Seasonally spiced & lightly sweetened vegan chocolate chip pumpkin cookies – these soft, melt-in-your-mouth cookies are easy to make and will satisfy your fall cravings! | Gluten Free + Vegan
Originally published October 22, 2015 – Updated with new photos, updated recipes and added tips September 30, 2020
Key Gluten Vegan Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies Ingredients
- Melted coconut oil or (dairy free) butter: You can use either here. Melted coconut oil/butter makes for chewier cookies, but if you prefer you can use softened butter instead.
- Coconut sugar or brown sugar: Coconut sugar will give these cookies a slightly coconut-ty, caramel-like flavour. You can use light or dark brown sugar. Dark brown sugar will make for darker, sweeter cookies.
- Pumpkin puree: Pumpkin puree gives these cookies their signature, pumpkin flavour and works as an egg substitute.
- Gluten Free All Purpose Flour: Any generic gluten free all purpose flour blend should work with these cookies (just make sure it’s actually a blend of flours and not just a single flour).
- Xanthan Gum: This mostly just important for binding however you can make thses cookies without xanthan. If you don’t use xanthan it’s important to let these cookies cool completely before moving them so they don’t fall apart.
- Cinnamon & nutmeg: Cozy, fall flavours – gotta have them!
Tips & FAQ’S
What’s type of gluten free flour is best?
- Any basic all purpose gluten free flour blend will work. I often like using my own homemade gluten free flour blend when I have it ready to go but I will often use whatever generic brand is available (like this one) at my local grocery store. Just make sure you’re using something that is a blend of flours.
- I often use but I also enjoy using Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten flour blend when it’s available to me.
Can these be frozen?
Yes! Both the dough and the baked cookies can be frozen.
- To freeze the dough: roll cookie dough into balls and place in the refrigerator for an hour or so. Once the balls have chilled and hardened place in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer for up to 3 months. When you’re ready for cookies simply bake from frozen – just add an extra 2-3 minutes to the overall bake time. You may also want to write down the date frozen as well as the bake temperature and time.
- To freeze baked cookies: Once fully cooled place the cookies on a baking sheet you can fit in the freezer. Place in the freezer until solid and then transfer the cookies to a bag or Tupperware container – place a small sheet of baking parchment in between each cookie to prevent cookies from freezing together. Cookies will keep up to 3 months in the freezer. You can enjoy frozen cookies straight out of the freezer or allow them to thaw in the fridge overnight.
Can I use another type of flour?
- Maybe. This is a recipe that is meant to be used with a generic gluten free flour blend. I don’t recommend using other gluten free flours on their own like rice, chickpea, buckwheat etc.
- However: this recipe is slightly adapted from Sally’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies from Sally’s Baking Addiction. If you’re not gluten free you can use a non-gluten all purpose flour blend.
- FYI: Check out my Healthier Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies!
If you’re interested in a grain free option I recommend checking out my Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies with Almond Flour or my paleo molasses pumpkin cookies.
Tip!
- Give these cookies a bakehouse look: Just after baking I like to press a few additional chips in the dough balls as seen in the bottom picture just below. This is completely optional but it does give your finished cookies a little more of a bakehouse kind of look to them.
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Recipe
Vegan Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies
Yield:
12 cookies
Prep Time:
10 minutes
Cook Time:
10 minutes
Additional Time:
30 minutes
Total Time:
50 minutes
Seasonally spiced & lightly sweetened vegan chocolate chip pumpkin cookies - these soft, melt-in-your-mouth cookies are easy to make and will satisfy your fall cravings! | Gluten Free + Vegan
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup melted coconut oil (108 g) or melted dairy free butter (113g)
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar (95 g) or light brown sugar (110 g)
- 6 tablespoons pumpkin puree (82 g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cup gluten free flour blend (210 g)
- 3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum if your gf flour blend doesn't have it already
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 cup dairy free chocolate chips (85 g)
Need help converting to weights? Check out my cups to grams Conversion Guide.
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the melted coconut oil (or butter), coconut sugar (or brown sugar)and mix together.
- Add the pumpkin puree and vanilla extract and whisk until smooth.
- Add the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the bowl and mix until a thick, smooth dough forms.
- Stir in your chocolate chips then cover the dough and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C and line or lightly grease a large cookie sheet. Set aside.
- Roll out the dough into little balls about the size of a heaping tablespoon and place on your baking sheet. They won't spread out too much while baking so flatten them a bit after placing them down.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes until the edges have goldened slightly. Allow the cookies to cool completely on the tray before moving them to a wire cooling rack. (I like to add a few extra chocolate chips to the tops of the cookies right as they get out of the oven.)
- Keep these stored at room temperature or in an airtight container in the fridge. The cookies will keep at least 5 days.
