This recipe for the perfect frosted vegan sugar cookies is soft, chewy, fluffy, and melt-in-your-mouth delicious!
The best vegan sugar cookie recipe
With no butter, no eggs, and no dairy required, people are always amazed at just how wonderful these buttery sugar cookies taste.
Plus, unlike many other vegan sugar cookie recipes, this one can be made with only basic cookie ingredients.
In fact, you may already have everything in your kitchen needed to make the chewy vegan cookies for dessert tonight.
And yes, the recipe totally works with cookie cutters!
Also try these Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Vegan Lofthouse sugar cookies
Have you ever tried a Lofthouse sugar cookie?
These soft homemade vegan sugar cookies are sure to remind you of the cake-like decorated sugar cookies you can find in the bakery section of your local grocery store.
They are perfect for Valentine’s Day dessert, festive Christmas cookie trays, birthday parties, holiday parties, or simply just because.
The recipe is also easy to customize.
I will often add a few drops of almond extract, coconut extract, pure peppermint extract, or maple extract for a fun flavor twist.
Or turn them into vegan chai cookies by stirring a sprinkle of cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, ginger, and ground cloves into the batter before adding the liquid ingredients.
You might also like this Vegan Cheesecake – No Cashews
Ingredients for vegan sugar cookies
The cookies require no flax eggs or chia eggs, just everyday sugar cookie ingredients.
To make the recipe, you will need flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, oil or dairy free butter, nondairy milk, and pure vanilla extract.
Flour – Tested flour options that work include white all purpose flour, oat flour, and whole grain spelt flour, which is my favorite. Do not use almond flour or coconut flour.
For dairy free and gluten free sugar cookies, use oat flour. I have not tried all purpose gluten free flour, so be sure to report back for other readers if you experiment.
If you prefer a grain free and paleo option, try these Keto Cookies.
Sugar – As a cost effective option, I often go with regular white sugar here. Another granulated sweetener can be substituted if you wish, including refined sugar free coconut sugar, date sugar, or a no sugar option like xylitol.
Pure maple syrup and agave are options I have not tried yet and therefore cannot recommend.
Butter – These sugar cookies can either be oil free or made without vegan butter. Even when using real sugar and vegan butter, they only have about 70 calories each.
The oil version, which uses melted coconut oil or vegetable oil, will have more of a crispy, shortbread texture, while the plantbased butter version is softer.
Both options are really good, so it is entirely your choice.
Vanilla – For the best taste, choose pure vanilla extract. In these cookies and with baking in general, I recommend avoiding imitation vanilla or artificial vanilla flavoring.
Milk – Finally, milk of choice refers to any vegan milk alternative. You may use oat milk, soy milk, cashew milk, coconut milk, almond milk, rice milk, or whatever you have in the refrigerator.
Trending Right Now: Vegan Brownies
Easy step by step recipe video
Above – Watch the vegan sugar cookie recipe video
How to make egg free sugar cookies
Step one is to get out a large mixing bowl. Add all dry ingredients to the bowl.
Mix these ingredients very well before adding the oil, milk, and vanilla extract. Stir everything together to form a sugar cookie dough.
The dough should look dry at first. Keep stirring, and it will achieve a cookie dough texture after about a minute of stirring. You can also use a stand mixer if you own one, or simply stir by hand.
Either smush the dough into one giant ball and then roll into cookie balls, or transfer the dough to a gallon sized bag and form a ball from inside the bag.
If you are not ready to bake right away, you can make the dough ahead of time and refrigerate covered overnight or for a few days.
When ready to bake cookies, preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Fold the Ziploc in half, then roll out the dough inside until it takes up the entirety of the other half of the bag.
Cut open the bag, and cut out shapes with cookie cutters or form into cookie shapes with your hands.
Place the sugar cookie shapes on a baking tray. Bake on the center rack of a properly calibrated oven for eleven minutes.
