No Chill Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (Gluten Free and Lower Sugar options)

Can’t stand waiting while your cookie dough chills? These no chill vegan chocolate chip cookies will be your new best friend! They are soft and chewy, perfectly sweet, and filled with the exact right amount of gooey chocolate chips.

Chocolate chip cookies are my happy place.  Oh of course I like ALL the cookies- simple or decadent, crispy or chewy, shortbread or sugar or gingerbread or oatmeal or.. wait, what were we talking about?

Right.  Sorry.  But give me a perfect chocolate chip cookie and I will pick that over the rest of them any day of the week.   

I don’t want to count how many versions of these cookies I made.  It was so important to me to make something I felt was even better than a “regular” cookie that gets to have dairy milk and eggs and all-purpose flour.  It needed to be crisp on the outside, but soft and chewy in the middle.  Enough flour to keep it thick, but never grainy.  And ideally I wanted a cookie that didn’t need any chill time, since who can spare any precious minutes when you’re waiting to eat chocolate chip cookies?! 

Behold, the best vegan & gluten free chocolate chip cookie that I have consumed.

How To Make Them

The most important prep note about these cookies is you want your butter to be SOFT.  Not just left on the counter for long enough to work with, but REALLY soft.  I leave mine out of the fridge overnight when I know I’ll be making these cookies.  It’s the key to achieving the perfect consistency.  If you are just looking at this recipe and trying to make cookies fast and your butter is NOT softened, I recommend heading over to my Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, since in that recipe you can start from completely cold butter.

(But if you do that, make sure to come back to this one next time so you can pick your favorite!)

These come together like most cookie recipes you’ve probably made – you cream the butter and both sugars (see the Ingredients Needed section to learn how to make these lower in sugar!), add in the milk, add in the dry ingredients, then finally the chips.  The beauty of these is that they do NOT need to be chilled, which ensures that from when you start your prep to the moment you can get a warm cookie into your mouth is less than 30 minutes!

They will continue cooking once you remove them from the oven, so be sure to let them sit on the pan for 10-15 minutes after they’re out before moving to a cooling rack.  During this time I’d recommend lightly pressing a few more chocolate chips into the tops of the cookies, and sprinkling with some flaky sea salt.

Nutritional info can be found in the Notes section below the recipe instructions.

Storage:

After they have cooled, seal in an air-tight container and store at room temperature.  They will stay good for around 5 days.

Pro tips and tools:

• Make sure you are measuring your flour either by weight or using the spoon and level method.  Do not scoop directly from the container, as you will wind up with too much! This is so important! If you want to buy a pre-made gluten free flour blend, make sure it’s King Arthur’s Measure for Measure Gluten Free Flour, it is BY FAR the best one for my recipes, NOT Bob’s Red Mills or any others. If you want to make a homemade blend, here is a link to the one I use.
• This tip goes for all cookie recipes – if it is your first time trying a new cookie recipe, if you have the time, I always suggest baking one cookie first before putting the full batch in the oven.  That way if something is not working right for your batch, you can adjust before you’ve wasted all the dough.  If it spreads too much, adding a little more flour is usually a safe fix.  If it’s too dry and not spreading at all, it may need some more liquid ingredients, in this case a bit more non-dairy milk.
• I said it above, I will say it again below, and I will say it here – make sure your butter is fully softened!!  Leave it out overnight before making these if possible, as that will lead to the best possible consistency. If you need to make cookies ASAP (no judgement) and your butter is not completely soft, head over to my Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe instead, that one doesn’t require softening in advance.
• Make sure your chocolate chips are vegan.  I use this brand, but whatever you like best will work!
• I always keep a large round cookie cutter or a mason jar lid next to my oven, that way when the cookies come out if they are misshapen I can quickly use the round lid to help reshape the dough before it has firmed up.
• If you want to achieve that perfect chocolate chip cookie look, while the cookies are cooling, you can lightly press a few extra chips into the tops. 

Ingredients needed:

• Vegan butter – I use Earth Balance sticks.
• Granulated sugar and light brown sugar – the mixture of both of these leads to the perfect cookie flavor and consistency.  Crispy on the outside, chewy and gooey on the inside. I wouldn’t recommend leaving out the brown sugar, but if you want to cut back on your sugar intake, I love using this Monkfruit Sweetener in place of the granulated sugar.
• Non-dairy milk – the milk keeps these moist, and also works as a binding agent since these are egg-free, AND flax egg free!  I usually use soy or almond milk, feel free to use your favorite.
• Vanilla extract
• Flour – Make sure you are measuring your flour either by weight or using the spoon and level method.  Do not scoop directly from the container, as you will wind up with too much! This is so important! If you want to buy a pre-made gluten free flour blend, make sure it’s King Arthur’s Measure for Measure Gluten Free Flour, it is BY FAR the best one for my recipes, NOT Bob’s Red Mills or any others. If you want to make a homemade blend, here is a link to the one I use.
• Cornstarch – the secret cookie ingredient to keep them soft and wonderful.
• Baking soda
• Salt – regular salt for the batter, but I also recommend sprinkling some Flaky sea salt over the top for an extra pop of flavor.
• Chocolate chips – Make sure these are dairy free to keep it vegan!  I love these, but use your favorite. 

What To Bake Next:

• Want other forms of chocolate chip cookies? Try these Vegan Levain Copycat Cookies, or these Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
• Want more cookie options? Try these Vegan Fudgy Brownie Cookies, or these Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.
• Want your chocolate fix in other forms? Try these Vegan Copycat Entenmann’s Donuts, or these Vegan S’mores Cupcakes.