Vegan cherry chocolate chip oatmeal cookies get a fantastic pop of flavor from dried cherries. Made with coconut oil, flax, and maple syrup.
In my opinion, these vegan chocolate oatmeal cookies are the perfect cookies. If you’re not vegan, don’t let the “vegan” part of this title distract you – there’s nothing vegan tasting about them. These are cookies that happen to be vegan because I like to save my eggs for breakfast and, well, I like to eat more raw cookie dough than the average person.
These cookies are rich, chewy, and sweet, but not too sweet. They have the most delicious pop of flavor from the dried tart cherries, which are the star here. They’re soft, plump, and chewy, and they’ve made me fall in love with these cookies.
I used coconut oil instead of butter (as I so often do). I experimented with sugars until I ended with a combination of brown sugar and maple syrup that I think is perfection. The brown sugar helps create the chewy texture, and the maple syrup adds a rich sweet flavor.
Tart cherries have some unique superfood benefits. They’re a natural anti-inflammatory as well as a source of melatonin. I put them in everything from salads to grilled cheese to granola. They’re easy to find – I get mine in the bulk bins at my Whole Foods (and I’ve seen them in most grocery stores).
What are you waiting for? Go bake cookies!
Vegan Cherry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
- 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
- 6 tablespoons warm water
- 2 cups flour (1 cup all-purpose flour + 1 cup spelt or whole wheat)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ⅔ cup melted coconut oil
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups whole rolled oats (not instant)
- 1 cup dried tart cherries
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In the bottom of your electric stand mixer’s bowl*, add the flaxseed and water. Whisk it (by hand), until well emulsified. Leave it there to thicken while you mix your dry ingredients.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
- To your mixer's bowl (where you started the flaxseed mixture), add the coconut oil, brown sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla. Mix on medium-high speed until well combined.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing after each addition. Mix on high until the dough is smooth and sticky. Add the oats, tart cherries and chocolate chips, and mix on low until all is combined.
- Scoop a scant ¼ cup of dough onto the baking sheet. Repeat to form about 16 large cookies (or use a heaping teaspoon and make about 32 smaller ones).
- Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown around the edges and still soft in the middle. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for at least 15 minutes.
Note: if you’re not vegan, you can use 2 eggs in place of the flaxseed/water mixture. You can also use room temperature butter in place of the coconut oil. If your butter is salted, reduce the salt in the recipe to ¼ teaspoon or skip the added salt.
I just had to make these, even though I don’t own a proper mixer ? – I have a whisk attachment for a stick blender which worked until the last bit of flour when the dough became too stiff for it to handle. Guess I earned a couple of cookies hand blending in the oats and fruit/choc! ????
I used 3/4 cup of barberries instead of cherries as that’s what I had in the cupboard. The cookies are divine ???? I’ll definitely make them again I’m sure.
These are so good! I only used 1/2 cup of brown sugar (they were plenty sweet and still baked fine), no vanilla, substituted 1/2 the coconut oil for apple sauce and then made some of them with butterscotch chips, some with just cherries and some with cherries and chocolate. They’re delicious, thank you!
I adore this recipe. It has become my go-to for any occasion that requires sweets (which… is any occasion tbh). How would you recommend freezing / thawing this dough if I wanted to keep some on hand? Or is that even possible? Let me know!
I don’t know what I did wrong with these, but they are so weird. This is the first time I made cookies with coconut oil, so i’m guessing that’s the problem. They didn’t really brown well or spread and I can really smell and taste the flax and I can taste the baking soda too. Ah well.
I’m really sorry these weren’t for you – I really love them, I’m not sure what could have gone wrong :/
These cookies look fantastic and I will be making them for sure.
I would, however, like to offer another option for ingredients. It is well documented that highly saturated fat foods cause high cholesterol. I’m someone that has to be very careful about consuming saturated fat. Coconut oil is roughly 87% saturated fat – very high.
So, in baking, one can replace any and all oil with apple sauce, unit for unit. You can also use a Sunsweet product called Lighter Bake which is a butter/oil replacement for baking. Here is a link to the product:
https://www.sunsweet.com/products/lighter-bake/
Can’t wait to make these cookies. Thanks!!!
I just tried these cookies and was not that impressed with the results. The cookies were puffy, and and tasted kind of raw in the middle, even though I baked them for 11 minutes instead of the 8-10 minutes the recipe called for. Perhaps it’s because of the modifications I made. I used one cup of regular flour with one cup of spelt, and followed the vegan version with a few modification so: I melted vegan butter (Earth Balance) to replace the coconut oil; reduced the maple syrup to one-quarter cup, because I don’t like cookies that are too sweet; and left out the salt (because there is lot of sodium in the vegan spread). For the rest I followed the recipe. I’m not sure what I could do differently, so won’t be making these again.
Hi Gwen – I have funny results baking with melted earth balance so I don’t think it would be a 1:1 replacement for coconut oil.
Hi Jeanine – you were right! I tried the recipe again using butter, and they were fantastic. I used the ground flaxseed mixture instead of eggs (so the recipe was half-vegan), and used the full amount of maple syrup (1/2 cup) but reduced the brown sugar to 2/3 cup. The cookies were perfect – dense and chewy with just the right sweetness. And with all the oats and spelt flour they must be healthy! Thanks for the great recipe – I’ve made it several times now and these cookies are always a hit with family, friends and colleagues. 🙂
u could probably use oat flour, almond flour, or coconut meal maybe…. experiment!
Thanks Jeanine! Whole Foods is right around the corner from me.
great! you’ll have no problem then – they’re right in the regular baking section :). Hope you like the cookies!
I want to make them for a friend that eats no animal products. What kind of chocolate chips can I purchase that don’t use milkfat? I always use Nestle Semi Sweet. I am not a vegan so I don’t know what is out there?
Hi Holly, there’s a brand called Sunspire and another one called Enjoy Life. (I usually find them at Whole Foods, but I’ve seen them in other stores too). If you can’t find either of those, you can chop up a dark chocolate bar (one that’s about 60% cacao). Just read the labels to see which ones don’t contain dairy. Hope that helps!
Who wouldn’t like chocolate, dried cherries and a bit of maple syrup? We tried the recipe with eggs. Will try the vegan method next.
Hi, I am having a dinner party this week and wondered if the dough could be made the night before and covered/refrigerated to bake the next day? It would be nice to serve them warm out of the oven with vegan ice cream. Thanks!
Yep – it can be. It’ll get stiff in the fridge but before you bake them just let it sit out at room temp for a few minutes until the texture is scoop-able again.
Oh wow, these sound so chewy and delicious. I’m a huge fan of dried tart cherries, I put them in everything!
These are outstanding!
I just made a batch of these, and they are the BEST oatmeal cookies I’ve ever made! I ran out of regular chocolate chips, so I subbed in some white chocolate chips and added a handful of chopped pecans. So good!
I’m so glad to hear, yay!! Ooh, I bet white chocolate would be delicious 🙂