The cookies should look underdone when you remove them from the oven. Let the pan cool for at least ten minutes before handling the cookies, because they continue to firm up as they cool.
To prevent the frosting from melting, make sure the cookies are no longer hot before adding any icing, sprinkles, or other toppings.
Prefer chocolate cookies? Try these Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Plant based sugar cookie frosting recipe
If you want to cut out the sugar cookies and add icing, feel free to use your favorite store bought or homemade buttercream or vanilla vegan frosting recipe.
Below is the vegan icing I used, adapted from my Easy Cinnamon Rolls.
Beat room temperature 8 oz packaged or homemade vegan cream cheese with 4 oz vegan butter spread, 2 cups powdered sugar, and 1 tsp pure vanilla extract.
Add a little milk of choice as needed.
Or for a healthier option, you can frost the sugar cookies with melted Coconut Butter and add sweetener of choice as desired or even mashed banana.
I opted to garnish the finished cookies with rainbow sprinkles for presentation.
(Note: the cookies can also be rolled into balls an flattened a little before baking if you want thicker cookies instead of cut outs.)
*Here’s a similar recipe for Vegan Snickerdoodles
Vegan Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups flour (spelt, white, or oat flour) Or make these Keto Cookies
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup sugar (unrefined if desired)
- 6 tbsp oil or melted vegan butter
- 1 1/2 tbsp milk of choice
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- *If you want to frost the cookies, feel free to use your favorite icing. The frosting recipe I used is written out earlier in this post. And if you’re a visual person, be sure to watch the video above that shows how to make the cookies!Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients to form a dough. It will be dry at first but should turn into cookie dough within a minute of stirring. Either smush dough into a big ball and then roll into cookie balls, or transfer to a gallon-sized ziploc and smush into a ball from inside the bag. If desired, you can refrigerate the dough overnight or even for a few days. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 F. Fold the bag in half, then roll the dough out from inside the bag until it takes up the one half of the bag (as shown in the third photo in this post). Cut open the bag, cut out shapes, and place on a baking tray. Bake 11 minutes. They’ll look a little underdone, so let them cool and do not touch them for at least 10 minutes. Be sure the cookies are completely cooled before frosting them, or the frosting will melt.View Nutrition Facts
Notes
Have you made this recipe?
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More Holiday Vegan Cookies
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Lydia Huerta says
These cookies look beautiful & Yummy! How did you get such a bright pink frosting/ I see you used your cream cheese frosting recipe, but how did you get such a bold color?
Thank you!
Jason Sanford says
Hi Lydia, there are different options you can use, including beet juice, freeze dried strawberry powder, or natural food coloring. Katie used a little food coloring for these 🙂
Gran says
This recipe is amazing! We used them to make cut outs for our holiday cookie tray and you would never guess they are vegan!
We used canned frosting to save time, but on some of them we just added a few sprinkles, and they are still delicious without frosting at all.
CCK Media Team says
Thank you so much for making them 🙂
Cassie Thuvan Tran says
These look AMAZING–especially with the icing! I make sugar cookies all the time–okay, it’s been a while, but I used to make them frequently! The recipe would be very similar–sometimes I’d use coconut oil and sometimes I’d use vegan butter. It really depends on the quality of the cookie I’m aiming for and what we have in the house! Usually, my batch is extra large to last us longer for dessert–yum!
Beck says
Great recipe except I had to double the amount of oil and it was still incredibly dry and crumbly 🙂
Paige Cassandra Flamm says
These cookies look amazing! I need to try them!
Sam says
You do!
I made them for a Christmas cookie exchange a few days ago and have already made a second batch this morning because my family couldn’t get enough!
Lawrence A. Ross says
Cookies look amazing!
Plant Based Rohit says
I am going to try this recipe today. I just hope I can make the icing look as good as you did. Fingers Crossed ?
twinkle kumawat says
A party without cake is just a meeting. so I think feel-good day make it, A slice of heaven.
mary says
What a lovely Valentine’s Day treat! and simple to make which is a HUGE bonus! So pretty:)
Bryan Carpenter says
Wow! Looks delicious and yummy. I loved to eat cookies. I will try to make this recipe for my brother and also itself. I looking forward to here for more posts. Thank you so much for shared such a good post.
