These Almond Flour Sugar Cookies are the perfect cutout cookies to make this holiday season. Delectably soft and chewy with the perfect amount of sweetness. These healthy sugar cookies are also vegan, gluten free, oil free and can be made refined sugar free!
OMG GUYS. I DID IT. IT’S HERE. Vegan AND gluten free Sugar Cookies. This recipe was totally suppose to go up next week but I’m way too excited I had to share it today.
I was kind of torn between the crispy kind of sugar cookies and soft-chewy sugar cookies but after a lot of contemplation, I went for the soft and chewy cut out cookies. And wow, I’m so glad I did- they remind me of my childhood holiday favourite: pillsbury holiday sugar cookies. Are you guys ready to make some FIRE SAUCE sugar cookies? Let’s do this.
Ingredients in these Almond Flour Sugar Cookies
These cut out sugar cookies are made with just 8 ingredients that are vegan, gluten free, oil free, flourless and can be made refined sugar free.
- Almond flour: The key ingredient to make these cookies buttery and moist without any added oils. Be sure to use super fine almond flour for best results and NOT almond meal.
- Tapioca Starch: When working with almond flour, I always like to add in tapioca starch to ensure they don’t just fall apart which is super important for cut-out sugar cookies.
- Tahini: Makes these cookies extra buttery rich.
- Apple Sauce & Baking powder: These two ingredients replace eggs that are typically used and make them incredibly soft.
- Maple syrup: An additional sweetener that also helps hold these cookies together.
- Sugar: Either cane or coconut sugar works here. Cane sugar makes them much more traditional with just little specks of crunchiness while coconut sugar makes the cookies slightly softer and darker.
- Vanilla extract: Gives depth and more flavour to these sugar cookies!
And I know a lot of people are big on frosting their cookies so I also provided a quick and easy cashew buttercream frosting in the recipe card that I love using in sandwich cookies (coming soon) and carrot cakes. However, I think they are absolutely delicious as is.
How to Make Vegan Almond Flour Sugar Cookies
These cookies are easy to make in just 1 bowl and there’s no chilling time involved. Simply:
- Mix wet ingredients into a bowl.
- Add in dry ingredients and combine.
- Roll out the dough using a rolling pin
- Cut out cookies
- Transfer onto cookie baking tray. Bake for 13-15 minutes and then let them cool!
Important Tips to Making these Almond Flour Sugar Cookies
- Weigh the Ingredients: It yields accurate and best results! Adding too much liquid/dry ingredients can change the texture significantly. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, be sure to level off your measuring tools.
- Roll the Dough 1/4 of an Inch in Thickness: Too thin and the cookies will break. Too thick and cookies will be dough-y and more on the raw side (still tasty though).
- Let Cookies Cool on Baking Tray: These sugar cookies are delicate right out of the oven so be sure to let them cool for 2-3 minutes on the cookie tray. Then carefully (slide them off or use a spatula) transfer them onto a wire rack and let them cool completely for the best texture.
How to Store Sugar Cookies
- Unfrosted Sugar Cookies: Store at room temperature in an air tight container for 2-3 days.
- Frosted Sugar Cookies: Store in the refrigerator in a air tight container for up to 3 days.
- To Freeze Sugar Cookies: Place the cookies into the freezer on a flat baking tray. Once frozen, place them into air tight (reusable) ziplock bags. .
Helpful Equipment to Make Almond Flour Sugar Cookies
- Food Scale: For best results, use a food scale and weigh ingredients.
- Parchment Paper / Silicon Baking Mat: To ensure the cookies don’t stick to the cookie pan.
- Rolling Pin: I find a wooden rolling pin much easier to work with especially for cookies.
- Cookie Baking Tray: A light coloured baking tray for even baking and so the cookies don’t get too browned.
- Wire Cooling Rack: To let the cookies cool properly without getting soggy.
I hope you love these Vegan Almond Flour Sugar Cookies as much as I do! They’re so soft, chewy and melt-in-yo-mouth… and kind of remind me of pillsbury cookies! So now that you have some weekend plans…
More Vegan Holiday Cookies to Make!
- Vegan Ginger Molasses Cookies
- Vegan Snickerdoodles
- Healthy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Snowball Cookies
- Salted Pretzel Chocolate Chip Chickpea Cookies
If you recreate this Almond Flour Sugar Cookies recipe let me know how you liked it by leaving a comment and rating below or by tagging me on Instagram @Okonomikitchen, I love seeing all of your tasty recreations!
