This is the best vegan chocolate chip cookies recipe ever! Easy to make in 1 bowl, no chilling required and they turn out perfect every time. Soft, chewy and full of chocolate chips!
If you are in need of a simple, straightforward yet incredibly delicious chocolate chip cookie recipe, look no further. Tried and true, these are the most perfect vegan chocolate chip cookies in the world and everyone who tries them agrees!
This recipe is one of the most popular on my site with 350+ 5 star reviews! I hope they become your go-to vegan cookie.
If you love chocolate chips as much as I do, make sure to check out these Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, Chocolate Chip Muffins and Vegan Edible Cookie Dough!
What makes these vegan cookies so perfect?
- They are SO soft, chewy and full of chocolate chips. They aren’t too flat, and they aren’t too puffy and cake-like. No one would guess they’re vegan, unlike some cookie recipes I’ve tried.
- They’re made in 1 bowl.
- No chilling time is required for the dough. So you can have cookies to eat FAST!
Ingredients needed (with substitutions)
- Flax egg – This is your egg substitute and is perfect for creating chewy, delicious cookies without eggs. JUST Egg works in place of flax/water, as well as other egg substitutes. Non-dairy milk, applesauce and yogurt work as well in a pinch. Use 4 tablespoons instead of the flax egg.
- Vegan butter – I’ve made these cookies with countless brands, including my homemade vegan butter, and they all work great. You can try substituting coconut oil, but it does change the texture quite a bit and the flavor won’t be the same. If you want to use coconut oil, try these Coconut Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies instead.
- Brown sugar – For the best flavor and texture, use brown sugar. If you must substitute it, granulated sugar works okay (though I’d add a tablespoon of molasses) as well as coconut sugar.
- Vanilla – For flavor, of course.
- All purpose flour – Most of the time I just use plain flour, but if you need them to be gluten free, you can substitute a gluten free flour blend. I’ve had good luck with Bob’s Red Mill, King Arthur and Better Batter. Don’t sub almond flour, but go make these Almond Flour Cookies instead.
- Cornstarch – This helps the cookies be extra soft and chewy. May substitute tapioca starch or arrowroot, or leave it out if needed.
- Baking soda
- Salt – I use salted vegan butter most of the time, but if you are using unsalted butter, increase the salt from 1/4 teaspoon to 3/4 teaspoon.
- Non-dairy chocolate chips – Check the ingredients list on the package for things like milk fat, butter oil, etc. I like Trader Joe’s brand which happen to be vegan, as well as Enjoy Life. Sometimes the store brand will be accidentally vegan and inexpensive. Chopped chocolate also works (I often use a mix).
How to make vegan chocolate chip cookies
Find the complete printable recipe with measurements below in the recipe card.
Beat the softened vegan butter and brown sugar, then mix in the flax egg and vanilla. Add the flour, and then sprinkle the cornstarch, baking soda and salt on top of the flour.
Mix on low to combine, then mix in the chocolate chips/chunks. Mmmmm… cookie dough perfection!
Roll the dough into 1-2 tablespoon balls (I use this cookie scoop, then roll with my hands). Place on parchment lined or greased baking sheets.
Bake for about 10 minutes, until barely golden around the edges. The cookies will seems underdone, but they firm up as they cool and you want them to stay soft so be careful to not over bake.
For smaller cookies, bake for less time. For extra big cookies, add a few minutes of bake time.
Enjoy the cookies warm with a glass of almond milk or crumbled in vegan ice cream with a drizzle of caramel, perhaps. I usually sprinkle some coarse sea salt on top as well.
Frequently asked questions
The cookie dough should be soft and mushy, but not too wet or too dry. You should be able to easily roll it into balls. If it feels too wet, add a few tablespoons of flour at a time until it’s just right. If it’s too dry, add a tablespoon or two of non-dairy milk.
No, not all chocolate chips are vegan. They often contain dairy. Make sure to check the package list for things like butter oil, milk fat, and so on. Enjoy Life brand are always vegan, as are Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chips, Guittard, Kirkland Brand and some others. You can also use vegan chocolate bars and chop them up for chocolate chunk cookies.
No, I never chill this cookie dough. I’m much too impatient! It’s just not needed here, but if you want to chill it, I’m sure it will be fine. The cookies will come out much thicker.
