Classic cut-out Vegan Gingerbread Cookies that don’t spread or puff up when you bake them! Perfectly spiced, buttery, delicious and easy to make.
This is the perfect recipe for gingerbread cookies, and no one would ever guess they’re vegan. I adapted this recipe from several non-vegan gingerbread cookies (Gimme Some Oven, Sally’s Baking Addiction).
It took me several tries to get it just right, at first just replacing the butter with vegan butter and the eggs with flax eggs. But that left me with a dough that was too dry. So I added some more molasses to make up for it, and voilà! The perfect cut out gingerbread cookies with no animal products.
I love that they hold their shape in the oven, the same way my Vegan Sugar Cookies do. The trick? Refrigerate the dough for a while before sticking them in the oven.
How to make gingerbread cookies
(This is simply an overview with photos, please see the recipe card below for the full, printable recipe.)
It’s pretty simple!
- In a medium-large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients (flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda and salt). Set aside.
- In another large bowl, add the softened vegan butter and brown sugar. Beat with a hand or stand mixer until creamy, then add in the flax egg, molasses and vanilla and beat until smooth. Slowly add in the dry mixture.
- The dough will be quite thick, but easy to smush together in your hands. It may look crumbly when you use the mixer, but when you form it into balls of dough, it should be plenty moist and easy to work with.
- Refrigerate the dough in two discs for an hour, them roll it out on a clean, lightly floured surface. Cut into desired shapes.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, or longer for crispier cookies. Let them cool completely before decorating.
Helpful tools
- Stand mixer – I love my Kitchen Aid, so if you have one, use it. A hand mixer works as well. If you don’t have either, you can probably mix by hand with a strong wooden spoon.
- Rolling pin – For rolling out the dough.
- Cookie cutters – I used this little set of 3. Love the different sizes.
- Icing bottles – For decorating. You can also use a pastry bag or even a ziplock bag, but for kids the bottles make it so easy!
Can I make them gluten free?
I haven’t tried it yet myself, but a quality gluten free flour mix should work here. It works quite well in my sugar cookies recipe, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t here. Don’t try to use almond flour or coconut flour, that will NOT work!
How to store vegan gingerbread cookies
Store leftover cookies in a covered container for up to 4 days, or freeze them for longer. They can be frozen iced or un-iced. I froze quite a few since I made several batches, and they taste wonderful right out of the freezer to me!
More pretty vegan cookies
- The Best Vegan Sugar Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
- Vegan Snowball Cookies
- Vegan Raspberry Almond Thumbprints
- Vegan Iced Oatmeal Cookies
Vegan Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
Flax Egg
- 1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
- 2.5 tablespoons water
Dry Ingredients
- 3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Wet Ingredients
- 3/4 cup vegan butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 2/3 cup molasses
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Easy Icing
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 3-4 tablespoons plant milk of choice
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Make the Flax Egg: In a small bowl, stir the flaxseeds and water together, then set aside to thicken.
- In a medium-large bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl with a hand mixer (or stand mixer using the paddle attachment), beat the vegan butter and brown sugar together for 2-3 minutes until creamy and fluffy.
- To the bowl with the butter/brown sugar mixture, add the flax egg, molasses and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until smooth and well combined.
- Gradually add the flour mixture on low speed until just combined.
- Divide the cookie dough into two portions. Form each portion into a ball, then flatten with your hands into about a 1 inch disk (I used parchment paper on a counter to flatten). Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Overnight is fine as well if you want to prepare the dough a day ahead of time. If the dough was chilled longer than an hour, let it sit at room temperature for 20 minutes before rolling.
- Once the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a large baking sheet (or 2) with parchment paper.
- Sprinkle flour on a clean, large surface (I just use my counter). Unwrap the dough and place on the floured surface. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough until about 1/8th inch thick. Use cookie cutters to cut them into shapes, and transfer to the baking sheet.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes (for crispy cookies, bake for 12-14 minutes), in the center rack of the oven. They will be quite soft out of the oven, so let them cool on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Repeat rolling and cutting until all the dough is used.
- Make the simple icing: Whisk all icing ingredients together in a medium bowl until very smooth. You want it to be fairly thick for decorating, so add more powdered sugar as needed, or more milk if it gets too thick.
- Once the cookies have cooled completely, use a piping bag or plastic bottle to decorate the cookies however you like. Enjoy! Store leftover cookies in a covered container for 4 days, or freeze them.
Notes
- You may get more or less cookies, depending on the size of your cookie cutters. I used a variety of sizes.
