Baked into fun shapes and decorated with festive colors, these Vegan Sugar Cookies are alway my go-to cookies for the holiday season!
Thanksgiving is over and Christmas, my favorite holiday, is just around the corner! That means it's time to whip up these easy Vegan Sugar Cookies! While we enjoy vegan chocolate chip cookies and classic vegan peanut butter cookies all year round, sugar cookies scream Christmas to me. I mean, what could be more festive than decorating a Christmas tree while enjoying a beautifully decorated sugar cookie?
These egg and dairy-free sugar cookies are also perfect to make with your kids. The dough is easy to prepare and they'll love decorating the cookies with icing and sprinkles once they've cooled.
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Why You'll Love This Recipe!
- These vegan sugar cookies require just 7 pantry staple ingredients, all of which you probably have on hand, making them really quick and easy to whip up whenever you need some holiday cookies.
- I always loved helping my mom bake holiday cookies as a kid and now I get to bake these sugar cookies with my daughter. If you have kids, they'll love to help you make the dough, roll it out and cut it into fun shapes. Oh, and decorating the cookies at the end is definitely going to be a highlight for them!
- If you have allergies, you know how disappointing it is to get to a holiday party and realize you can't enjoy any of the food there. These cookies are already egg and dairy-free, which is great for anyone with egg or dairy allergies!
- These vegan sugar cookies work for any holiday. Make hearts for Valentine's Day, pumpkins for Halloween and snowmen for Christmas!
Ingredients
- All-Purpose Flour - White flour is a must when making sugar cookies as it's light and fluffy and has a neutral flavor.
- Vegan Butter - I usually use vegan butter out of a container such as Earth Balance when I'm living in America for Nuttelex Original when I'm living in Asia.
- Natural Cane Sugar - I don't have white granulated sugar on hand very often, but I love using coarser cane sugar!
- Non-Dairy Milk - Whatever non-dairy milk from a carton that you have on hand should work. You could even use Homemade Almond Milk or Homemade Oat Milk.
- Powdered Sugar - You'll need powdered sugar for the icing for these cookies. If you don't have powdered sugar on hand, you can also blend 1 cup of cane sugar with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch until fine and powdery.
See recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
Variations
When it comes to different variations of these cookies, it all comes down to your cookie cutters and decorating skills. I'll share some ideas below:
- Valentine's Day - Use heart cookie cutters and pink and red colored icing to decorate these cookies. Write "Be mine," "BFF," "Cutie Pie" and other cute sayings to mimic sweethearts.
- Easter - Use egg shaped cookie cutters and pastel icing.
- Halloween - Use bat, ghost and pumpkin cookie cutters to make your cookie shapes. Then use black, white and orange frosting to decorate the cookies.
- Thanksgiving - Use turkey, leaves and apple cookie cutters to make different shapes of cookies. Next, decorate the cookies with brown, orange, red and yellow icing.
- Christmas - Snowmen, Christmas trees, bells and candy canes are classic cookie shapes for Christmas sugar cookies. Once you've baked the cookies, then use white, red and green icing to decorate them!
How to Make Vegan Sugar Cookies
Step 1: To start, whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl until well combined.
Step 2: Then in a stand mixer, cream together the vegan butter and sugar. Some good-ol' elbow grease will also work for this step!
Step 3: Once you have the wet and dry ingredients prepared, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until a dough forms.
Step 4: Wrap the dough in some plastic wrap and allow it to chill in the fridge for about an hour.
Step 5: After the dough has chilled, preheat the oven. Take the chilled dough out of the fridge, cut it in half and roll it out on a lightly floured surface until about ¼ inch thick.
Step 6: Cut the dough into shapes and place them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Continue this process, combining scraps of dough as needed, until the dough is all used up.
Step 7: Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes.
Step 8: Allow the cookies to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Step 9: Decorate the sugar cookies with your favorite icing and sprinkles.
Expert Tips
- Make sure your dough is nice and chilled before trying to roll it out. If the dough is too warm it will stick to your rolling pin and be hard to cut into shapes and transfer to your baking dish.
- Take these vegan sugar cookies out of the oven around the 10-12 minute mark. They may not look done on top, but they are usually golden brown on the bottom and they will continue to harden as they cool.
How to Freeze Vegan Sugar Cookies
- Sugar Cookie Dough: You can freeze the dough before your roll it out and cut it into shapes.