They will keep for 3-4 days at room temperature, if you don’t eat them all before then! Store in a covered container. They also freeze well.
How to freeze cookie dough for later
Roll the cookie dough into balls and freeze in a freezer friendly container. When you want to bake cookies simply preheat the oven and bake, adding a few more minutes since the dough was frozen. No need to defrost the dough.
Baked cookies also freeze well and are wonderful straight from the freezer. I love having frozen cookies to throw in my kid’s lunch box on school days.
Other cookie mix in combinations
This is a great cookie base recipe for all kinds of combinations! Try:
- Adding chopped walnuts and/or coarse sea salt on top
- Vegan white chocolate chips and dried cranberries
- Add dried blueberries and a little lemon zest
- White chocolate and macadamia nut
- Monster cookies – add a few tablespoons of rolled oats, vegan M&M type candy, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter and a few tablespoons chocolate chips.
Want more incredible vegan cookie recipes?
Find all of my vegan cookie recipes here: Vegan Cookies. Here are just a few of my favorites:
- Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Ultimate Vegan Chocolate Cookies
- Vegan Snickerdoodles
- Vegan Sugar Cookies
- Classic Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Perfect Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
- 2.5 tablespoons water
- 1/2 cup vegan butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups brown sugar, lightly packed
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups non-dairy chocolate chips or chunks
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats (or spray with oil.)
- Mix the ground flaxseed and water in a small bowl and set aside to make your flax egg.
- In a large bowl using a handheld mixer or a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the softened vegan butter and brown sugar for 1-2 minutes until creamy.
- Add the vanilla and the flax egg and mix to combine.
- Next, stop the mixer and add the flour. Sprinkle the cornstarch, baking soda and salt on top of the flour. Turn the mixer on low speed, and mix until just combined.
- Add in the chocolate chips to incorporate, either by hand or using the mixer.
- Roll the dough into balls, about 1-2 tablespoons each. Place on the prepared pans and bake for 10 minutes (12 minutes for larger cookies), until they are barely golden around the edges. Do not over bake! They will be puffy and lightly colored.
- Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. The cookies will firm up as they cool, and become the most perfect chewy cookies ever! Enjoy.
Video
Notes
- Cookies will stay fresh for 3-4 days, if they last that long. Store in a covered container. They also freeze well.
- Freezer cookie dough – Freeze cookie dough balls to have on hand to make just a few cookies at a time! Simply cook for 1-2 minutes more, no need to thaw.
- If using unsalted vegan butter, increase the salt to 3/4 teaspoon.
- Other mix ins – Feel free to add chopped walnuts, or use white chocolate chips instead, dried fruit, whatever you feel like. This is a great base recipe for all kinds of combinations.
- Recipe inspired by Sally’s Baking Addiction.
Nutrition
This post has been updated in 2024 with improved photos, better writing and more tips/variations.
These are the best vegan chocolate chip cookies that I have found! You can’t even tell they are vegan. My kids are allergic to dairy and eggs and this website has been a blessing for us. So far every recipe we have tried has been a hit. Thank you Nora!
Hi Tara. I am so glad that you and your family are enjoying my recipes! I truly love creating them! Thank you for your wonderful feedback and review on the chocolate chip cookies! Wishing you lots of happy cooking!
dankerous
These turned out perfect!! I baked them for 11 minutes which was just enough time. Thanks for your great recipes Nora!!! Yum!! ???
Best vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve tried, and I’ve tried many. I added chopped raw macadamia nuts and perfect in a different way! Thank you so much for sharing!!!
Sounds delicious, Cari! Thank you for sharing your wonderful feedback!
Help! I have no idea what went wrong but these were a disaster for me. They turned out as tough pancakes on my baking sheet. When they failed I went back and double checked that I did everything correct and I had followed the recipe correctly. Only change was I used half vegan butter and half coconut oil because coconut oil was an optional substitution (both fats were soft but not melted). The consistency of the dough prior to baking was exactly as it should have been so I have no idea what chemistry happened in the oven that caused these to flop. Any insight is greatly appreciated since I really wanted to like this recipe with how simple it was.
