Vegan Oatmeal Cookies
These vegan oatmeal raisin cookies are the best! They’re soft and chewy with slightly crispy edges, and super easy to make without butter or eggs. With nutty old-fashioned oats and sweet raisins in ever bite, I promise you won’t be disappointed.
“Followed the recipe exactly. Reminds me of the oatmeal cookies my grandmother made for breakfast when stayed at her summer cottage in Michigan. We just shifted to a plant forward diet. This recipe is amazing.”
Why I love this vegan oatmeal cookie recipe
Almost immediately after publishing my dairy free chocolate chip cookies, I new I wanted to find the best oatmeal cookie recipe. I can’t tell you how many batches I’ve made. I made healthy ones, dry ones and ones that didn’t spread, but they were all disappointments.
Because I already knew exactly what I wanted from these vegan oatmeal cookies. I wanted them to be chewy, with a hint of cinnamon and the traditional nuttiness you get from old fashioned oats. And, I’ve finally found it.
These vegan oatmeal raisin cookies are nothing short of perfection.
Here’s what you’ll need to make them
How to make vegan oatmeal raisin cookies
Mise en place. Preheat your oven to 350˚F, measuring your ingredients out, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Make your flax egg. Stir the ground flax and water together in a small bowl. Set it aside and let the flax absorb the liquid.
Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together in a medium bowl. Set the bowl aside for later.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a larger bowl, beat the vegan butter and sugars with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the flax egg and vanilla and mix until combined.
Add them together. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, about 1 cup at a time, mixing as you go and scraping the sides as needed, until combined.
Stir in the oats and raisins until they’re evenly distributed in the dough.
Bake the cookies. Scoop the cookies onto your cookie sheet and bake for 10 – 12 minutes, or until the cookies have set but are still soft. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on the cookie sheet before transferring them to a cooling rack.
FAQ’s and tips for making vegan oatmeal cookies
You can use quick oats if that’s what you have on hand, but the chewiness and overall texture of the cookies will be different. Because quick cook oats are already partially cooked, your cookies will be less chewy and softer than if you were to use old-fashioned or rolled oats.
These oatmeal cookies are pretty healthy, they contain a lot of great nutrients for your body in a delicious cookie form, but they do contain sugars and fats. With the added flax seeds, you have more fiber and omega 3 in every bite, too.
Yes, most brands of oats aren’t considered gluten free because of cross contamination. This vegan oatmeal cookie recipe also contains gluten in the form of all-purpose flour.
More cookie recipes you’ll enjoy
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
- Italian Anise Cookies
- Pecan Snowball Cookies
- Super Soft Sugar Cookies
- Sprinkle Cookies
More vegan favorites
- Vegan ricotta
- Almond cheese
- Vegan pumpkin spice latte
- Vegan scalloped potatoes
- Vegan naan bread
- Vegan cookie dough for one
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed + 3 tablespoons water
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
- 1/2 cup vegan butter softened
- 1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
- 3/4 cup raisins
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350˚F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, mix the flaxseed and water together. Set aside and allow flax seed to absorb the liquid.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together.
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars at a medium speed until light and fluffy.
- Add vanilla, and the flax mixture to the bowl, and mix until incorporated.
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the bowl, mixing until each addition has been incorporated, scraping the sides as needed.
- Mix in oats and raisins until evenly distributed in the dough.
- Using a cookie scoop, drop 2 tablespoon balls of dough onto a prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10 – 11 minutes, or until the dough has just set on the top.
- Remove from oven and allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
These are delicious! So glad to find this recipe and this site where there is yummy food I can actually eat! I was recently taken off dairy and soy while breastfeeding my daughter.
Hi,
These vegan oatmeal cookies are the best looking ones I’ve found while searching for a good vegan recipe! I’m not vegan but am allergic to dairy and try not to eat eggs. Instead of the flaxseed egg replacement can you use vegetable oil instead? Or is that a different consistency? Thanks!
-Alyssa
If anyone is still wondering, no, that wouldn’t work. The flax egg acts as a binder, just like fowl eggs. The proteins denature (solidify) at high temperatures, holding the cookies together. Vegetable oil would tend to have the opposite effect.
flax eggs aren’t real eggs lol. they’re made using ground flax seeds and water. it acts as a substitute to eggs, thus the name flax egg.