- Pre-Cut, Unbaked Sugar Cookies: You can also freeze pre-cut, unbaked sugar cookies. Place the unbaked cookies onto a parchment or silicone-lined baking sheet and freeze the cookies until hard. Then transfer them to a freezer-safe container or zip-lock bag. When you want to bake the cookies, you can bake the frozen cookies straight from the freezer!
- Baked Sugar Cookies: Similarly to the unbaked sugar cookies, you can also freeze already baked sugar cookies. First allow them to freeze on a baking sheet for about 1-2 hours before transferring them to a freezer-safe container or zip-lock bag.
- Iced Sugar Cookies: You can also freeze already iced sugar cookies! Allow the icing to harden completely before transferring the cookies to a freezer-safe zip-lock bag or container. You will want to place wax paper between the layers of sugar cookies to keep them from sticking together.
Recipe FAQs
To make vegan sugar cookies, you need to make two simple substitutions.
Instead of regular butter, you'll simply use vegan butter. Then, instead of dairy milk, you will use non-dairy milk. Any variety of non-dairy milk should work!
Replacing eggs in baking can be a little more tricky as eggs can play a number of different roles. In this vegan sugar cookie recipe, the vegan butter will help bind all of the ingredients together. Then, baking powder will help to make these sugar cookies nice and soft and fluffy. No need for chicken eggs!
I love to make a simple icing with just powdered sugar and non-dairy milk. Start with 1-2 cups of powdered sugar. Stir in non-dairy milk 1 teaspoon at a time until a smooth, thick, but spreadable glaze/icing forms. If desired, you can use natural or store-bought food coloring to create different colors of icing.
You can place leftover sugar cookies in an airtight container and store them at room temperature for 3-4 days. If you want them to last longer, you can also store them in the fridge for up to a week (maybe more!). Sugar cookies will stay soft if stored at room temperature and will become harder if stored in the fridge.
No matter when you chose to freeze your sugar cookies, whether it was the sugar cookie dough or the already baked and iced sugar cookies, you will want to place the frozen cookies in the fridge to thaw overnight. Once the cookies have thawed overnight, THEN bring them to room temperature on the counter!
More Vegan Cookie Recipes
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📖 Recipe
Easy Vegan Sugar Cookies!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup vegan butter* softened to room temperature
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons cane sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons non-dairy milk
ICING:*
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon + 2-3 teaspoons non-dairy milk
Instructions
- In a medium sized bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream the earth balance butter and sugar together with a hand mixer. A stand mixer would also work perfectly for this.
- Add in the vanilla extract and milk and mix a little more.
- As you continue to mix, slowly add in the dry ingredients. Mix until everything is combined and a dough forms.
- Take the dough and form it into a disk and wrap it in plastic wrap. Let it chill in the fridge for about an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 375 °F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it is about ¼ inch thick.
- Use cookie cutters to cut out desired shapes and place the cutouts on the baking sheets.
- Re-roll the remaining “scrap” dough and continue to cut out cookies until all the dough is used.
- Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until the underneath is slightly golden brown.
- Let the cookies cool completely before icing and decorating.
- To make the icing, put the powdered sugar in a bowl and add a tablespoon of milk and stir. Continue adding a teaspoon of milk at a time, stirring in between, until a thick frosting forms. Be careful not to add too much milk! A little goes a long way.
Notes
- I use Earth Balance Original Spread or Nuttelex.
- You can also purchase store bought icing. Many icings are accidentally vegan and they work great!
Sophie says
Hi! I saw that in the post it says that you cut the dough in half and then roll out only 1/2, but the instructions and the amount of cookies don't make sense with that. Could you please clarify? Thanks!
Faith VanderMolen says
I find it easier to work with half of the dough at a time. So I keep the other half in the fridge so it doesn't get warm. Once I turn 1/2 of the dough into cookies and get them in the oven, I work with the other half of the dough. I hope that helps!
Jackie says
Thank you so much for this recipe! I’d been wanting to make tasty cookies for my dairy and egg allergic skin but hadn’t found anything that tasted good. I substituted Ripple Milk for the Almond Milk due to a nut allergy. My 2.5 year old loves these cookies! They came out perfectly, taste great and easy to make. We also made icing with ripple milk which my 4 year old (non allergy) loves the icing on the cookies.
Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Faith says
So glad to hear this Jackie! Thank you for letting me know!!