Hi there! It’s hard to know what went wrong without being there, but I can offer a few tips. First, make sure you are measuring everything correctly. To measure flour, spoon the flour into your measuring cup and level it off with a knife. It’s easy to accidentally add an extra 1/2 cup of flour without realizing it! Also, while coconut oil technically works, the cookies end up much different than using all vegan butter. So use vegan butter if possible, and the sticks not the tub unless you absolutely have to. It also sounds like you over baked the cookies, because they should be very soft when you take them out, almost underdone looking. They firm up as they cool, so be careful not to over bake. I hope that helps!
Thanks! I did measure the flour correctly. The cookies were baked for just 9 minutes (took them out early because they started to smell burnt) but were hard because they came out extremely flat. It sounds like the fats were the source of the issue. The vegan butter was from a tub. I’m not in a vegan friendly area so I’ll see if I can find sticks of vegan butter to re-try this with all butter and see if it fixes the problem.
It seems like others have been having issues with variations in flour. Would you be willing to post this recipe with ingredient weights? It’s my personal preference for baking and I wonder if it might help other replicate what look like beautiful cookies
If you see below the ingredients list, there is a metric button you can click on that will help! 🙂 I do think the problem had to do with the butter/oil. Using all vegan butter makes the best cookies! If you can’t find it, try my Coconut Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies. They are based on using coconut oil and are super good and soft!
Thanks for taking the time to help! I really appreciate you and your delicious recipes (you are one of my trusted blogs for recipes)
You’re so welcome! 🙂
This is a great recipe!
I’ve made it a couple times now, though, and followed the recipe exactly, but they don’t fall when baked and remain dry. What might I be missing? They’re still delicious. Just dry…
Make sure you measure your flour correctly as well as all other ingredients. To correctly measure flour, spoon it into a measuring cup, then level with a knife. Don’t shake it or pat it down. Hope that helps!
The flavors are melting on my tongue! Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside! We would decrease the amount of salt only because we already don’t use a lot regularly.
I love your description of the flavors! Thank you for sharing your fun and wonderful feedback!
Me again, my mom gave up sugar for Lent so I wanted to try making this recipe sugar free. I got Lily’s sugar free dark chocolate chips, used Smart Balance margarine again, Bob’s Red Mill GF flour, and Truvia Sweet Complete 1:1 sugar substitute (the kind that comes in a larger bag). The cookies came out better than I could’ve hoped! Although the missing sugar affected the texture quite a bit, they are still delicious. They came out of the oven extremely soft but firmed up to a pretty nice cakey texture as they cooled. I was really worried that between the GF flour and no sugar they’d come out as mush, but this recipe is pretty much fool proof! Thanks again for an amazing recipe!!
I’m so happy to hear you were able to make these without sugar and gluten. Thanks so much for using my recipe and for sharing your wonderful feedback!
These were perfect!! Everyone was shocked they were vegan! Thanks, Nora! You have the best recipes!
Hi! I am going to make these for my son’s school trip which I am volunteering to help with! I need just over 60 cookies-Is it best to make these separately or can i triple the recipe?
I’ve never tripled it but I double it quite often with no problems. I hope all the kids enjoy the cookies!
If you’re looking for the best vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe, look no further! This recipe is incredible and simple. I love that it has minimal ingredients. Thanks for another incredible recipe Nora!
Thank you so much for your kind words and feedback! Happy cooking!
Can you freeze these cookies?
I’ve made them before and served them right away but plans changed and I need to figure out if I can hold on to them/
Hi Carol. Yes, these cookies freeze very well!
Finally made these and now I’m wondering why I waited so long! You’re recipes NEVER fail!
Delish!
Thank you so much!!
I’m so glad you love the cookies! Thanks for using my recipe, and for sharing your review and feedback! Happy cooking!
Omg!!!! These are perfect!!!!! YUM!!!!!!!!!
Thank you Nora!!!!!!!
It took me two tries to get these right. The first time, the dough was too crumbly, although the cookies still turned out great. But still, I wanted to figure out why the dough turned out the way it did. Too much flour? Well, I know to spoon flour gently into measuring cups and level it off, so packing my cups with flour was not my problem. I do think my “slightly softened” Earth’s Balance stick may have still been too firm, because I didn’t get the usual creaminess when I mixed it with the brown sugar.
So, I could see scope for a few tweaks that I hoped would help. I implemented them today, and they worked like a charm. The dough’s texture was just right, and the cookies came out perfectly, still yielding 24 of them.