- If you prefer crispy gingerbread cookies, simply bake them longer, 12-14 minutes. I prefer them soft but so they are easily held and don't fall apart.
- Gluten free - I haven't tested it, but a gluten free all purpose blend will likely work quite well.
- Please don't skip refrigerating this dough, or your cookies may very well spread and puff up when you bake them.
My absolute favorite Gingerbread recipe and everyone that i’ve made it for or with has loved it as well. I’ve gotten plenty of compliments from everyone that’s had it! (i prefer mine thick and chewy so i try not to roll them too thin or they’ll be hard and crunchy!) I also use almond extract for the frosting instead (:
Hi Paf. I’m so glad you are loving the gingerbread cookies! Thanks for sharing your recipe experience and ideas, as well as your awesome review! Happy cooking!
These are so good and perfect for Christmas! We made the recipe as is and made 1/2 the dough with the icing as is and the other 1/2 of the dough we did an orange icing (powdered sugar, orange juice, ornage bitters, and orange zest) and it turned out amazing! Will definitely make again.
Hi Alysa. Thank you for sharing your fun baking experience and fantastic review! Your cookies sound beautiful and delicious! Wishing you happy baking!
Do you know if you can freeze the dough? We have really had enough cookies after two batches of these, but I’d like to use the second half of the dough at a later date. Thanks.
By the way, we had so much fun reconstructing an event from our kayaking group. I wish I could send you the picture.
Hi Nora! I’ve been looking at a bunch of gingerbread recipes and I want to check if it is okay to use golden yellow sugar or if it needs to be dark brown sugar? Thanks so much 🙂 Can’t wait to try this out.
Do you mean light brown sugar? That is just fine to use, yes. Light or dark brown sugar works here. Enjoy!
Help! My dough looks more like cake mixture, why is it so wet?! I used the exact metric measures🤯
Something went wrong here, it shouldn’t be anything like cake batter. Did you accidentally melt the vegan butter? Did you really use the correct amount of flour and everything else?
Never mind my first question . I read it wrong it says to use butter that is firm but soften it not to use spreadable.
It’s a really good recipe but I was reading and it suggest firm butter due water content on butter which makes it greasier and also says it won’t spread as much.Worked way better for my icing I made wonder if you have tried it that way
NORA!!!!! This recipe is so good!! I did the recommended 8 min for softer cookies and these are so soft and delicious! It’s like eating spiced clouds! The recipe was super easy to make with most ingredients I already had on hand and a fun activity to do with my 4 year old! So delicious!!! Thank you!
You are welcome, Ashley! How fun that you made these with your four year old! Thank you for sharing your stellar review and feedback! I’m so thrilled that you loved the cookies!
If I use an egg substitute, how much should I use? It measures out as a number of eggs, meaning one TBSP/serving of the substitute equals one egg
Hi Katherine. The flaxseed mix equals 1 egg, so replace it with 1 eggs worth of whatever replacement you’re using. I hope you enjoy!
Hi Nora,
Do you think we can replace the flax with just egg? We have a flax allergy
Yes, I think that should work fine.
Hi Nora! How much just egg do you think would be good to replace the flax? Thank you!
Perhaps 2-3 tablespoons should work fine. Thanks!
THANK YOU wonderful Nora! I used extra ginger from the tube and agave syrup and needed no milk. Yummmm! TY
You are welcome! I’m so glad you loved the cookies! Thank you for your awesome review, and for using my recipes! Happy cooking!
Hi there, will these turn out the same without molasses, or should I make adjustments to the ingredients? I’m not a fan of molasses and don’t plan on incorporating it. Thank you.
Molasses is a big part of this recipe unfortunately, so I’m not sure how they will turn out without it. You could try substituting pure maple syrup, but I can’t guarantee it will work the same.
Mine weren’t cooked on the inside, so I kept putting back into the oven, 5 mins at a time. Now they are rock hard on the outside but still barely cooked on the inside (still delicious but I don’t want to break a tooth 😅) Am I doing something wrong or maybe there’s something wrong with my oven? I did leave the dough in the fridge as you suggested. This always seems to happen to me so I’m starting to think my oven is the culprit.
It is possible your oven runs too hot. But also, for cookies, they will still be very soft and might seem undercooked to you when you take them out of the oven. Cookies continue to firm up as they cool, changing texture. So perhaps you are thinking they are not done and baking them too long, when in fact they just need to cool for a bit. This really goes for all cookie recipes.