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These Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies are about to become your new favourite treat! Not only are they delicious, they are dairy free, refined sugar free, and gluten free! Plus, they’re ready to enjoy in about 15 minutes!
Recipe Difficulty – Very Easy
Table of Contents
Why this recipe works
I created these cookies because – well, who doesn’t love cookies, right?!?! Especially when we’re talking peanut butter chocolate chip cookies!
These gluten free peanut cookies only take six ingredients and are ready in just 15 minutes or so. That’s a win in and of itself! Add to it that they are absolutely delicious and you can’t go wrong!
These easy peanut butter cookies are so easy to make PLUS you know your kids will love them! My niece loves making these vegan cookies. After I taught her to make them, all she would say was “cookies” when she saw me!
Want something to dunk them into? Try my Hot Chocolate recipe.
This was inspired by my 3 Ingredient Oat and Banana Cookie recipe, and pairs well with this amazing Peanut Butter Milkshake.
I also added this recipe into my collection of 21 Gluten Free Easter Recipes, my best 33 Vegan Desserts, 35 Gluten Free Desserts and 10 Healthy Baking For Kids Recipes round up!
Ingredients to make Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
- Coconut Oil – is a great substitute for butter in vegan baking.
- Maple Syrup – is a fantastic natural sweetener.
- Peanut Butter – can be either smooth or crunchy.
- Plain Flour – I use gluten-free flour, but regular will work as well. If you have some spare then try making my Gluten Free Waffles.
- Salt – helps to accentuate the flavours in this cookie.
- Chocolate – I prefer dark chocolate, but other kinds will work as well. Dark chocolate is typically vegan, but be sure to check if that’s a concern.
See recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Substitutions
- Coconut Oil – can be replaced with butter or olive oil.
- Maple Syrup – can almost always be replaced with honey or agave syrup. If you prefer date sweetened cookies, use double the amount of date paste in place of the syrup.
- Peanut Butter – Another nut butter or even sunbutter will also work well.
- Plain Flour – Feel free to use your favourite flour replacement – almond flour, coconut flour, oat flour, etc. They may not bind as well and be a little more crumbly but will still be tasty!
- Chocolate – could be left out or replaced with your favourite cookie addition – butterscotch chips, M&Ms, etc.
Variations
- Deluxe – For a more deluxe cookie, you could serve them as thumbprint cookies with the chocolate on top. You could also serve them as Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars with a scoop of ice cream on top. Another way to step them up is to add some oats and make peanut butter oatmeal cookies.
- Kid friendly – These gf peanut butter cookies are already kid-friendly! Let them help make the cookie dough to help them be a bigger part of the process.
See this Chunky Chocolate Chip version of this recipe on my website!
How to make Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 180C. While it preheats, melt the coconut oil in a pot over low heat.
Step 2: Mix the coconut oil, maple syrup, peanut butter, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Step 3: Add the flour and chopped chocolate and mix to combine.
Step 4: Roll into six balls and place on a lined baking tray.
Step 5: Use a fork or the bottom of a glass to press the top of the dough balls down. Bake peanut butter cookies for 11 minutes.
Step 6: Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 1-2 minutes.
Hint: When you take them out of the oven, they should still be quite doughy to touch. Allowing them to cool will help to firm the outer part of the cookie whilst keeping the middle nice and doughy.
Leftovers
This only makes six cookies, so you may not have any left! If you do have some leftover cookies, store them at room temperature in an airtight container.
Recipe FAQs
Yes! My six ingredient peanut cookies are completely vegan and so yummy! They only take about 15 minutes to make and are made mainly of plant based ingredients.
While there are some 3 ingredient peanut butter cookie recipes out there that don’t use flour at all, I prefer a few more ingredients to have a great flavour. I use gluten-free flour, coconut oil, maple syrup, chocolate, and a pinch of salt.
Not your basic peanut butter cookie. It is full of sugar! I’ve made a healthy peanut butter cookie recipe using syrup as a sweetener instead of sugar.
Both work great! It really just depends on your preference. If you want those little pieces of peanuts in your cookie, go for crunchy. If you prefer a soft bite, stick with creamy.
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Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 4 tsbp coconut oil, melted, roughly 60g
- 4 tbsp maple syrup
- 2 tbsp peanut butter, smooth or crunchy
- 150 g plain flour, (I use gluten-free) roughly 1 cup
- 1 pinch salt
- 75 g chocolate, (I use dark) chopped
Instructions
- Pre heat the oven to 180C. Melt the coconut oil in a pot over a low heat.
- Add to a large mixing bowl along with the maple syrup, peanut butter and salt and mix together.
- Now add the flour and chopped chocolate and mix together.
- Roll into 6 balls, place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.
- Press down the top with either a fork or something flat (like the bottom of a glass) and bake for 11 minutes at 180C.
- Take them out of the oven (they should still be quite doughy to touch) and allow to cool for 1-2 minutes. This helps to firm the outer part of the cookie whilst keeping it doughy in the middle.
These tasted good but sadly they came out very crumbly for me
Hi Jamie. i have tried various savory receipt on this website, all of them turned out to be great.
This is the only receipt so far that I have some problem. So, after mixing all the ingredients, the dough still seem incredibly dry. in fact, too dry to form any shape. When I press down the cookies before cooking, they just come apart. I wonder if I did something wrong…
Hey Florence, sorry this happened. Sounds like you either missed out the coconut oil or didn’t use the correct amount?
Might it be confusion on the recipe ‘4 tsbp coconut oil’ as to being tsp or tbsp. I did look at the weight to check. They were good btw!
Hi James, can you tell me if I can sub the xantham gum for anything. I love all your recipes
Hey Avril,
I would suggest just leaving it out if you don’t have any. It just helps to bind the cookies a little better but they should work even without it 🙂 let me know how you get on!