These Vegan Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies are crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, and sweet and "buttery"!
I'm really pleased these cookies worked out, because after a load of failed attempts that turned out too dry, crumbly and not quite there in flavour, I had resigned myself to never being able to eat a decent Chocolate Chip Cookie ever again.😔
But, after making my Peanut Butter Cookies, I knew I'd be able to adapt the recipe to make some seriously delicious Vegan Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Why you'll love these Chocolate Chip Cookies:
- they're undetectably vegan and gluten-free
- they're perfectly tender and chewy
- they're salty-sweet
- they're made with 6 ingredients
- they're oil-free
- they're refined sugar free optional
- they're much healthier than the traditional version
- they're perfect for Christmas and gift-giving!
How to make these Vegan Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe.
- Place the dates, almond butter and salt in a food processor or blender.
- Whizz until completely smooth.
- Mix together with all other the ingredients in a glass mixing 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 12 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.
- Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes - keep an eye on them so you don't overbake them!!
How long do these Chocolate Chip Cookies keep for?
These Cookies are great for meal prep as they keep for a good few days without the texture changing, and they're easily transportable.
Substitutions you can make to this recipe:
- the ground almonds can be replaced with ground walnuts, ground hazelnuts or ground sunflower seeds
- the almond butter can be replaced with peanut butter, cashew butter, sunflower seed butter or tahini
- for a nut-free option, replace the almond butter with sunflower seed butter or tahini and the ground almonds with ground sunflower seeds
- the gluten-free flour can be replaced with rice flour
- the gluten-free flour can be replaced with plain flour if not gluten-free
- for a refined sugar free version, use refined sugar free chocolate chips
- other delicious add-ins include walnuts or pecan nuts, or desiccated coconut.
More vegan gluten-free cookies:
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Blueberry Breakfast Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Coconut Flour Cookies
- Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
- Snickerdoodles
- Oatmeal Cookies
- Sugar Cookies
- Chocolate Cookies
- Carrot Cake Cookies
- Lemon Cookies
- Orange Cookies
- Lemon Poppy Seed 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.
Vegan Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 175 g (1 cup) pitted dates soaked overnight in cold water or in hot water for 10 minutes
- 85 g (⅓ cup) smooth almond butter (or sub cashew or peanut butter)
- Pinch salt
- 120 g (1 cup) ground almonds (almond meal) *
- 1 tablespoon gluten-free flour blend (or sub rice flour or plain flour if not gluten-free)
- 100 g (⅔ cup) dark chocolate chips or chunks **(ensure vegan/gluten-free or necessary)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit)
- Drain the soaked dates and place in a blender or food processor with the almond butter and salt
- Whizz until completely smooth
- Transfer into a bowl, add the ground almonds and gluten-free flour and mix well
- Carefully mix in the chocolate chips
- 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 12 cookies
- Bake in the oven for around 10-12 minutes, until golden brown - 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 few days
Notes
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.
Patti
Another win from Rhian! So appreciative of this site and the wonderful recipes I've tried since finding it.
I made these this evening and I had chunky natural peanut butter on hand so I used that and it worked well. The cookies just have little peanut chunks in them which I like.
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that!!
imogen Ananias
Hey rhian,
I loved these cookies today. I made them as a practise for next week. We have the teacher from school coming for a home visit and want to offer her something fun!
I use holland and barrett dried dates and when I weighed them dry- 175g it looked a lot more than would fit in 1 cup... I didn't think much about and continue to bake - my cookies were much darker in colour than your photo due to the high date content! They are lovely though. I love to have a cookie with no sugar! amazing and brilliant. We did use normal choc chips- which added the sugar element. But still felt less guilty than any other regular biscuit. In fact i'm going to have a cuppa and another cookie right now x
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that! Thank you so much for sharing your feedback too - the colour of the cookies also varies depending on the colour of the dates - if your dates were darker than the ones I used, the cookies might've turned out darker! x
Deborah
Do you think I could sub the dates out for maple syrup or agave?
Rhian Williams
Sorry no, because the texture won't be right unfortunately. I do have several other cookie recipes that don't use dates though!