LiZ says
I made a small batch and they are delicious!
If I want to make a big batch, say 5x the recipe, should I multiply even the baking soda and baking powder?
Jason Sanford says
Hmm, never tried 5x-ing it! Be sure to report back if you experiment!
Jason
🍪 says
I would, because technically you are making 5 batches of the cookies and you wouldn’t use less baking powder/ soda if you were making 5 individual batches
Holly says
I made these for the holidays and they were the best sugar cookies I’ve ever tried, vegan or not vegan. I have been a vegan for two years, but the rest of my family loved them also!
I followed the recipe to a T, but next time I’m doubling it for sure, because they went FAST! 🙂 🙂
Beth says
Would this work ok with regular white flour?
Jason Sanford says
Yes 🙂
Holly says
I used regular white flour in mine and they were perfect.
Chef Cart says
Now a time vegan recipe is most popular with changing the alarming climate change. I appreciate your great writing. thanks for share.
shapelessjourneys says
Easy to make and delicious
Kristen Andersson says
Hi Katie! I would like to use your Vegan Sugar Cookie recipe to make cookies for my son’s class (we are in Sweden and schools are still open) for the end of the school year. The kids have multiple allergies, so I need to make the cookies gluten egg and dairy free. Vegan is great too. I see that it calls for vegan butter. Can regular margarine be substituted for that (we don’t have many vegan butter options here)? Also, would a regular gluten free flour work? Last, how have you found the recipe works with oat milk (Oatley for example). Sorry for all the questions! Thanks for your help. Kind regards, Kristen Andersson
Jason Sanford says
Oat milk is fine, as is margarine. The only gf flour that’s been tested has been oat flour (if you use certified gf then oat flour is gf), so unfortunately there’s no way to know what the results would be using another gf flour without trying it, but be sure to report back if you experiment!
Jason
Kristine says
These turned out fantastic and the taste was excellent. Didn’t even make it to frosting because they ate them so fast. Whole family loved them. Will definitely make again.
Sam says
My family loved them too! The kids of course, but also my husband 😂
Nicole says
For the sugar should it be Liquid or just regular granulated? I have the option between honey, swerve, brown, and white sugar. Also for the oil does melted coconut oil work?
CCK Media Team says
Hi, use granulated sugar (such as regular white sugar or evaporated cane sugar for unrefined). Melted coconut oil works; just make sure the rest of your ingredients aren’t cold when you add the oil.
Eric Solis says
The cookies are pretty good however it took me a while to get to a workable consistency.It was VERY crumbly dough , I managed to cut out some out and they were very tasty !
alisa waldron says
Mine are very crumbly also. I can’t use it. What did you do to get It to a workable dough?
Alicia O says
I tried this recipe and the cookies turned out well! However there are two things to note for future bakers: I suggest baking the cookies for longer than 11 minutes. I found that this is not long enough and although the recipe says to take them out even when they look a bit underdone, they came out too floppy. So I suggest baking them for a couple minutes longer and monitoring their colour at the bottom to make sure they aren’t too soft and have more structure (Unless you like soft and flimsy cookies).
Second, for those who refrigerate their dough for a few days, I suggest warming up the dough in your hands for a bit to make it less hard and more pliable. Once you work with the dough for a bit you will find it to be very easy to roll out.
Overall great recipe and I will definitely try it again but just bake them a bit longer.
Gia says
Hi! Thank you so much these turned out amazing! I baked them for exactly 11 minutes and they turned out perfect 🙂
isabella klochoritis says
amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you have to do this
Christina says
Hello! Very excited to try out your recipe! My daughter is allergic to dairy and nuts, so she was so excited to hear I found a cookie cutout recipe she can enjoy!
