Soft & Chewy Vegan Gingerbread Cookies (Gluten Free)
These perfectly spiced vegan gingerbread cookies are crisp on the edge with a snap yet soft in the center for the most delicious vegan Christmas cookie!
Why you’ll love these vegan gingerbread cookies (even if you aren’t vegan!)
So these might actually be my favorite of all vegan Christmas cookies this season, and I’ll tell you why.
These gluten free vegan gingerbread cookies have a beautiful warm spiced flavor, and they’re not overwhelmingly sweet. Just enough sugar to satisfy the craving but not give you that sugar rush.
PLEASE NOTE: This recipe is NOT suitable for a gingerbread house- instead, check out my vegan gingerbread house recipe here!
They also snap like a traditional gingerbread man cookie should. It’s literally like eating a Pepperidge Farm gingerbread cookie (those were my mom’s words, not mine!), only fresh out of the oven ;).
Plus, these healthy Christmas cookies are completely vegan and gluten free, yet you’d never know, making them the ultimate Christmas cookie to bring to any cookie exchange (don’t forget the vegan sugar cookies!). Or decorate on top of a gingerbread cake, gingerbread cupcakes, or even a copycat Starbucks gingerbread loaf!
I mean, that’s pretty cool right?
But before we go over how to make these cookies, let’s get a few questions out of the way!
Ingredients for vegan gingerbread cookies
For these vegan ginger cookies, you’ll need only a few key ingredients:
- Flour: you can use gluten free 1:1 baking flour or all purpose here.
- Granulated sugar: or coconut sugar.
- Spices: I like to use ground ginger and ground cinnamon. You can also add in nutmeg and/or ground cloves!
- Molasses
- Vegan butter or coconut oil: a note about the coconut oil- make sure it’s soft, and not solid!
- Unsweetened applesauce: Or dairy free yogurt. This replaces the eggs found in traditional gingerbread cookies.
As you can see, we’re not using baking soda here. This helps the cookies have a bit more of a “snap” to them!
How to make vegan gingerbread cookies (overview)
As delicate as these Christmas cookies look, they are actually extraordinarily easy to make, and really fun to involve the kids too 🙂
For the full written instructions and ingredient measurements, see the bottom of this post in the recipe card. You can also hit the “jump to recipe” button at the top of this post! Here, we’ll go over a brief overview of the steps, along with providing visuals for a better understanding of the recipe.
Make the dough
Much like my vegan chocolate chip cookies, the cookie dough part of these vegan gingerbread cookies is very easy to put together!
First start by whisking together all of the dry ingredients:: the flour, spices, and sea salt. Then set that aside.
- Whisk the dry ingredients. First start by whisking together all of the dry ingredients:: the flour, spices, and sea salt. Then set that aside.
- Combine the wet ingredients. Use a hand mixer or stand mixer and cream together the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. First the vegan butter and sugars, then add in the molasses and applesauce (or yogurt).
- Fold in the dry ingredients. Next, combine the wet and dry ingredients together until it forms a consistent and slightly sticky gingerbread dough.
- Chill! Place the dough into plastic wrap and chill the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes.
How do you make gingerbread man cookie cutters?
One of my favorite parts 🙂 When your gingerbread cookie dough is ready to be rolled out, simply dust a clean surface and your rolling pin with flour and begin to gently roll out the dough.
- Roll the dough out to be about 1/4 of an inch thick and make sure to flour your cookie cutters on the side that will cut into the dough.
- Press your favorite cookie cutter shape (I recommend a little gingerbread man cookie cutter, a Christmas tree cookie cutter, snowman, or snowflake! But have fun with it!).
- Repeat until there is no more space to make a cookie, then peel off the scraps. Use a spatula to gently carry the cookie onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
- You can re-roll the dough out to make more cookies as well!
- Then simply bake the cookies at 350F until done, and let cool before piping your vegan icing 🙂
The icing:
Making the vegan icing is so easy for these vegan gingerbread cookies- all you need to is combine powdered sugar, a little aquafaba or dairy free milk , and vanilla extract. Mix it all together until it’s a thick paste, then spoon into your piping bag! You’ll need just a drop really of dairy free milk- it’s less than you think! We have a whole post on how to make the perfect vegan royal icing. Go check it out!
I recommend Wilton Tip 3 for the piping if you want really fine lines! For the piping bag, I just picked up an icing bag at my local grocery store for $2 (it came with about 10 bags!).