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Almond Flour Sugar Cookies
- Total Time: 23 minutes
- Yield: 16 cookies 1x
Description
These Almond Flour Sugar Cookies are the perfect cutout cookies to make this holiday season. Delectably soft and chewy with the perfect amount of sweetness. These healthy sugar cookies are also vegan, gluten free, oil free and can be made refined sugar free!
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 1/4 cup tahini (60ml // or runny cashew butter)*
- 1/4 cup apple sauce (60g)
- 2 tbsp maple syrup (40g)
- 2 tbsp sugar (26g // cane or coconut sugar)*
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (7.5g)
- 1/2 tsp almond extract, optional (2.5g)
- 1 1/2 cup almond flour (140g)
- 1/2 cup tapioca starch (32g) + more for dusting
- 1 tsp baking powder (5g)
Cashew Buttercream Frosting (Optional)
- 3/4 cup raw cashews (soaked in hot water for 15 minutes)
- 1/4 cup maple syrup (60g)
- 3 tbsp coconut cream (45g)
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
- Pre-heat oven to 350 F (180 C)
- Into a large mixing bowl, add in the tahini, apple sauce, maple syrup, sugar and vanilla, and whisk to combine. Then add in the almond flour, tapioca starch and baking powder. Use a silicon spatula and mix well until a dough forms.
- Cover work surface with parchment paper, dust surface with some tapioca starch and then transfer the dough on top. Dust the top of the dough with more tapioca starch and roll it out using a rolling pin, around 1/4 of an inch in thickness.
- Use a cookie cutter and cut into desired shapes/sizes. Gather scraps, re-roll out the dough and cut more cookies out. Repeat until you run out of dough.
- Using a spatula, carefully transfer the cookies onto a parchment lined baking tray. Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until the edges are ever so slightly golden brown. Remove from the oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking tray. Then carefully transfer the them onto a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy as is or get creative and frost/decorate them to you liking!
- Store leftovers in an air tight container at room temperature for 2-3 days.
Cashew Buttercream Frosting
- Add all the ingredients into a high speed blender. Blend until smooth and creamy.
- Frost cookies using a spoon or frosting pipe once the cookies have completely cooled. Frosted cookies are best eaten the day its made but leftovers can be stored fridge for up to 3 days.
Notes
- I find cane sugar gives the best texture for these cookies BUT coconut sugar can also be used. The cookies do tend to be just slightly softer.
- For best results, use super fine almond flour- NOT almond meal.
- Nutritional Information Disclaimer: Nutrition information is a rough estimate calculated on an online tool (Cronometer).
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Category: Desserts, Cookies
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: vegan, gluten free
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 119
- Sugar: 5.4g
- Sodium: 112mg
- Fat: 7.4g
- Saturated Fat: 0.68g
- Unsaturated Fat: 1.75g
- Trans Fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 12g
- Fiber: 1.5g
- Protein: 3g
- Cholesterol: 0
SAVE IT FOR LATER! ↓
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Great simple recipe! I was looking for a vegan sugar cookie recipe that doesn’t use fake butter and this works perfectly.
If I were to sub in 1-to1 gluten free flour, would I use that to replace the almond flour and tapioca?
I haven’t tried so I can’t guarantee it will work but if you try please let me know how it goes!
You will need to find replacements for the fat of the almonds and the binding properties of the tapioca. For the almond flour, you could try adding more tahini or applesauce. Tapioca is naturally gluten-free, but you could sub arrowroot or likely potato starch as well. I have not tried either, but remember you are trying to replace the physical properties of the ingredients first to achieve the same finished product, flavour comes second (but still important)!
Great healthy sugar cookie recipe! My whole family enjoyed them 🙂
Great, easy and healthy recipe! Made with my daughter — I found the tahini flavour a bit strong so will do cashew butter next time!
So happy to hear you and your daughter enjoyed this recipe, Christal!
Cookies were easy to make and delicious! I ended up having to add a little extra almond flour, but it was easy to match the consistency in the photo shared of the dough. I dipped mine in melted chocolate chips and they were delicious! Not too sweet. Thanks for a great GF/V recipe!!
So glad they worked out for you, Sarah!
Hi!
Would you be able to use regular eggs in this recipe?
Hi! Sorry, I haven’t tested that out and can’t guarantee it will work.
Hi! Is it possible to use arrowroot powder instead of tapioca starch, do you know? Thank you!
Hi Laura!
I haven’t tried arrowroot in these but it could possibly work. Tapioca starch acts as a binder as well gives these the right texture. If you do try it, let me know how it goes! 🙂
Hi,
Can I ask why you choose to use tahini (that is sesame butter right?) and not almond butter? Thank you very much! Have a nice day 🙂
Hi Bertille!
I used tahini here because it’s light in colour and is the most liquid-y in comparison to other nut butters 🙂