I was wondering if you have ever tried turning these cookies into chocolate sugar cookies? Any suggestions on how much cocoa powder and/or how to modify the flour ratio?
Thank you!
CCK Media Team says
Hmm maybe replace 1/4 cup of the flour with cocoa and try that? If you experiment before we do, definitely let us know how it goes!
Ellie says
Can these be made with any oil? Thank you!
CCK Media Team says
Use something neutral, like canola, vegetable, or sunflower oil 🙂
Heather Breckenridge says
Made mine today, for Christmas with the kiddos! OMW! I can’t believe they are healthy!!! I used the monk fruit sugar and coconut oil, and everybody loves them! Perfect for decorating too!!
Carly says
Hi! It says this recipe can be made without oil or vegan butter, what would you use instead to replace that liquid? Thanks!
D says
I was wondering the same thing!
Sam says
I made these vegan cookies for a Christmas cookie exchange a few days ago and have already made a second batch this morning because my family couldn’t get enough.
Thank you for such a good recipe! We’d tried a different vegan sugar cookie last year and much prefer this one. 🙂
B says
This is a great recipe. We aren’t vegan but don’t do eggs. You don’t miss them in this recipe!
Jamie says
These are so delicious! I had to stop myself from eating too many!
Marie says
These are so tasty, finally found holiday cookies I can eat with my particular diet restrictions and the whole family loves them too!
CCK Media Team says
Thank you so much for making them 🙂
Katie Poag says
These cookies are the first cookies I’ve ever made that actually held their shape. I used store bought icing because I was lazy but these were awesome. I made mine a little too thick so I baked them for 14 minutes and that was good.
Katie Poag says
I used white flour, brown sugar, and melted vegan earth balance spread for the butter. I only used a pinch of salt since that’s always enough for me. I made it with kiddos so nothing was measured perfectly. I mixed the dough with my hands and added just a tiny bit of olive oil to my hands to incorporate the crumbs. After I made it into a ball it was the right consistency. After we made shapes and put it onto the greased pan I stuck them in the freezer for 10 min before baking since that was another tip I read to help them hold shape.
CCK Media Team says
Thank you for trying them 🙂
Tessa says
I used Bobs Red Mill 1-1 Baking Flour (blue bag) to make this and the cookies turned out delicious! I did have to add another tablespoon of milk and added 2 more tablespoons of melted earth balance because the dough was too dry and crumbly – I assume the gf flour just needed a little more liquid? Either way, they turned out perfectly after 11 minutes in the oven. My husband is so happy to get some Christmas cookies!
Stephanie says
I’ve always had good luck with CCK recipes, but this one was just meh for me. I used oat flour and melted vegan butter. The cookies spread quite a bit and puffed up a lot during baking, but then settled after baking to be relatively thin. They tasted really good, but the appearance and texture was much more like a traditional round sugar cookie rather than the fluffy texture of a Lofthouse cookie (which is what I was going for).
I’m curious about the rationale behind rolling the dough in the zippered plastic bag. I rolled mine between two pieces of parchment paper to a thickness of 1/4″ using pastry rulers, which is how I typically do my cut-outs. Is the plastic bag method integral to getting better results?
Sheryl says
So good! Love these! Definitely 5-stars! Used oat flour! I am allergic to backing powder so used 1/4 t. ascorbic acid (Vit C) instead for soda activation….and turned out great. I also used less salt as the ascorbic acid provides a bit of salty flavor. I used 1/3 c. monkfruit sugar instead of 1/2 c. granulated sugar. With the frosting, they were plenty sweet. Such a good basic recipe without eggs! Thank you for sharing this! Will definitely make again!
CCK Media Team says
❤❤
Toby says
Omg these are delish!!!
CCK Media Team says
Thank you so much for trying them 🙂
Jane says
I wonder if anyone has tried this recipe with using any oil/butter…?
I cannot eat fats/oils.
