These pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are everything I want on a fall day. They're soft, puffy, deliciously spiced, and full of gooey chocolate goodness.
I was originally planning to post these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in October, but we finished them early, they turned out great, and I just couldn’t wait. Fall or not, these cookies are SO good! Oats, pumpkin, cinnamon, spices, and chocolate baked into big soft pillowy cookies – what’s not to love? These pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are vegan & gluten free, and they will be so perfect for lunch boxes because they’re nut-free(!) as well.
I know so many of you have asked how to make these carrot cookies without nuts. That recipe really needs the almond butter to bind them but THIS recipe holds together beautifully because pumpkin puree is a terrific binder. It’s also easier than grating carrots, which means that you’ll make these so much more often, but I’m warning you – they’ll disappear even faster.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Ingredients
Soft, puffy, and totally delicious, these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are secretly healthy! Here’s what makes them SO good (and good for you, too!):
- Flaxseed subs in for the egg in these vegan pumpkin cookies. It also adds a boost of fiber and omega 3-s.
- Oat flour makes them wonderfully puffy and soft.
- Whole rolled oats give them a delicious oatmeal cookie texture and flavor.
- Cinnamon and nutmeg add the perfect notes of pumpkin spice.
- Pumpkin puree is the real star here. Aside from adding essential pumpkin flavor, it acts as a binder and packs in plenty of Vitamin A.
- Cane sugar sweetens them up.
- Coconut oil adds richness.
- Vanilla extract deepens their flavor.
- And chocolate chips make them irresistibly gooey and chocolatey.
Yum!
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sure, these cookies are light and fluffy and full of pumpkin flavor, but one of the best parts about them is that they’re easy to make! Here’s what you need to do:
- Make a flax egg by stirring together flaxseed and water, and set it aside to thicken.
- Then, combine the dry ingredients.
- And whisk together the wet ingredients, flax egg included!
- Stir together the wet & dry mixtures, and fold in the chocolate chips.
- Drop dollops of the dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, and bake until they’re lightly brown and your kitchen smells like pumpkin spice. 🙂
- Finally, let the cookies cool on the baking sheet (the hard part!), and then enjoy them with a coffee, tea, or cold glass of milk.
These pumpkin cookies are on the cake-y side and resemble a yummy muffin top. Like these Blueberry Breakfast Cookies, you could eat one for breakfast, or enjoy one as a semi-guilt-free midday snack or dessert. They also freeze extremely well. If you do freeze them, thaw them at room temp for an hour (or so), or pop them in the microwave for 8-10 seconds. I love thawing one to enjoy with an afternoon cup of tea.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Variations
Want to change it up? Here are some ideas:
- If you’re not a fan of chocolate, skip the chocolate chips and replace them with walnuts, pecans, or dried cherries.
- Want chocolate + nuts or chocolate + cherries? Then go half and half on the chocolate chips and another mix-in.
- Play with the spices. I love cinnamon and nutmeg here, but cardamom, allspice, and/or ginger would also be good. Or, feel free to use pumpkin pie spice if you keep it on hand!
- Use another kind of squash! This recipe calls for canned pumpkin puree, but baked and mashed kabocha, butternut, or buttercup squash would be great here too. See this post for step-by-step instructions on how to make your own pumpkin puree. (And fun fact: canned pumpkin usually contains a mix of squash varieties anyway!)
More Favorite Cookie Recipes
If you love these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, try one of these yummy cookie recipes next:
- Carrot Cake Cookies
- Chewy Molasses Cookies
- Vegan Sugar Cookies
- Thumbprint Cookies
- Almond Butter Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- No Bake Cookies
- Or any of these 17 Easy Cookie Recipes!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed meal
- 2½ tablespoons warm water
- 2 cups oat flour
- 1 cup gluten free whole rolled oats
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¾ cup canned pumpkin puree
- ¾ cup cane sugar
- ½ cup melted warm coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup chocolate chips* (see note)
- Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, combine the flaxseed and water. Stir and set aside to thicken.
- Make the oat flour: use a food processor or a blender to process 2¼ cups rolled oats into a fine flour and measure out 2 cups.
- In a large bowl, combine the oat flour, whole rolled oats, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, sugar, coconut oil and vanilla. Add the thickened flaxseed mixture and stir to incorporate.
