Vegan Sugar Cookies - Oil Free! (2024)

Cookies with no butter or oil? Yes! These scrumptious Oil-Free Vegan Sugar Cookies are perfect to cut and bake for your holiday treats!

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Sugar Cookies – A Family Tradition

Baking Christmas cookies is a tradition in my family.

As my daughters were growing up, my parents invited my family and my sister’s family over for cookie baking and decorating the day before Christmas Eve each year. My brother would be down from Seattle for the holidays by then, and always joined in on the fun.

This cookie making day was an all day affair!

The kids busily rolled and cut dozens and dozens of cookies, while my dad or I baked. We had about a dozen cookie cutter shapes, and the baked cookies were sorted into piles according to their shape – we had to make sure we had plenty of each shape!

Once the cookies cooled, the decorating would begin. We’d mix up 4 to 6 colors of icing, and the kids would sit around the table creating their works of art. There were always different colored sprinkles, red hot candies, and usually some M&Ms (not vegan – although there are a couple brands of vegan M&M type candies now ).

My daughters and my niece and nephew are grown now, so there’s not as much interest in spending a whole day on cookies. But my extended family are big cookie eaters, so there will always be a need for some great cookie recipes.

Those cookies we made when my daughters were little were not suitable for a vegan diet. So I set out to create a cookie recipe that would be a better fit for an oil free vegan lifestyle. These are also perfect vegan sugar cookies for anyone with dairy and egg allergies.

Ingredients for this vegan sugar cookies recipe

• whole wheat pastry flour
• baking powder
• salt
• Organic cane sugar
• raw cashew butter – this will be your butter substitute. You can make your own, or purchase it
• lite firm silken tofu – this is your egg substitute
• soy milk – feel free to substitute your preferred plant based milk. Almond milk or oat milk would work great in this recipe
• vanilla

And for the icing

• organic powdered sugar
• soy milk
• Vanilla extract
• Food coloring

Not having much experience creating baked goods recipes, I really didn’t know how these Oil-Free Vegan Sugar Cookies would turn out. But I have to say, they’re fantastic!

How to make oil-free vegan sugar cookies

Many vegan sugar cookie recipes call for coconut oil or a vegan butter substitute like Earth Balance. But we don’t need to use these heavy extracted fats in our baking.

My cookie recipe was inspired by Brandi of The Vegan 8, who has several oil free vegan cookie recipes. She uses cashew butter in several of her recipes, so I thought I would give that a try. It makes a great butter substitute in baking.

My daughters also reminded me of a sugar cookie recipe I found and made years ago that had tofu in it. So, why not use a bit of silken tofu as an egg substitute?

When I made my cookies, I followed Brandi’s very detailed instructions for making your own cashew butter. I’ve since found a brand of raw cashew butter that is 100% raw cashews. It is a bit more expensive than making your own, but it’s definitely a time saver.

Here’s how to make the cookies:

Step 1: mix together the cashew butter, sugar, tofu, and vanilla with a hand mixer.

Step 2: stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The dough will be pretty stiff, but the flour will eventually mix in.

Step 3: Chill the dough for at least a couple of hours.

Step 4: Roll the dough to about 1/4″ thickness and cut into your desired shapes with cookie cutters.

Step 5: Bake the cookies on the prepared baking sheets for 7 to 8 minutes at 350° F.

Decorating the Cookies

For the easiest decorating, simply sprinkle some vegan colored sugar on top of the cookies before baking.

If you want to show off your creative side, mix up some simple icing. The icing can be tinted any color you want with Wilton Gel-Based Food Colors, which just happen to be vegan. Natural food coloring can also be used.

To make the icing, mix together the powdered sugar and soy milk. Then stir in the food coloring to achieve the desired colors.

Allow the cookies to cool completely before icing them.

If you’re looking for a vegan royal icing recipe, check out this one from my friend Meggan’sCooking on Caffeine blog.

Frequently asked questions:

Looking for more oil-free vegan desserts? See:

• Oil-free Vegan Gingerbread Cookies
• Blueberry Oat Bars
• Vegan Peppermint Ice Cream
• Vegan Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
• Chocolate Cupcakes
• Vegan Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Chocolate Mug Cake
• Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream
• Vegan Strawberry Ice Cream
• Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a rating and feedback below. It only takes a few seconds, but helps other visitors to my site. Thank you for taking the time to leave your comment!

And come join my Oil Free Vegan Recipes and Support Facebook group, where you can share your favorite oil free vegan recipes, and give and receive support on your plant based journey.

Are you new to oil free cooking? Check out my Oil Free Cooking Tips to learn more about oil free baking, roasting, sauteing, and more!

Nutrition calculations are approximate.