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These vegan sugar cookies are super soft, easy, and require no chilling! A delicious dairy-free sugar cookie recipe.
It took a few experiments to get these right, but I am very pleased with the results. I love a soft sugar cookie, and these definitely are.
When I was first tinkering with this recipe, I wanted them to be shape cutouts, but that involved a lot of chilling, mess, and work. I may still develop a recipe for those, but for now, these definitely are less effort and taste great, so I’m sticking with them as my go-to easy vegan cookie. 🙂
This soft vegan sugar cookies recipe is sweet (but not too sweet), and the ground flax adds a lovely nutty flavor to them.
I made several batches of these cookies, and everyone adored them. My husband’s coworkers were definitely happy campers.
What ingredients are in vegan sugar cookies?
Vegan butter, white sugar, flax egg, pure vanilla extract, all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, and optional mix-ins (e.g. sprinkles).
You can see this recipe is pretty similar to regular sugar cookies, except the egg and butter are replaced with vegan alternatives.
How to make vegan sugar cookies
Make the flax egg; set aside for it to gel. Prep the remaining ingredients.
Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the flax egg and vanilla.
In another bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together. Gradually add dry ingredients to the wet ones. Fold in any mix-ins.
Roll dough into 1.5″ balls and bake on a lined baking sheet at 400F for 10-12 minutes.
How to customize vegan sugar cookies
It’s really easy to customize these cookies. Don’t want sprinkles? Skip them.
Want to make these vegan Christmas cookies? Use red and green sprinkles like I did in most of the photos.
Want rainbow sugar cookies? Use rainbow sprinkles.
Want to make these vegan Halloween sugar cookies? Use Halloween sprinkles.
…Or make my vegan chocolate chip cookie dough frosting to go with them!
You can see that these are cookies for any occasion, basically. 😉
How to store vegan sugar cookies
I like to transfer these cookies to a sealed container as soon as they cool so that they remain nice and soft. They keep well for a few days (in the sealed container).
I hope you love these easy vegan sugar cookies!
Have you ever made vegan cookies before? Talk to me in the comments below!
Vegan Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup vegan butter slightly softened (see note)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flaxseed + 3 tbsp water)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 small pinch of salt
- 2-3 tablespoons sprinkles (optional)
Instructions
- Prepare your flax egg by mixing the ground flaxseed and water in a small bowl. Set it aside, and prep the rest of your ingredients so it has the chance to sit for 10 minutes or so.
- Preheat oven to 400F and move the rack to the middle of the oven. Line a baking sheet with a Silpat non-stick mat or parchment paper.
- Cream the vegan butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl using an electric mixer on a low speed.
- Add the flax egg and vanilla extract to the bowl. Mix on low.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.
- Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, mixing it on a low speed until all the flour is incorporated.
- Fold in the sprinkles.
- Gently roll the dough into 1.5" balls. Place the balls at least a couple of inches apart (cookies will spread) on the baking sheet. I bake two batches (one batch at a time with about 10 cookies/batch). Bake for 10-12 minutes.
- Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and then transfer them to an airtight container as soon as they've cooled a bit so they remain nice and soft.
Notes
- I use vegan buttery sticks (2 of them to make 1 cup). I like to let the vegan butter sit on the counter for 10-15 minutes prior to making this recipe. You don't want it to sit too long - it softens much faster than normal butter.
- Makes 20-25 cookies (approximately).
- I used ground brown flaxseed, but you could also use the golden variety. I also sometimes see it labeled as "milled flaxseed" and "flaxseed meal".
- Make sure you spoon and level the flour vs. scooping it so you don't end up with too much.
- Not all brands of sprinkles are vegan-friendly, so be sure to check if that's a concern.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Love sugar cookies? Check out my roundup of 15 of the best Christmas sugar cookie recipes.
Omg they are delicious!!!
Thank you!! So happy you enjoyed them! 😀
5 stars! Because everyone’s oven, humidity, altitude is different, I usually do a test cookie or 2 to get the timing/ spread right. My batch didn’t spread so I simply flattened them with the back of a pie spatula and baked them for 11 min. These made the house smell so good! This is a really great sugar cookie recipe. I think they would work great as “grinch cookies” so next time I’ll add green food coloring and a heart to the center.
Thank you for this recipe! These will be my go-to sugar cookies. (Been searching for a vegan sugar cookie recipe for a while that didn’t have weird ingredients, so I’m super thrilled with this!)
That’s smart!! So glad these worked out for you! Love the grinch idea 🙂
I just made these and they turned out absolutely delicious! And cute! Even though I followed the recipe exactly, my cookies didn’t flatten at all. So they didn’t turn out as cute as they could have been. I’ll just have to flatten them myself next time.
I’m so glad to hear it!! That is so strange re: the not flattening, though…
Hi ! I just made the cookies and they taste delicious! Only problem was they were not spreading so I had to flatten them down myself ? Any tips ?
I did mix everything my hand cause my daughter was sleeping ( lol ) does that make a difference ?
I am so glad the taste was good, Mia!! I’m not sure if mixing by hand would have made a difference or not. I find mine just flatten by themselves in the oven as they bake. Did yours look a lot different than the photos?
mine did not flatten either
So they baked up looking more puffy than the pics?
Where do you get your vegan friendly sprinkles?
I think I got them from Sweetapolita 😊
Thanks for the great recipe! Just made these with my daughter for her school Christmas party. We substituted your flax egg with egg replacer and cut into Christmas shapes. They turned out really well and tasted fab. No one knew the difference!
That’s awesome!! I am so happy they worked so well!
Made these today with my 5 year old. We loved how they turned out!! I subbed 4 TBL of aquafaba for the flax just because that’s all I had. I had to just flatten the cookies slightly because they weren’t spreading with the substitution I made. I’m going to try this recipe again with coconut oil. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
Yay! That’s great! Thanks for the aquafaba tip. That’s good to know.
How do you propose I alter the recipe to become Lavender Sugar cookies? Or Lemon-Lavender?
Hi Leslie, I’d add some lemon zest to the recipe. For the lavender, I’d add a bit of lavender extract (you can probably buy it on Amazon, but baking specialty stores should have it). I think you can also add dried lavender if that’s your thing, but I haven’t tested it so I’m not entirely sure how to do that. Maybe do a search for lavender cookies and see if there’s some elements of a different recipe you can borrow and insert into this one. I like your idea.. let me know how it goes!