite soft when you take them out as they will firm up as they cool down.
    Nine gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies on a baking tray lined with baking paper

    How long do these keep for?

    They keep in an airtight container for a few days.

    Substitutions you can make

    • You can replace the peanut butter with any other nut or seed butter: almond butter, cashew butter, sunflower seed butter etc.
    • The ground almonds can be replaced with ground walnuts or ground sunflower seeds.

    Ingredients you can add

    • Chocolate chips.
    • Desiccated coconut. 
    • Dried cranberries.
    A stack of five gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies

    More vegan gluten-free cookies

    • Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
    • Blueberry Breakfast Cookies
    • Chocolate Cookies
    • Coconut Flour Cookies
    • Pumpkin Cookies
    • Snickerdoodles
    • Oatmeal Cookies
    • Sugar Cookies
    • Chocolate Chip Cookies
    • Carrot Cake Cookies
    • Lemon Cookies

    If you try out this recipe or anything else from my blog, I’d really love to hear any feedback! Please give it a rating, leave a comment, or tag a photo @rhiansrecipes #rhiansrecipes on Instagram! Thank you.

    Watch how to make it

    A pile of gluten-free vegan peanut butter cookies on a plate

    Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

    These Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies are soft and chewy, perfectly salty-sweet and naturally sweetened! 
    4.45 from 9 votes
    Print Pin Rate
    Course: Dessert, Snack
    Cuisine: American
    Keyword: gluten-free peanut butter cookies, gluten-free vegan cookies, vegan peanut butter cookies
    Prep Time: 15 minutes
    Cook Time: 12 minutes
    Total Time: 27 minutes
    Servings: 9 cookies
    Calories: 92kcal
    Author: Rhian Williams

    Ingredients

    • 90 g (½ cup) pitted dates soaked overnight in cold water or in hot water for 10 minutes
    • Pinch salt
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • 65 g (¼ cup) smooth peanut butter (or sub almond butter)
    • 40 g (⅓ cup) ground almonds (almond meal) *

    Instructions

    • Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
    • Drain the soaked dates and place in a blender or food processor with the salt, vanilla and peanut butter.
    • Whizz until completely smooth.
    • Transfer into a bowl, add the ground almonds and mix well.
    • Place the cookie dough in the fridge for at least 10 minutes for it to firm up slightly.
    • Take a heaped tablespoon of the mixture and use your hands to form it into a small, circular, thick patty - don't worry, unlike traditional cookies, these ones won't spread out as they bake **.
    • Lay it out onto a baking tray lined with baking paper (no need to grease it).
    • Repeat until the rest of the batter is used up - you should be able to make 9 cookies.
    • Take a wet fork and press the prongs of the fork across the top of a cookie then turn the fork around 180 degrees and press the fork prongs over the patty again to create a criss-cross pattern - a wet fork will make this easier.
    • Repeat for the rest of the cookies.
    • Bake in the oven for around 12 minutes - don’t worry if they’re quite soft when you take them out as they will firm up as they cool down.
    • Leave to cool completely before storing in an airtight container - keeps in the fridge for a good few days.

    Video

    Notes

    *You can alternatively use almond flour.
    **If you find the mixture too gooey to shape with your hands, you can use a cookie scoop instead, and use your hands or the back of a spoon to flatten them slightly.
    Nutrition Facts
    Gluten-Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
    Amount Per Serving
    Calories 92 Calories from Fat 45
    % Daily Value*
    Fat 5g8%
    Saturated Fat 1g5%
    Sodium 39mg2%
    Potassium 114mg3%
    Carbohydrates 11g4%
    Fiber 2g8%
    Sugar 7g8%
    Protein 3g6%
    Calcium 16mg2%
    Iron 1mg6%
    * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
    Made the recipe?Tag @rhiansrecipes on instagram and use the hashtag #rhiansrecipes!

    Disclosure: This posts contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you purchase any of these products, a small percentage will come to me with no extra cost to you! This income will go towards the running of this blog – thank you.

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      Recipe Rating




    1. Jayne

      April 01, 2019 at 9:58 am

      3 stars
      Well, mine were a bit of a disaster! I did weigh everything out carefully, but the flavour of the dates dominated everything else, which is no mean feat where peanut butter is involved. I also struggled to blend the dates, they just adhered themselves to the edges of the blender and refused to move! I have a new oven which is perhaps a bit fierce, and they caught really quickly so mine were black on the bottom. I'm not sure I would make them again.

      Reply
    2. Anonymous

      September 28, 2019 at 7:58 pm

      This is a general comment about all the recipes I have tried. LOVE THEM! So thankful I found you on the internet. I was beginning to lose hope in ever finding good/excellent tasting recipes that didn't have any foods I was sensitive to. Especially with my sweet tooth! Thank you, thank you!!!

      Reply
      • Rhian Williams

        September 28, 2019 at 9:58 pm

        Thank you so much, so glad you like my recipes!!

    3. Ingrid

      January 04, 2020 at 7:33 pm

      4 stars
      Epic failure in the blender. I recommend doubling the recipe If you don’t have a food processor or cutting the dates in tiny chunks and mixing from hand. I ended up just doubling the peanut butter based on other Poster’s comments, but had large chunks of dates because they wouldn’t blend. I didn’t have to put it in the fridge as they weren’t too sticky to handle. I baked the time indicated and they turned out really well.

      Reply
      • Rhian Williams

        January 05, 2020 at 12:57 pm

        Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm sorry to hear that, but glad it worked out in the end!

    « Older Comments

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    Photo of Rhian Williams from Rhian's Recipes

    Hi, I'm Rhian! I make easy, undetectably vegan + gluten-free recipes, including healthy comfort food and naturally sweetened desserts using plant-based ingredients.

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