Christine Gregory says
If I don’t want to cut out shapes, and I roll them into balls, do I flatten the balls or just put the balls on the cookie sheet? Thanks
CCK Media Team says
Hi, either works! You can either flatten them before or immediately after baking by pressing down with a spoon.
VG says
I’ve put the dough in the fridge while the oven is getting ready. Let’s hope for the best!
Lily says
These are my favorite sugar cookie recipe!!!
Julie says
Question for ya! If I’m rolling them into balls do I need to press them down? That might seem like an obvious thing to do but I’m following your recipe to a T & my first dozen didn’t fall flat like I expected them to while baking. I’m optimistic though that they’ll still be fine. I’m working on finding great recipes & ideas for our son with some food sensitivities & possibile diabetes. So I used MonkFruit instead of sugar – Hoping for the best! Thanks for this recipe!
CCK Media Team says
Hi, yes you can press down before or after baking if they don’t spread enough on their own. We have never tried with monk fruit so are honestly not sure if that works in this recipe. Be sure to report back with results!
Jenni says
Good consistency and easy to make. Baking powder/soda flavor was a little too strong in the end product.
zosia says
They are very good
Stephanie says
Question about salt- In the recipe it lists 1/2 tea, but in the video it says a pinch which I’d equate to about 1/4 tea. Which is it?
Also if using melted vegan butter salted or unsalted? Does it make a big difference? What is the best way to accommodate the listed salt in the recipe?
Julia says
Instead of milk, does anyone know if I can swap that with water?
Abbagale Smuge says
DO NOT SWAP MILK WITH WATER. That’s just gross.
Kaylee says
Cookies are amazing. One question though. It says it makes 15 cookies an I get about 6 out of the recipe am I not doing something right?
Isamar says
Hi! I’m so excited to try these, they look and sound delicious. I was wondering can they be made with almond flour and brown sugar as well?
CCK Media Team says
Hi! Just use this recipe for almond flour cookies instead. You can leave out the chocolate chips: https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/keto-cookies-recipe/
Kat says
Hi, just leaving this comment for future users.
I chose to use coconut oil.
The dough was crumbly and hard to work with. I smooshed the Ingredients together as best as I could. Put it in the fridge over night. Let it sit out for 1 hour next day because it was very hard. Sliced it… some stayed formed, some still crumbly but I smooshed it together. They kept their form after cooking.
I just didn’t like how I could not roll it out like typical dough so you could cut shapes.
I think maybe it depends on the oil. I wonder if I had tried vegan butter if it would have been more dough like.
They still taste great and have nice texture after cooking.
Maria says
Best sugar cookie recipe ever, not just for vegan cookies but for all cookies!
Brittany says
These vegan sugar cookies and vegan cream cheese frosting are delicious. I have a lot of icing left over. How long will it stay in the fridge?
Amy Samuels says
Where is the frosting recipe???
Rejzeya says
Scroll almost all the way back up, kind of a ways back up. It isn’t written in the typical recipe format. It is between two pictures of the frosted cookies titled (for lack of a better term) Frosted Sugan Cookie Recipe. I pasted it below.
“Below is the one I used, adapted from my Easy Cinnamon Rolls Recipe.
Beat room temperature 8oz store-bought or homemade vegan cream cheese with 4oz vegan butter spread, 2 cups powdered sugar, and 1 tsp pure vanilla extract.
Add a little milk of choice as needed.
Or for a healthier option, you can frost the sugar cookies with melted coconut butter and add sweetener of choice as desired or even mashed banana. I opted to garnish the finished cookies with rainbow sprinkles for presentation.”
Katie says
Lovely cookies! My dough was a bit dry at first so I added about 2 tablespoons of applesauce. Oh boy! These are amazing.
I also made the cream cheese icing but excluded the butter, and this was really fun and tasty to decorate with my kids.
Thank you Katie!
CCK Media Team says
Thank you for trying them!