I hope you love making these vegan gingerbread cookies as much as I do! They’re the perfect treat for Santa 🙂
If you make these cookies, let me know how they went in the comments below, as well as if you have any questions! As always, I would absolutely love to see your beautiful decorations on these cookies, so be sure to tag me on Instagram and Pinterest!
Happy vegan gingerbread cookie baking!
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If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!
Print
Soft & Chewy Vegan Gingerbread Cookies (Gluten Free)
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 14
- Total Time: 24 minutes
- Yield: 32 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: baking
Description
These perfectly spiced vegan gingerbread cookies are crisp on the edge with a snap yet soft in the center for the most delicious vegan Christmas cookie! Only 7 ingredients and so easy to make!
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup (218 g) all-purpose flour or gluten-free 1:1 baking flour
- 3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 cup (113 g) vegan butter, room temperature
- 1/4 cup (80 mL) molasses
- 1/3 cup (70 g) unsweetened dairy free yogurt, room temperature
- 1 batch vegan royal icing
Instructions
- Please read all instructions before beginning.
- Prep: Measure out all ingredients.
- Whisk the dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, and sea salt. Set aside.
- Make the gingerbread cookie dough: In a medium bowl, beat together the vegan butter or coconut oil and sugar until combined. Add in the molasses and dairy free yogurt, and continue to beat until completely combined. Add wet ingredients into dry and combine into a stick dough. Round dough into a ball, and wrap with plastic wrap. Place the dough into the fridge and chill for 30 minutes.
- Roll out the gingerbread dough: When the dough is chilled, lightly flour a clean surface and rolling pin, and roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick (it doesn’t have to be exact!). Choose your cookie cutters, lightly flour the side that is going to be cutting into the dough, and press the cookie cutter into the dough. Repeat for the remaining dough, rolling out the dough with the extra scraps until all of the dough is gone.
- Bake: Place the gingerbread men cookies onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (you can use a spatula if it’s hard to pick them up!) and place the cookies back into the fridge to chill while the oven preheats to 350F. When the oven is preheated, baked the cookies for 12-14 minutes or until slightly puffy and slightly tough to touch (they shouldn’t be soft).
- Cool + decorate: Let the cookies cool for 15 minutes before icing. Make the vegan royal icing according to the post instructions.
- Enjoy! Spoon icing into an icing bag with tip, and pipe a design onto each cookie. Let set for 10 minutes. Enjoy!
Followed all instructions and cookies were impossible to transfer to a sheet.
Oh no! Did you weigh your ingredients?
Good morning
Your vegan gingerbread cookies recipe says applesauce but not how much. Please reply. Making for son who is allergic to eggs. Thanks
Hi Margo! You can actually use applesauce or dairy free yogurt! Both are interchangeable, it should be noted on the recipe card 🙂 Enjoy!
hiya! i am planning to make this recipe but wanted to clarify. the ingredients say 1/4 cup, or 80ml molasses..all of my measuring devices (and google) convert 1/4 cup to 59 mls..which is it? thanks!
Oh no problem!! Ugh sometimes the weight to cup can be off- the weight is always the most accurate, so 80 mL! That’s what I use!
The blog post says to add applesauce and doesn’t include yogurt. But the recipe card says yogurt and doesn’t include applesauce? I bought applesauce after reading the post but I don’t have vegan yogurt.
Hi Elle, The two should be interchangeable. For some reason, it is not updating on the card but thanks for the heads up!
Hi! The instructions say to use applesauce, but the card says yogurt. Which is better??
Hi Megan! You can use applesauce – for some reason the recipe isn’t being reflected with the change!! Thanks for pointing it out!
Thanks! I’ll weigh the flour next time!
Hi Britt, I’m excited to try these cookies for my daughter! The dough tastes delicious but it’s too sticky to make cookies. I can roll out the dough (after it’s chilled), but it sticks to the floured surface and the cookies don’t keep their shape. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!
Hi Elizabeth! So sorry about that! It should be slightly sticky, but did you end up using butter or coconut oil? The coconut oil can definitely make it stickier! Also, always make sure you’re weighing the flour for accuracy and the best results!
Hi, Britt, thank you so much for sharing the recipe! Could I use yogurt instead of apple sauce? There’s no apple sauce where I live 🙁 I could use flax egg but I want it softer! And do you think coconut sugar can still make it chewy like regular sugar does? Thank you!
Oh absolutely, you can definitely use dairy free yogurt! Coconut sugar will still work, but they might have a bit of a different flavor- definitely still use molasses!