We’re winding down our post-Thanksgiving detox and that means it’s time for dessert. “But Erin, isn’t vegan taking this a bit far?” you ask. What are you afraid of? It’s almost a dirty word isn’t it? Vegan. It conjures images of tofu, alfalfa sprouts and soy burgers, or drum circles and communes. Please, that’s so 1975. The vegan diet has been brought to a new level, one that includes macaroni and cheese, scrambled eggs and meatloaf. Yes, all of those can be veganized and no, they don’t taste like paste. You would be shocked at how good vegan food has become, including these Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, which you’d never guess are egg and butter free.
I am not vegan. I like to say I’m vegan curious. I enjoy cooking vegan dishes and eating at vegan restaurants because I’m constantly amazed by a)how you can get non-meat to taste like meat and b)how you can get vegetables to taste so delicious. It’s not just making vegetables or soy taste like meat, eggs or ice cream etc., it’s how it looks remarkably like the real thing too. Taste begins with the eyes after all.
We should all try to be vegan once a week. It forces you to think of creative ways to incorporate more vegetables into your diet. I’m talking beyond salads here. I’m talking about veggie fajitas, spinach lasagna or three bean chili. Have you ever tried almond milk? It’s not that great for dunking cookies in, but for cereal and baking, I can’t tell a difference and it’s half the calories, a longer shelf life and cheaper. If you want to try out some vegan food sometime, I suggest you start with Happy Cow to help you pick a good place. Do you have a favorite vegan restaurant you can recommend?
A quick shout out to all my paleos in the house – I got love for you too (they seem like opposites, but they’re not) and we’ll get to you in another post.
So how do you make chocolate chip cookies without butter or eggs? You use a little magic tub called Earth Balance, that’s how. It’s basically vegan butter or margarine. You can get it in almost any grocery store these days either in the diary case or “Natural Foods.” To be honest, I’m not sure what replaces the egg in this recipe. I’ve seen recipes that use flax seed, egg replacers or pureed tofu before, but none of that appears in this recipe. I’m also not sure what role the coconut plays, especially since it’s unsweetened, thus I say it’s optional. You can barely taste it, but if you don’t like coconut or don’t have any on hand, you’re fine without it.
I like this recipe because it doesn’t require any weird ingredients like xanthan gum or maple sugar. And speaking of sugar, a lot of vegan baking recipes I’ve come across try to make up for the lack of butter and eggs with extra sugar. These do not – kudos to you SavvyVegetarian.com. Most importantly, these cookies are the best vegan item I’ve ever baked. I’ve made some tasty vegan treats before, but these are better than some of the non-vegan chocolate chip cookie recipes I’ve tried.
Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
From Savvy Vegetarian
Ingredients
FYI, if you want these to be 100% vegan, make sure you check the packaging on the sugar and chocolate chips – they will be specifically labeled as vegan.
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour (use half whole wheat pastry if you prefer)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups quick oats
1 cup vegan spread, room temperature (Earth Balance is the preference)
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup soy milk (I used unsweetened almond milk)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (optional)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Combine dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt and quick oats
Cream the vegan spread with the sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the milk, lemon juice and vanilla.
Mix dry ingredients with the creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and coconut.
Scoop cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake one sheet at a time for 10 -12 minutes, just until brown around the edges – don’t over bake, or they’ll be tough instead of tender.
Remove from oven, and transfer to cooling racks using a spatula.
Adventures of a Hungry Redhead 
These look good! Trying a vegan meal once a week is a great idea… I think I will try it out, and definitely try to move away from salads and vegetables to something more “complicated”
Thanks Megan! Skinnytaste and Healthy Happy Life are my two favorite sites for great vegan recipes. You could join the “meatless monday” trend too. I’m making another vegan dinner tonight: spaghetti squash with mushroom tomato sauce.
Overall this cookie taste good, however the recipe lacks a binder.Not sure if that was an oversight or not. Against my better judgment I went ahead and made the recipe as written. It wasn’t surprising when the cookies fell apart when removed from the cookie sheet. If I try this recipe again I will add an egg replacer.
Oh no! I’m sorry to hear that! Can’t say I’ve encountered that problem with this recipe before. Was the batter runny? Did you use quick oats or old fashioned oats? I usually have the opposite problem, where the egg replacements make the batter runny and the cookies end up being very flat.
These were AMAZING!! I used whole rolled oats but added 2T applesauce as a binder and followed the rest of the recipe exactly as it’s written and they came out perfect. So yummy! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Glad you enjoyed them! I happen to have some extra applesauce laying around, so I’ll give that a try! Full credit goes to Savvy Vegetarian for the recipe. I need to try her vegan oatmeal raisin cookie recipe sometime.
You get full credit! Super moist and far too yummy to eat just one. Thanks for being In DC!
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe_details.asp?nutrition_id=3660077 – this is a recipe for gluten-free/sugar-free PB cookies….vegans could probably use the powdered Stevia Extract In The Raw instead of splenda and use Ener-G egg replacer for the egg (or some other homemade egg replacer, for example people have mixed 1 T. of ground flax seed with 3 T. of water to sub for each egg in baking)