These vegan molasses cookies are soft and chewy and spiced with cinnamon, ginger and molasses. The ideal holiday cookie!
These vegan molasses cookies are wonderfully soft and chewy and packed with delicious spices. It will remind you of a ginger cookie, while at the same time being completely different.
The molasses flavor is subtle, but distinctive, and combined with brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg creates a magical holiday cookie.
They’re super simple to make, don’t require any chilling of dough or any extra steps, so you can have a batch of warm fresh baked cookies in front of you in an easy breezy 30 minutes.
I hope that sounds tempting! Because I’ve just about tempted myself to stop writing this and go whip up another batch right now.
Let’s just say, these cookies are always a big hit in our house. I’ll definitely be making these many more times and certainly for Christmas.
And if you love Christmas baking then you’ll love our vegan snowball cookies, vegan butter cookies, vegan gingerbread loaf and vegan gingerbread cookies.
How To Make Vegan Molasses Cookies
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Add vegan butter and light brown sugar to the bowl of your stand mixer and cream them together until smooth.
- Add molasses and vanilla and mix in. Add all purpose flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt and mix in with a spoon (don’t use your electric mixer for this part) until crumbly.
- Add non-dairy milk, only as much as needed to get it to a consistency that can be easily rolled into balls.
- Break off pieces of the dough and roll into balls. Roll the balls in sugar. Place them on a parchment lined baking tray. Flatten with a fork.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool and firm up directly on the baking tray.
The Best Molasses
A dark molasses is going to be best for these cookies. It should say unsulphured on the label.
Grandma’s unsulphured molasses is a good brand that I’ve used before.
If you don’t have that brand in your country, just use any brand that is dark in color and says ‘unsulphured’ somewhere on the label. It should work fine.
Storing and Freezing
Keep your cookies stored in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 4 days. They can be stored in the fridge in a sealed container as well for up to a week. Let them come to room temperature before serving.
They are also freezer friendly for up to 3 months.
More Vegan Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Cookies
- Vegan Oatmeal Cookies
- Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
- Vegan Thumbprint Cookies
- Vegan Brown Sugar Cookies
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Molasses Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup Vegan Butter (170g)
- ¾ cup Light Brown Sugar (150g)
- ¼ cup Unsulphured Molasses (60ml)
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 ¼ cups All Purpose Flour (280g)
- 1 ½ tsp Baking Soda
- 2 tsp Ground Ginger
- 1 ¼ tsp Cinnamon
- ¼ tsp Ground Cloves
- ¼ tsp Nutmeg
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 2 Tbsp Soy Milk or other non-dairy milk
- ¼ cup White Granulated Sugar (50g) For rolling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Add vegan butter and light brown sugar to the bowl of your stand mixer and cream them together until smooth.
- Add molasses and vanilla and mix in. Add all purpose flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt and mix in with a spoon (don’t use your electric mixer for this part) until crumbly.
- Add soy milk (or another non-dairy milk), only as much as needed to get it to a consistency that can be easily rolled into balls. If your vegan butter is a very soft variety then you may not need to add any non-dairy milk at all.
- Break off pieces of the dough and roll into balls. Roll the balls in sugar. Place them on your parchment lined baking tray. Aim to get 20 cookies from the batch. Flatten with a fork before baking.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool and firm up directly on the baking tray.
Video
Notes
- Molasses: Use unsulphured molasses. Grandma’s molasses works great.
- Storing: Keep your cookies stored in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 4 days. They can be stored in the fridge in a sealed container as well for up to a week. Let them come to room temperature before serving.
- Freezing: They are also freezer friendly for up to 3 months.
- This recipe was first published in November 2018. It has been slightly updated with extra tips but the recipe itself is unchanged.
I’ve never heard of molasses cookies before but these are lovely and very easy to make – a big hit with the whole family!
Wonderful! Thanks so much Lindsay!
Hi! Do you know if these would work with a gluten free all purpose flour?
Yes, I think it would work!
I always loved making molasses cookies as a kid. The recipe was one of my favorites in my cookie cookbook! Thanks for making this vegan recipe. I haven’t had them in years!
Awesome! Hope you love the vegan version! 🙂
These look amazing!! Does the vegan butter need to be unsalted or will it work with salted vegan butter?
Regular salted will work great!
So I made teeny tiny alterations to the recipe: (I always reduce the baking soda a tiny bit or we taste the flavor), I switched about 1/4 of the vegan butter for vegetable shortening and we were out of regular white sugar so I rolled in coconut sugar. Used a cookie scoop and didn’t end up needing any soy milk (very warm here + soft vegan butter, the dough was actually extremely soft).12 mins was perfect! Just the right amount of chewy, totally delicious.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing Ali!
Hi, I loved the idea but wanted to know if you’ve tried it with any other flour? Maybe wheat flour instead of all purpose? If you did, would you mind sharing the results? Thanks!
Hi Yasa, I haven’t tested it with other flours, I think whole wheat might work okay but the texture would be more coarse. 🙂
Can we use cane sugar? Can’t wait to try it out!
Sure! 🙂
These are amazing cookies. Slightly firm on outside with soft centers. I didn’t need to use any milk. I shared them and everybody loved them
So glad they were a success! Thanks for sharing and the awesome review. 🙂
Hola me encantan tus sus recetas, tengo una consulta acá en Chile me cuesta encontrar melaza, la puedo omitir o cambiar por otro ingrediente? Agradeceré mucho tu respuesta saludos.
Hi Danae, you could switch the molasses for something like maple syrup, but it would of course lose that molasses flavor, but would still taste good I’m sure. 🙂
Fantastic!!!!
Wow I’m amazed! I just made these, they are SO GOOD. My boyfriend will be happy 🙂 Thank you for the recipe!
So happy to hear! Thanks Florence! xo
I tried this recipe last week, and the cookies turned out perfectly and incredibly delicious! I followed the recipe exactly, and everything turned out beautifully. Even my non-vegan family and friends loved them. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
That’s music to my ears. ?Thanks a million Payton. 🙂
Wow, thank you again Alison, can’t wait to try these YUM ?
I LOVE molasses cookies and these look wonderful!
Awesome Jackie, hope you try them soon! 🙂
After rolling the dough into a ball do you flatten it a bit with a fork? It looks that way in your photo.
Thank you.
Yes! Thanks for pointing that out, I have updated the recipe card! 🙂