These vegan peanut butter cookies are rich, chewy, and full of peanut butter flavor. Made with just 5 healthy ingredients and perfect for your Christmas cookie trays!
Now that we’ve had gingerbread cookies AND cupcakes, I figured I should give you a little variety for your holiday baking.
And since we’ve already made peanut butter blossoms with plenty of chocolate involved, today we’re making plain but amaaazing vegan peanut butter cookies! Legit like eating pure peanut butter, only in sweet, chewy cookie form.
Ingredients for vegan peanut butter cookies
- Almond flour: almond flour keeps the cookies really soft and gives a great chewy texture.
- Date sugar: date sugar is simply dried dates that have been ground up, and it gives the cookies natural sweetness all from fruit.
- Peanut butter: peanut butter gives the cookies rich flavor and texture. Make sure to get oil-free, unsweetened peanut butter to avoid a lot of junk that’s added to store-bought nut butters.
- Applesauce: unsweetened applesauce helps the cookies maintain a soft, moist texture.
- Vanilla extract: vanilla helps flavor the cookie dough.
Tips for making vegan peanut butter cookies
- Mix the dry ingredients first. Depending on the almond flour and date sugar you use, there may be lumps to work out with a fork before mixing in the other ingredients to make sure everything in the cookie dough is incorporated.
- The criss cross pattern is optional. I just do this for that classic PB cookie look, but obviously it’s not necessary.
- Keep an eye on them while they bake. Ovens can vary greatly in temperature, and mine were perfectly golden + a little toasty underneath after 20 minutes. Yours may need less time if your oven runs hotter, so keep an eye on them after about 10 minutes to make sure they don’t get too dark.
- Let the cookies cool completely. Make sure to let the cookies cool before removing them from the pan.
These vegan peanut butter cookies are so, so simple, but absolutely packed with that sweet, salty peanut butter flavor that I love so much. The peanut butter paired with the sweet, rich, chewy cookie dough is such a good combination. Don’t let their humble appearance fool you, you NEED these gems for your Christmas cookie trays!
Xo,
Sara
Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups almond flour
- 3/4 cup date sugar
- 1/4 cup oil-free, unsweetened peanut butter
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix the almond flour and date sugar. Use a fork to break up any lumps in the almond flour or date sugar before measuring.
- Add the peanut butter, applesauce, and vanilla and stir to combine into a thick dough.
- Measure about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough per cookie, roll it into a ball and set it on the sheet. Repeat for all 12 cookies. There may be a bit of extra dough leftover, which you can just spread evenly between the cookies on the sheet, then press them down into a cookie shape on the baking sheet. The edges may crack a little, just press them back together gently.
- Once all the cookies are on the baking sheet, use the back of a fork to gently make the criss-cross pattern in the center of each cookie if desired.
- Bake the cookies for 20 minutes. Ovens can vary greatly in temperature, and mine were perfectly golden + a little toasty underneath after 20 minutes. Yours may need less time if your oven runs hotter, so keep an eye on them after about 10 minutes to make sure they don't get too dark.
- Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 20 minutes before carefully removing.
- Store in a tupperware in the refrigerator or at room temperature. Due to the moisture and natural oil in the cookies, they will soften a bit when stored.
