Discover my top 20 vegan holiday cookies perfect for Christmas celebrations, cookie exchanges, and edible gifts. These plant-based cookie recipes are festive, delicious, easy to bake, and sure to bring joy to every holiday gathering.
Top 20 Vegan Holiday Cookies (Perfect for Christmas Cookie Gifts & Festive Dessert Plates)
There’s nothing quite like the aroma of freshly baked cookies filling your home during the holiday season. These Top 20 Vegan Holiday Cookies are not only delicious and festive—they’re completely plant-based, making them perfect for everyone at your Christmas celebrations. Whether you’re preparing Christmas cookie plates, packaging edible gifts with love, or planning a cozy family baking day, these vegan cookie recipes are all about joy, flavor, and seasonal tradition.
Made right in my home kitchen, each recipe is designed to be approachable, dairy-free, and filled with heart-warming holiday ingredients. Just preheat the oven, gather your cookie tins, and get ready to enjoy a collection of vegan, plant-based Christmas cookies that your friends, neighbors, and family will love all season long.
When the holidays come to call, it’s officially time to head into the kitchen, pull out my vintage cookie cutters (some are from my mother’s youth) and dog-eared recipes, and get to baking. While I don’t always make time to bake sweet treats during the year, the cool, festive days of the Christmas season always get me inspired to don an apron, grab a wooden spoon, and start mixing up a fun batch of cookies. That’s why I’m sharing my own classic set of my very favorite 100% plant-based, vegan, Christmas cookies, from my kitchen to yours. I have made these recipes time and time again—some of them since my children were little. In fact, I remember helping my mother roll out sugar cookies when I was little, and I handed down that tradition and her recipe to my own kids, too. While these vegan Christmas cookies are absolutely delicious, many have a lighter, healthier, plant-based touch, starring some whole grains, dried fruits, nuts, seeds, and dark chocolate. Plus, many are a tad lighter in sugar and fat, so you can feel good about what you are making for your friends and family. Go ahead, and create some of your own holiday traditions this year. Take time out to bake up some cookies for the office, a party, a gift basket, or to munch on at home. Enjoy the season with my favorite vegan Christmas cookies.
Wishing you the happiest and healthiest of holidays!
Sharon
Top 20 Vegan Christmas Cookies
Sugar Cookies
This is my mom’s 50-year old recipe for sugar cookies, which I gave a vegan update. Take your time with these cookies—roll them out, cut them with fun cookie cutters, and decorate them. Let your children or friends help out as a great activity.
Peter’s Pepparkakor
Christmas is here, and it’s time for Peter to dust off his favorite Swedish recipe to make pepparkakor, a traditional Swedish ginger cookie. These crisp, thin little cookies are just packed with gingery-spices.
Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies
Call upon the flavor of seasonal, fresh cranberries for these festive, tender Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies. With a touch of zesty orange and crunchy almonds, these treats are perfect for your next party.
Tollhouse Pan Cookies
These easy Tollhouse Pan Cookies are completely plant-based. Just pat the dough into a baking sheet and slice them into irregular squares for a simple, delicious treat. They’re super served warm fresh out of the oven!
Soft Molasses Cookies
I just love a soft, chewy molasses cookie, rich with the burnt amber goodness of molasses, and the sweet aromatic appeal of baking spices. I turned to aquafaba—bean liquid—to provide a fluffy texture to these moist Soft Molasses Cookies. In addition, some of the flour is swapped out with nutrient-rich almond meal.
Cowboy Cookies
This is a classic recipe from the 60s, which I gave a modern, plant-based update. You can make these crunchy cookies as healthy as you like by playing with how much whole grain flour you use, too.
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie
Yum! These golden, flavorful cookies disappeared in seconds in my house! A plant-powered spinoff from the classic White Choc Macadamia cookie, my cookie recipe is modest in sugar, and packed with the power of chia, flax, coconut, and almond flour!
Dark Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti
I love the simple, rustic quality of biscotti, that twice-baked Italian treat that elevates everything from espresso to seasonal fruit to sorbet. This recipe for Dark Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti is vegan, moderate in sugar, and even packed with whole grains. Make up a batch in advance to enjoy for entertaining. I like to bake these up and store them in the freezer, then pull them out for treats. All you have to do is make the dough, shape into a log, bake the dough log, slice it into thin strips, and bake it again.
Indio Date, Walnut, and Dark Chocolate Cookies
I borrow from the natural sweetness of dates, along with the rich flavors of walnuts and dark chocolate, to flavor these slightly healthier cookies. They are a perfect addition to your Christmas cookie platter!
Vegan Snickerdoodles
These 100% plant-based classic snickerdoodles are filled with the aromas and flavors of cinnamon sugar. Plus, they are quick and easy—get them done in 35 minutes!
Best Soft Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
These soft, rich caramelized vegan peanut butter cookies are decadent enough to bring the child out in you, yet light in added sugars and refined ingredients.
Orange Pecan Cookies
These pretty little, dainty vegan Orange Pecan Cookies can be made with only a few ingredients you probably have in your pantry right now! Just roll them up, bake them, dust them with powdered sugar—and then watch them disappear.
Chunky Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
These yummy chunky vegan peanut butter chocolate chip cookies—filled with crunchy peanuts and chunky dark chocolate—are so easy to make with just a few key pantry staples.
Soft Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pumpkin Seeds
These cake-like Soft Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pumpkin Seeds are light, healthy, and delicious!
Vegan Orange Marmalade Cookies
Brimming with fresh orange flavors, these tender, cake-like Vegan Orange Marmalade Cookies are like biting into a beam of sunshine! With only a few key ingredients, you can make these cookies in about 30 minutes.
BEST Vegan Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies
If you’re looking for richly flavored, soft vegan chocolate chip cookies, you must try these BEST Vegan Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies, which are a bit lighter in refined ingredients than most cookie recipes, yet just as delicious.
Vegan German Chocolate Cookies
These yummy, tender Vegan German Chocolate Cookies are rich in the classic flavor combination of chocolate, coconut, and pecans.
Vegan Pine Nut Oat Cookies
These crunchy, tender cookies are inspired by the goodness of pine nuts, oats, and whole grains. Light in sugar and fat, these Vegan Pine Nut Oat Cookies rely on aquafaba to give them a wonderful texture.
Vegan Lavender Almond Cookies
This soft, herbal vegan cookie will transport you to Provence! It relies upon the magic of aquafaba, along with almonds and lavender.
Vegan Lemon Shortbread Cookies with Basil
This recipe for aromatic, lovely, delicious vegan lemon shortbread cookies with a touch of basil is simply divine! Lighter in sugar and fat, with a touch of whole wheat flour, these vegan shortbread cookies shine with flavor!
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