- Add the pumpkin mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients and stir to combine. Fold in the chocolate chips. Use a large cookie scoop to drop dollops of the cookie dough onto the baking sheet.
- Bake for 16 to 19 minutes or until the tops have browned (don't under-bake). Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before cooling completely on a wire rack. When cookies are completely cool, they can be stored in an airtight container or frozen.
I use Bob's Red Mill's Certified Gluten Free Rolled Oats.
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These are delicious! Not terribly sweet and do not spread! I love how puffy they remain while baking. Will absolutely make again with different kinds of squash puree once pumpkin is hard to find after the season is over. Thank you!
Would it be ok to sub banana for the sugar?
These were SO yummy! Wonderfully fluffy, fall-flavored (used 1.5 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon/nutmeg), and the chocolate chips made it a lovely chocolatey treat!
I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
How many eggs if I’m not Vegan.
1 and skip the water in addition to the flax. The cookies will be a bit more cakey.
Made as written. Delicious. I appreciate that they are not sickly sweet! Will be great with my morning coffee.
Maybe don’t use monk fruit instead of sugar?(My husband is diabetic and I am always trying to cut down on his sugar intake.) I also cheated and used just store bought oat flour. The cookies didn’t flatten as they baked and remained little unbaked balls on my cookies sheet and too dark on the bottom. I also ran out of parchment paper. Could it really be simply using the monk fruit instead of sugar? This is the best cookie dough I have ever tasted!
Hi Valerie, these cookies turn out best when they’re made with cane sugar. They’re not supposed to spread too much as they bake—they are soft and puffy, almost like muffin tops.
I followed the recipe to the letter with the exception of the fat. I only had 2 T coconut oil which I used, and the remainder was vegan stick butter. I really can’t imagine that change would have made these turn out the way they did but who knows. They were so dry and floury. The batter was quite stiff too, unlike the photos. It’s almost as if I used too much oat flour but as I said, I used the amount called for. I wish I could post a higher rated review.
Hi Shelly, How did you measure your flour? We recommend spooning and leveling it to avoid packing too much into your measuring cup. Maybe that could have been a factor here.
Can I make these with a single regular egg?
Yep, that should work fine instead of the water and flax!
And can you substitute the cane sugar for a different sweetener?
Hi Christine, another granulated sugar would work – like coconut sugar.
Hi Jeanine – I’m enjoying your butternut squash soup right now on a beautiful fall day. Thanks for the recipe. Anyway I’m wondering if I can use fresh pumpkin purée in here instead of canned. Look forward to your answer and thank you
Hi Christine – fresh pumpkin puree should work fine here.
Ive made this recipe quite a few times before and they have always come out amazing. I used Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flour the previous times and this time I used coconut flour. The consistency has drastically changed. The mixture clumped up a lot but was fluffy and a little moist but definitely not as wet as the previous mixtures have been. The cookies didn’t taste or look right. What do I need to do if I use coconut flour or is this flour just not good for these cookies?
Coconut flour is incredibly dry so you should always use 1/3 or 1/4 of the original flour amount and up the liquid ingredients (usually whole eggs for binding but I believe pumpkin purée helps with binding to keep it vegan) – add double the liquid to coconut flour qunatity. So for this recipe, I would start with 1/2 cup – 2/3 cup coconut flour (instead of 2 cups oat flour) and add up to 1/2 cup liquids (including the wet ingredients/liquids already called for in the recipe) such as eggs or pumpkin purée or applesauce as needed to make a slightly thicker than pancake batter is my best way of explaining. As it’s an experiment, I would do 1/4 recipe so you potentially waste less ingredients. I hope that gives you a starting point! 🙂
Hi Kass, coconut flour is totally different – I suggest searching specifically for recipes that use coconut flour instead of trying to sub it in. I’m glad to hear that these have worked so well with Bob’s GF flour!
Hi, I am going to make these today. Do you measure the coconut oil after melting of before melting? Thanks
It doesn’t matter – coconut oil holds the same measurement whether solid or liquid. In nerd speak, coconut oil is pure fat/no water so it won’t evaporate when melted which would make it lighter and affect the volume measurement 🙂