Notes
How to make these without xanthan gum?
- Xanthan gum helps bind these cookies together. You can use guar gum in place of xanthan or skip the xanthan altogether. If you omit the xanthan please keep in mind that these cookies will be more delicate until they have completely cooled and set. If you try to pick up the cookies too soon after getting out of the oven they will likely fall apart. After a few hours though, the cookies will set and be much easier to handle.
If your dough feels oily:
- You probably used coconut oil. This is totally normal - after you give the dough time to chill in the fridge it shouldn't feel so oily.
Nutrition Information
Yield: 15
Serving Size:
cookie Calories: 154Saturated Fat: 7gSodium: 91mgCarbohydrates: 17gFiber: 2gSugar: 6gProtein: 1gThis website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
Pascale D'Astous says
Absolutely love these cookies. Always a crowd pleaser!
Sarah Nevins says
So pleased to hear that! Thanks so much for coming back and leaving a review telling me what you think of the cookies 🙂
Pascale D'Astous says
Delicious! I do these with regular flour and they are lovely! Always a crowd pleaser.
Sarah Nevins says
So glad to hear that! Thanks, Pascale 🙂
Nikki Schoeny says
Amazing cookies! First time I only slightly pushed the balls down, but they definitely need flattened. We have an egg and gluten allergy in the house so these were a Godsend! Thank you so so much for sharing this recipe!
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks so much Nikki! So happy to hear you’ve been able to enjoy these 🙂
Becky says
Mine came out like round, hard little balls instead of soft, flat cookies. What did I do wrong?
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Becky! That definitely sounds strange! I’m wondering how you measured your ingredients – did you use measuring cups or weights? If you used measuring cups, my guess would be that you might have accidentally packed in too much flour which would have made these cookies hard.
Also, did you use coconut oil or butter? Coconut oil can be tricky to predict sometimes because it can easily be influenced by room temperature. If the dough gets too warm the cookies spread quite a bit. On the flip side, if they get too cold for too long they don’t spread well in the oven. If you did use coconut oil, it could be that your cookie dough would have been better off not chilling.
Hope that helps!
Asiya says
I never knew that we could make cookies out of pumpkins and this is something I need to try in the pumpkin season… The cookies made out of them look amazing which are irresistible…
Sarah Nevins says
Hope you love them!
Christina Kane says
It’s October 2nd, so that means I’m craving all things pumpkin! This recipe was perfect—very fluffy and thick. My household loved it! We even shared some with the neighbors. Thank you 🧡
Sarah Nevins says
Yay! Glad you enjoyed them! Happy Fall 🙂
Makenna says
Hello! If I’m using all purpose flour in place of GF flour, do i still need to use xantham gum? Thank you! Xo
Sarah says
If it’s a regular gluten based flour then you don’t need the xantham – that’s just there to help with the binding that you get normally from gluten. Hope you like them!
Makenna says
Awesome thank you! Should i use the same measurements for the GF flour if I’m using all purpose flour?
Kim says
Hi! These cookies looked amazing so I thought I would give them a try….quick question: I melted the coconut oil then put it on my scale to make sure it measured to the correct amount. Did the same with the rest of the ingredients and my dough was super oily. Should I have weighed the oil first in it’s solid form then melted it down and added the rest of the ingredients?
Sarah says
Hi Kim! Did the cookies come out oily after you baked them or was it just the dough, prebaked? If you’re using a scale to measure the oil then you should end up with the same amount whether it’s in a solid or liquid state. Coconut oil can make cookie dough feel a bit too oily sometimes but that usually goes away after cooking or after refrigerating the dough for a little bit (about 30 minutes).
Stacey says
My “dough” came out course and crumbly. I followed the recipe but used 1 cup cassava flour and 1/2 cup tigernut flour. In place of the gluten free flour blend. They are both supposed to be able to substitute 1:1 with regular flour. Do you know what may have gone wrong?
Sarah says
Hi Stacey! I haven’t been able to try tigernut flour myself, but I have played around with cassava flour and in my experience it’s kind of a hit or miss as to how well it can be substituted for other flours. Sometimes it worked out and sometimes it was a big flop. There’s always a risk when substituting flours for recipes that weren’t tried and tested with those flours. Different flours have different amounts of protein and fibre, they have different textures and often weight different amounts. For example: 1 cup of rice flour weighs about 160grams and 1 cup of cassava weighs around 120grams. All of these differences in flours make it really difficult to make big substitutes without noticing.
Sorry I couldn’t be more help here! You might enjoy Heather’s blog over at Cook It Up Paleo http://cookituppaleo.com/ She bakes a lot with cassava flour and you might find somethings you can make with what you’ve got over there
Stacey says
That is very helpful Sarah. Thank you so much!