Cat says
Katie, What did you use to make the frosting such a vibrant pink in the photos? Thanks!
me says
Hi there, can I use gluten free flour for these? They look delish 😍
CCK Media Team says
Hi! The only gluten free option we’ve tried is gf oat flour. If you experiment with an all purpose gf flour, be sure to report back with results!
Vi says
Katie how do you have so many amazing recipes that sound so good AND gluten free ones too? You’re awesome!
Hannah says
Made these vegan sugar cookies for a Halloween party where none of the guests were vegan. People couldn’t get enough of them and I never told the secret 😉
Nicki says
Great recipe! I changed it up a little by replacing the milk with orange juice. I omitted the vanilla and added cinnamon and cardamom. Some reviews said the dough was crumbly, and mine was to, but this is easily resolved by adding another 1/2 to 1 tbs of liquid. The consistency can vary so much depending on humidity and how people measure their flour. Anyway, I rolled into balls and pressed with a glass. After they cooled I brushed on a simple powdwered sugar/milk icing. They were so good and the texture was just what I was going for! Thanks!
Bianca says
These are amazing! I’m so happy we found a cookie my son can have. Have you tried freezing them after baking and whenever wanted one, taken out of the freezer to thaw?
CCK Media Team says
Hmm we have only tried freezing the dough, never the finished cookies. But we do not see why it wouldn’t work. Thank you for making them!
Ellen says
My kiddos and I made these vegan sugar cookies into Halloween shapes (ghosts, pumpkins, witch hats). Just as cute as they were tasty!
Robin says
I made these for my non-vegan grandchildren and children and they LOVED them. Definitely great cookies.
CCK Media Team says
This makes us so happy 🙂
Kristy says
Great recipe. Perfectly soft. They are my new go to recipe for the vegans in my life
Viorica says
This is the epitomy of trust the process.
I used coconut oil and the raw cookies were crumbling in my hands.
I was pleasantly surprised at the final result and how tasty they are!
Clairissa says
The recipe was the same for me! I followed the exact recipe and it was crumbly but the result was a perfect delicious cookie! It really was a “trust the process” recipe. 😂
Mallie says
These were delicious and perfect for the holiday party I am planning to bring them to for a cookie exchange.
Clairissa says
I made these cookies for my Vegan husband and honestly I had low hopes. When I made the dough the dough was very crumbly and hard to form balls so I thought I probably messed it up or something. I made the recipe anyway and had my husband try it and myself and they were AMAZING!!!! Tasted exactly like store bought vanilla cookies. Super good will make again!!!
Anne says
Great basic sugar cookie recipe, both vegans and non vegans enjoyed.
Ginger says
As others stated, my dough was crumbly, so I added about 3 more tablespoons of butter and about 1 tablespoon of milk and then it held together. I baked mine until golden brown, which took a few extra minutes.
Sahara says
I needed to make vegan sugar cookies to decorate. I replaced the milk with water, used oil instead of butter, and used oat flour. It seemed a little too wet so I add a teeny bit more oat flour. They tasted chewy and yummy.
Erika Torres says
Hi! Would these work with a sugar substitute like monkfruit or erythritol? Thanks
Pat says
I’m needing an egg free sugar cookie to layer in a banana pudding. Would these hold up?
Elle B says
Would these work with a cookie stamp/embosser?
CCK Media Team says
Sure!
Summer Park says
I made these and pressed the entire dough ball into a cake pan for a fruit pizza base and it was absolutely phenomenal. I included a little almond and I used butter flavored shortening as my fat and plant based heavy whipping cream for my milk. It was so sweet and chewy. 10/10
Amb says
I made these gluten free and they turned out well. I did a double batch, and used half King Arthur GF measure for measure flour, and half brown rice flour. I used coconut oil and almond milk. In the end it was still crumbly so I added an extra tablespoon of oil and an extra tablespoon of almond milk. That seemed about right for the texture.
Rolling it out in the bag, it was still a little too thick. I will just roll it between two silicone mats next time. Took slightly longer for the first batch to cook through since they were too thick. Very delicious once baked through and cooked.