Why you’ll love these dairy free chocolate chip cookies!
Baking is one of the hardest things to do once you’ve gone dairy free. There are so, so many recipes out there that require milk, butter, or – my least favorite to replace – yogurt.
But, I’ve got your back. I’ve tested out many of those dairy free chocolate chip cookies, and we’ve decided that these are our favorite.
They’re texture is most like the butter-based cookies of our childhood and they flavor is the closest we can find. In fact, I’d say it’s dead on.
That’s mostly because of the vegetable shortening I replaced the butter with – it’s my favorite substitute for butter when baking – and allergy friendly chocolate chips.
Ingredient notes:
- Dairy free butter – I’ve used both vegetable shortening and dairy free chocolate chips for this recipe. You can easily swap vegan butter or coconut oil for the shortening if that’s what you have on hand just be sure to let it soften a bit.
- Dairy free chocolate chips – These are usually available at most grocery stores, but sometimes they are located in the organic section rather than the baking aisle. If you’re unsure, just read the label and look for milk listed as an ingredient.
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions listed are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.
How to make chocolate chip cookies without butter
Mise en place. Preheat your oven to 350˚F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Measure out all of your ingredients before you begin mixing. This helps make sure you don’t miss anything.
Whisk your dry ingredients. Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl. Set the bowl aside for later.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the shortening and sugars until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time and beat until they’re incorporated.
Combine the dry and wet ingredients. Add the flour to the mixing bowl, about 3/4 cup at a time, scraping the sides as needed.
Once that is all mixed, you’ll need to stir in the chocolate chips. You can also add about 1/2 cup chopped nuts if you want.
Scoop the cookies. Use a cookie scoop to shape the dough into 2 tablespoon sized balls and place them on the cookie sheet about and inch or so apart.
Bake for 11 – 13 minutes – or until the tops of the cookies have set. They should still be super soft when you take them out, especially if you want them to be chewy.
Let them cool. Remove the cookies from the oven and leave them on the baking sheet for a few minutes. Then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
More dairy free cookies: rocky road cookies / chocolate chocolate chip cookies / soft sugar cookies / sprinkle cookies / almond crescent cookies / no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies
Frequently asked questions
If you want to replace butter in chocolate chip cookies, you have several options. Since chocolate chip cookies typically use softened, but not melted butter, I recommend using vegetable shortening, vegan butter, or softened coconut oil for a 1:1 replacement.
Traditional Nestle chocolate chips aren’t dairy free, but they recently came out with a line called Simply Delicious that are top 8 allergen free, which means they are dairy free. If you’re unsure, be sure to check the ingredients list.
More dairy free chocolate recipes: dairy free fudge / olive oil brownies / dairy free chocolate pudding / dairy free hot chocolate / chocolate zucchini muffins / chocolate raspberry tart
Eggs are not dairy.
But, if you thought eggs were a dairy product, you are not alone. It’s common misconception that stems from the fact that eggs are sold in the dairy section at the grocery store and they usually need to be refrigerated, which is something we often associate with dairy. See more: Are eggs dairy free?
The Best Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup vegetable shortening*
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup dairy free chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350˚F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat shortening and sugars at medium speed until light and fluffy – about 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, beating until combined. Add flour mixture, about 1/2 cup at a time, mixing until incorporated, scrapping sides as needed.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Using a medium cookie scoop, drop 2 tablespoon balls of dough onto cookie sheet. Bake for 10 – 11 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
- Repeat steps 6 – 7 to bake remaining cookies.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Leave a comment below!
OMG – these cookies were amazing, though I did make a substitution. Instead of shortening (as I had none), I used dairy-free margarine and coconut oil. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
Perfect dairy-free cookies! I did have to up the bake time to 20 minutes in my natural gas oven.
My son has a dairy allergy and I needed to find a cookie recipe for the holidays and I found a winner! My son loves them and so will 🎅
My only thing with this recipe, it calls for 2 eggs, yet the eggs are never mentioned in the directions. I added it to the shortening and sugars.
“Add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time and beat until they’re incorporated.”
Eric, you human fool… The Egg was nothing more than a lie in the Recipe Equation! The Vanilla was the real villain all this time!
My friend made me these cookies and they were the bomb. I made some and I tasted them , they were great. Well… a few hours later I ate another one and they were hard 🙁
My little girl just developed an allergy to milk. I was nervous to try baking but this was amazing!! Soft in inside, perfect on outside. Really good.
This recipe didn’t work out for me. I’m not sure what it was (maybe too much flour?), but I’ve double-checked and I had all the ingredients and measurements correct as per the instructions. The dough was very dry and crumbly, so I ended up adding a splash of almond milk to make it workable as a cookie dough. The cookies never spread, and they ended up as partially baked, crumbly balls of cookie dough and chocolate — and then into the trash. 🙁
If the cookies didn’t spread, your baking soda was probably not good anymore. It is possible that you needed a bit of extra liquid depending on which brand of shortening or vegan butter you used though. They all have different compositions. I’m sorry the recipe didn’t work out for you.
Can I substitute 1cup of coconut butter( melted) instead of the shortening?
I’ve tried this recipe (4) different times now. Here’s the thing: if you follow it exactly, your cookies will come out chewy…for about 15 minutes.
After that, they turn into crumbly cakey hockey pucks. After a day you can just throw them out, because they are hard as rocks.
I struggled trying to figure out why this recipe was so popular, when what I really wanted was moist and chewy dairy-free cookies that lasted for more than a day at room temps. You know, like regular dairy cookies.
Here is what I did to get it to work:
1) Cut back on the flour by 1/4 cup. Less flower worked better.
2) Use 1 whole cup brown sugar. More brown sugar reacts better with the baking soda and you get chewier cookies.
3) Make sure your baking soda is fresh as can be. My first batch I used old stuff, didn’t work at all.
4) If you use butter flavored shortening like I did, read the directions on that package and add the right amount of water to the recipe. Shortening is 100% fat and no water, whereas butter is 80% fat and like 20% water. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of water for every 1/4 cup of shortening in the mix. This means I added 5 teaspoons of water to the recipe.
Once I did these things, my cookies were finally flatter, chewy for days, and didn’t turn out cakey and tough after 15 minutes cooling.
Try putting a slice of bread in the container you store it in. It makes them super soft!
I just made this recipe yesterday and my family loved them. I added some crushed toasted walnuts as well and they cake out great! Thank you for your recipe. I will save this recipe to keep making it in the future.
I LOVED these cookies! They had the texture of a “regular” cookie. They tasted FABULOUS! I used King Arthur Flour and Enjoy Life chocolate chips. My family didn’t know the difference, and I gave a dozen to my allergist’s office.
I posted the picture in IG: a_positive_force