Hi, do you have a metric conversion for this recipe?
I subbed the vegan butter for real butter (not vegan, just out of eggs :)), omitted the raisins, and rolled the tops in coarse brown sugar. SO delicious! Crunchy on the top and sides, chewy and thick on the inside.
Hi! Have you used coconut oil instead of the vegan butter? Wondering if it would yield the same results…
I haven’t tried it, but I think it would work fine! Just use it softened, not melted.
Yes i use coconut oil and it turned out great
My (non-veg) family loved them! I substituted an egg replaced egg for the flax egg.
These cookies are AMAZING!! My kids say they’re better than the soft, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies from Subway – only we leave out the raisins, because they don’t like them.
Anyway, I tried this recipe last night and ate half the batch myself, so I had to bake some more today. So easy, so cheap and absolutely divine!
I made these cookies today and my husband who loves oatmeal cookies says their great! That is good enough for me. Thank you for posting this recipe.
Loved these cookies! We didn’t add the 2 tbsp to both kinds of sugar and they were still plenty sweet. No one could even tell they were vegan
So delicious! Did not have raisons on hand so I substituted dried cranberries.
Hi, do you have a carob vegan cookies recipe? I will be making the oatmeal tomorrow morning?
AMAZING!!!!! As an oatmeal raisin cookie fan, these are my favourite vegan cookies I’ve ever mad! Thank you!
Followed the recipe exactly. Reminds me of the oatmeal cookies my grandmother made for breakfast when stayed at her summer cottage in Michigan. We just shifted to a plant forward diet. This recipe is amazing.
Legit best cookies I ever made. This is coming from an omnivore hoping to transfer to a full vegan one day. Thank youuuuu!
We love this recipe. Thank you. I’ve used an all-purpose gluten free flour or oat flour and its turned out great. Added vegan chocolate chips and walnuts also to change it up a bit.
Hi! This looks great. Do you think that I could use a regular egg instead of the flax egg? I am dairy free not vegan. Thanks!
I haven’t tried it, but I think you definitely could! I would just substitute one egg.
Recipe did not work out for me 🙁 Wouldn’t stick together and were dry
I had the same problems. What did we do wrong, anyone?
Did you follow the recipe as written? If so, there’s a chance that you didn’t measure your flour correctly. I’d love to help you figure out what went wrong. Feel free to email me!
This recipe is just perfect. The cookies were crisp on the outside and soft+slightly chewy on the inside. Thank you! (I used peanut butter + olive oil (1:1) as “vegan butter” and the results were great)
Sorry to report that this resulted in a sad affair. My cookies came out super dry and extremely crumbly. Followed the recipe, and have never had my cookies fail before, so i won’t be using this recipe again.
I followed the recipe and the cookies came out Perfect! Crunchy on the outside, soft inside, very nice.
These cookies are amazing!!! I substituted monk fruit for the white sugar, and instead of a whole 1/2 cup of vegan butter, I used 1/4 cup vegan butter and a 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce. Usually when I do this to other recipes, the result turns out super dry and cakey.. this recipe is magic!
Okay thank you cara bc that’s what I was going to do use monk fruit and apple sauce instead of the flax seed egg thanks so much
This recipe really needs a metric conversion button.
Absolutely perfect oatmeal cookies!!!
The texture is fantastic!
Thank you for sharing!
These are the best oatmeal cookies I have ever had! Non-vegan family and friends love them, they have become a staple in my cookie rotation; thank you so much for the recipe!
These cookies are the perfect texture of a proper oatmeal cookie 😛 and just the right amount of sweet and chewy!
Yep, definitely not disappointed. These were so good! We used real egg, swapped choc chips for the raisins, and used quick cook steel cut oats (all we had on hand), and surprisingly they turned out great!!! I can imagine old fashioned oats would be perfect. Adding this one to our family recipe book for sure.
Some sugar is vegan.
Must I use the flaxseed?
Yes, unless you want to substitute it with a different egg replacement, but if you do make sure you leave out the water.
I use maple syrup instead of brown sugar … so yummy
These are easy to make and a wonderful treat with tea or coffee! Thank you!
I love this recipe! I used crisco shortening instead of vegan butter because it’s cheaper, yet still vegan. The cookies turned out great! I made 28 and my non-veg family tore through them in 2 days. The cinnamon was perfect.
