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.
First, I absolutely love this site and can’t wait for the cookbook. It is my go to resource now for delicious, healthy meals that are also easily pulled off after a work day. I tell everyone about it. Now for this recipe… we’re in trouble. Made a batch of these last night and they are so good we had for breakfast this morning. I’m usually good with self control on desserts but I’m going to have to take any leftovers to work tomorrow if any are left. They are everything I want in a cookie. Mine weren’t quite as pretty as thinner than the picture– will try to research what may have caused this– but they taste divine! Confession: I put the whole bag of chocolate chips in. 🙂
Ha, I’m so glad you liked them – I couldn’t help but eat them for breakfast too :). The batch I made in the bottom photo here were pretty flat, the ones in the top photo I guess puffed a little more – I had that dough in the fridge for a few hours before I shot them, (maybe that made a difference). Both ways tasted good and the overall texture was the same, so I didn’t call that out as a step, but chilling the dough might help them not flatten so much. Or you could use a tad less coconut oil. I usually get puffier, less flat cookies when I use a little less fat.
Have you tried these with any other flour than wheat or spelt?
I can’t eat wheat or spelt and would love to make these for our family as they are perfect for our daughter who is anaphylaxis to wheat. I have tried other flours myself but not found one that works.
Hi Andrea – I haven’t but I think oat flour might work well – also see the comment that’s 4 above this one – a reader made a gluten free version with buckwheat and brown rice flour. (a gluten free all purpose flour mix like Pamela’s or Cup 4 Cup should sub in here as well).
I love this idea 🙂 I will definitely be trying this out!
Wow, such a delicious and healthy recipe! In my spare time I love to cook, so thanks for sharing this recipe.
Yum. I love oatmeal cookies, but my husband hates raisins and won’t eat them with me. He does like dried cherries, and it sounds like these will be cookies we’ll both love.
Hi Jeanine, I came upon your site looking for a gluten free oatmeal cookie and was so inspired by this recipe that I made a gluten-free version. They just came out of the oven and they taste delicious.
So great to have a cookie dough recipe without eggs!
Thank you for the inspiration 🙂
xx Linda
Hi Linda, glad you liked them! Can you share what type of GF flour you used?
Hi Jeanine,
I used a mix of 1 cup of buckwheat flour, 1/2 cup of brown rice flour and 1/2 cup of tapioca flour. I used 1/4 cup of maple syrup; that is sweet enough for me. My son, who is no celiac, loves them too!
Is it ok when I share my gluten-free version on my blog, with a reference to yours?
thanks again! xo Linda
Thanks for sharing! This is so helpful for other gluten free readers… Sure, go ahead and share on your blog 🙂
Thank you for the responses. Linda, thank you, very helpful:)
Hi Jeanine! I do love me some vegan oatmeal cookies. How do you think alone extract would do instead of vanilla? And I’d love to try some pistachios or chopped almonds with the cherries. But do I dare betray chocolate?
Hi Cady, I think your variations sound delicious! I think almond extract could work instead of the vanilla (or with it 1/2 and 1/2)…
I can’t wait any longer as I am craving these cookies as soon as I see them. I LOVE LOVE LOVE them so much I need to bake them today!!! Thank you so much for your wonderful recipe, as always. I am going to bookmark this recipe to bake for my nephew when I visit home 🙂
These look like my type of cookie too!! I’ve always loved oatmeal cookies and now I’m craving a deliciously chewy cookie fresh out of the oven. 😀
These cookies look so delicious! I love so combo of chocolate and cherries:)) Greetings
You always make great recipes with tart cherries, and this one is no exception. It’s the perfect blend of chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. I stock up on dried cherries when I’m back in the US because they’re harder to come by (and expensive) here in Switzerland! This is going on my fall baking list!
These look delicious! Cherry and chocolate make a great combo!
Kari
http://www.sweetteasweetie.com
Sounds like a great combo, I think the tart cherries will absolutely bring these oatmeal cookies to life! And it doesn’t hurt that it got healthy benefits, too! 🙂
Be still my vegan-cookie-loving-heart (!!!). LOVE.
Yummy! These look so good and I have almost every ingredient…just missing the cherries.
I love dried cherries! I could just eat them by the handful and never tend to have any left by the time I want to use them in something. These cookies are a good reason to pick some up – I bet they are delicious and I’m sure I could adapt them to gf pretty easily. They look amazing!
I wish these were gluten free! The cookies look fantastic.
see a few comments below…
I had a bag of cherries but my bf ate them! I’ll have to get more to try this recipe out. I like the addition of coconut oil as I have been recently using it more in smoothies too. Recently discovered the versatility of golden raisins, can’t wait to learn more about tart dried cherries!
I’m right there with you about saving the eggs for bfast and getting to eat half the batch of cookie dough raw! These look incredible!
I can’t wait to try this recipe! I’m always looking for something I can bake when I have my vegan friends over for dinner. I like the no-raw-egg factor too so I don’t have to swat my kids’ hands away from the bowl as we’re making cookies.