I reduced the flour to 1 1/3 cups (instead of 1 1/2 cups). I made sure that the Earth’s Balance stick was soft enough to be able to flatten it. I went with 1 packed cup of brown sugar instead of 1 1/4 cups. And I made the flaxseed egg with 3 tbsp. of water (per back of the package instructions) instead of 2.5 tbsp.
Thanks for the feedback! Yes, when the butter is too cold, the dough will no doubt be crumbly and dry. I’m glad you enjoyed the cookies.
Holy cannoli, this recipe is AMAZING! I made it with Smart Balance vegan margarine, which is spreadable out of the fridge, so I was a bit worried about excessive spreading because I didn’t have time to chill the dough. No issues at all though, the cookies came out picture perfect. I also used Bob’s Red Mill GF flour with no issues! The dough was as tasty as the cookies!! 😀 Thanks for another phenomenal recipe!
I’m so glad you are loving the cookies! We love them at our house as well! Thank you for you wonderful feedback! Wishing you happy cooking!
This is it! I’ve been making various vegan chocolate chip cookie recipes over the last few weeks, trying to find “the one,” and my search is over! I love my cookies soft and chewy, not cakey, and thick, and this recipe fit the bill! After forming the dough balls, I froze them for 15 minutes to ensure that they wouldn’t go flat; it did the trick! I didn’t need to add any bake time. When I handed one to one of my sons he said, “This is the perfect cookie!”
I feel truly honored that your son has labeled this recipe as the ‘perfect cookie!’ They are a hit at our house as well! I am so thrilled that you all love the cookies and they will be your go to chocolate chip cookie! Thank you for sharing your wonderful review and feedback! Happy cooking!
Can this be used with a substitute for cornstarch?
I’m not sure I understand the question. You may leave out the cornstarch if needed, the cookies will still be good.
What about the nutritional fact, Carbs, Fat in a batch
Hi Tom, the nutritional facts are at the bottom of the recipe card. 1 cookie = 24g of carbohydrates and 7g of fat.
DELICIOUS!
Some modifications I made to cut down on calories:
I use 80g of butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar, and eyeball the chocolate chips. 1.5 cups seemed like a lot.
After making these adjustments, I bake for 11 minutes and have the most delicious cookies. I make this recipe like once a week. It’s stupid simple, and the dough keeps as leftovers very well. I’ve kept in the fridge for up to a week, and have frozen before as well.
So glad you enjoyed the cookies! They really are easy, right? My philosophy is that you can never include too many chocolate chips ;), but I’m happy the modifications worked out for you!
These are the perfect cookie to me, especially if you like soft gooey cookies! A+, #1 recipe for sure! ??? thank you Nora!!
I used kite hill vegan butter which has a really nice classic buttery taste. The dough was a little soft (my error because the butter was almost melty) so I let the scooped cookie dough set up in the freezer for 15 minutes before baking – turned out great!
I’m so glad you love the cookies! Thanks for using my recipe, and for sharing your review and feedback! Happy cooking!
These are my go-to chocolate chip cookies now. I´m glad they´re made with “traditional” ingredients and not expensive ones like other vegan cookies. And they´re so fast to make with no chill time!
Thank you for sharing your review and wonderful feedback! I am glad you are loving the cookies! I also love the way these cookies come together so quickly and easily! Happy cooking!
These were yummy, although I made several substitutions (gluten free flour with xanthan gum, arrowroot instead of cornstarch, coconut sugar instead of brown sugar. Your recipes are very forgiving, Nora. Love your recipes!
Hi Mona. I’m glad you loved the cookies! Thank you for using my recipes, and for sharing your review and feedback! Happy Cooking!
These were perfect!! My roommate and I loved these. Everything I want in a chocolate chip cookie – soft in the middle, crisp on the edges, and not cakey. I halved the recipe and got 13. My dough was pretty soft so I added an additional tbsp of flour which helped. I also reduced the amount of chocolate chips a bit as I don’t like too many. I am saving this recipe for the future and will definitely make these again.
Hi Alaina, I’m so glad you and your roommate loved the cookies! Thank you for sharing your fantastic review and comments!
This is my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe!
Hi Nora, how important is the flax egg? can this be left out? or made with Chia seeds instead?
Flax eggs help bind the cookie dough together and help with the texture. Chia eggs should work in the same way though!