The only issue I had was that the cookies didn’t really flatten the way that they should have based on your pictures. Other vegan cookies I’ve made had the same issue. I’m new to baking and am not sure why that happens, do you have any tips?
In general, shortening has a lower water content than vegan butter, so that will probably prevent them from spreading as much. If you want yours to spread and still use shortening, try adding 1 – 3 teaspoons of water to the dough to see if that helps.
Thank you so much!
Turned out amazing. Can’t tell they are vegan.
I have made these twice and they were amazing both times! I am gluten free and substituted gluten free flour. Thanks for the great recipe!
This was a free-for-all vegan cookie making venture for me as I was low on everything! Was low on vegan butter so used 1/4 c vegan butter 1/8 c olive oil 1/8 cup applesauce. Used Gluten free flour, substituted with overnight oats w/ dates and raisins. I was prepared to leave them out for the possum family outside, but somehow they turned out amazingly well! Soft and chewy. Will definitely follow your recipe to the letter next time I’m not lazy and rained in! Thank you for the great recipe. : )
These cookies are delicious! They are the most requested baked good from friends. Thank you for such a yummy recipe. ❤️
I almost skipped over this recipe in favour for one that had more than 1000 reviews. But I’m glad I didn’t. These were amazing! My husband had been asking for chewy oatmeal cookies for some time and we both love them. I bookmarked this recipe and will definitely be making again, like some time next week ;-). The only modification I made was leaving out the extra tablespoons of sugar and it was plenty sweet for our taste. I also wasn’t sure whether to flatten them down, so I left them in little mounds and they took a good 5-6min longer to cook. Next time I will flatten a bit.
I used the vegan butter as called for. The only difference for me is I subbed sprouted oats and blueberries for the raisins. mine didn’t flatten either and were a bit crumbly. Maybe from the sprouted oats, although oats are gluten-free so…?
My nonvegan sister brought these to my party and everyone loved them! I think these were the best oatmeal raisin cookies I’ve ever had, and they are one of my favorites to begin with. So now I’m making them for her birthday party.
Does the recipe really yield 30 cookies as is? I’d usually double a batch of cookies for a party but 30 is a lot to begin with so if it’s around that, I’d be good. Thanks for the help!
Delicious, but doesn’t make 30 cookies if you’re actually using a 2 Tbl scoop. I got 16 out of it. I didn’t have vegan butter, (which I think is disgusting anyway,) so I substituted extra virgin coconut oil. I never used white granulated sugar, but coconut sugar made a fine substitute. The brown sugar I use is real brown molasses sugar, not the fake stuff that is white sugar with molasses added. And I added a couple squirts of butterscotch stevia to the homemade vanilla. Also, my clan doesn’t like raisins, so I used apple juice infused cranberries. Came out great and tasted awesome!
Taste good. Only change I made was I omitted the raisins.
The only reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5 was that it makes half the amount of cookies it says if you use 2 tbsp size scoop like indicated in recipe. Wish I used my one tablespoon scoop instead so I would have enough cookies.
one of your sugar substitute’s is honey, these will not be vegan if you use honey.
I don’t mention honey in this post at all. I’m not sure where you are seeing that, but you’re right. Honey is not vegan.
I tried this recipe because I was out of milk and eggs, and didn’t want to make a special trip to the store. I was also out of baking soda so I substituted paking powder (used 3 time as much). And I didn’t have any all purpose flour so I used whole wheat instead. And I didn’t have any raisins so I left them out. But they came out really good.
So good! I substituted craisins for raisins. Very satisfying cookie, bravo.
So far, I’ve only had one cookie that was cooling, but after the first bite, I literally said to myself “That’s a good cookie.” I followed the recipe exactly, except I didn’t use a hand mixer and went the manual route. And I added another teaspoon of vanilla. Thank you for sharing the recipe.
Hi – do you have a suggestion of how to make these gluten free ?
I substituted a very ripe banana for the vegan butter. The cookies are very dense, and following 2 tablespoons per cookie, I ended up with 18 cookies. Will make recipe again but will not use banana as a substitute for the fat. I am
In Costa Rica and my coconut oil turns to liquid, was not sure if that would work.
You could use vegetable shortening instead of the vegan butter. I use butter flavored crisco as a substitute interchangeably for vegan butter in baking recipes.