Vegan Breakfast Cookies
This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Please read my disclosure.Vegan breakfast cookies are the perfect grab and go breakfast option for busy mornings. Make this easy recipe in just 20 minutes and have on hand for a quick meal, wholesome snack, or healthy dessert!
Mornings can be so busy and rushed, especially when you’re trying to get yourself (or your whole family) out the door. It isn’t always realistic to make an elaborate breakfast for the family. That’s where these healthy breakfast cookies come in!
Packed with wholesome ingredients like oats, nuts, and fruit, these morning cookies are not only a tasty treat, but are also a healthy way to start your day.
The best part? They can easily be prepped ahead of time for the entire week, making them the perfect solution for busy mornings when you don’t have time to sit down for a meal. Make a large stash for a quick way to feed your family. You can even freeze these to keep them fresh and handy!
When you need to switch things up from the classic bowl of oatmeal or toast, I definitely recommend these easy peasy vegan gluten free cookies for your morning meal. They are loaded with healthy fats, fiber, and protein for long-lasting energy that’s perfect for a busy work or school day.
Whether you’re vegan or just looking for a nutritious breakfast option, these grab-and-go cookies are sure to become a new favorite in your meal rotation. They really are the best breakfast cookies! And if you’re looking for more healthy breakfast recipes, you have to check out my healthy green waffles too!
👩🏽🍳 Why This Recipe Works
- Easy grab and go breakfast
- Made with wholesome ingredients
- Healthy snack option
- Great for busy people
- Breakfast meal prep
- Best vegan gluten free cookies!
Latest Recipe Video!
🥘 Ingredients
With a few healthy ingredients you can make the best homemade breakfast cookies. Check out the recipe card at the bottom of this post for exact measurements.
- Ground Flaxseeds & Water: When using flaxseed meal make sure it is finely ground for best results. You will make a flax egg using 1 tbsp flax and 3 tbsp water.
- Rolled Oats: For a hearty cookie use old fashioned oats. For less texture try quick oats. If you want you can try vegan muesli cookies too!
- Oat Flour: You can make your own oat flour by blending oats in a food processor, or buy ready to go flour at the store. If you prefer, almond flour or almond meal also works for this easy vegan breakfast cookies recipe.
- Chia Seeds: Add extra nutrients with chia seeds! They are a good source of fiber and plant-based protein with about 2 grams of protein per tablespoon.
- Baking Powder & Baking Soda: Baking powder and baking soda will help these good morning cookies rise and spread.
- Cinnamon & Vanilla Extract: Add cinnamon for a comforting taste that pairs perfectly with oats for the best breakfast cookie. Pumpkin pie spice can also be used. And these vegan oatmeal breakfast cookies aren’t complete without a hint of vanilla!
- Maple Syrup: For a touch of sweetness use maple syrup. You can also use coconut sugar, brown sugar, or date paste.
- Peanut Butter: Nut butter will give these gluten free vegan breakfast cookies a good source of healthy fats and protein. You can use almond butter, cashew butter, or sunflower seed butter for whatever nutty flavor you prefer.
- Dried Cranberries: You can use whatever dried fruit you’d like, or add dark chocolate chips for a boost of antioxidants.
🔪 Instructions
Whether you’re looking for healthy snack cookies or breakfast on the go, this easy to follow recipe will be a new favorite of yours! Follow along step by step with these easy instructions. Here is how to make this vegan breakfast cookie recipe:
Preheat The Oven, Make The Flax Egg: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F / 180 C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. The first thing you’ll want to do is prep your flax egg. Mix together the ground flaxseeds and water in a small bowl, set aside for 5 minutes to form a gel. It only takes a little while to start seeing it thicken.
Mix The Dry Ingredients: In a large mixing bowl mix together the oats, oat flour, chia seeds, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.
Mix The Wet Ingredients: In a separate bowl whisk together the liquid ingredients of flaxseed gel, maple syrup, peanut butter and vanilla extract until smooth.
Combine Ingredients: Next, add the dried cranberries and wet ingredients to the large bowl with dry ingredients. Mix until well incorporated. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes to firm up.
Place Cookie Dough On Sheet: Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out 2-3 tbsp of cookie dough and shape into a ball and place on a cookie sheet. For big cookies, use 4 tbsp of dough per cookie. Repeat with remaining mixture. Lightly flatten the tops of each cookie with back of a fork.
Bake The Cookies & Let Cool: Bake these vegan healthy cookies in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove and allow these breakfast oatmeal cookies to cool on the baking tray before transferring to a wire rack to reach room temperature.
💭 Expert Tips
- Use an ice cream scooper. These gf breakfast cookies will be a little sticky so use a small cookie scoop or spoon to roll them into cookie dough balls (vs. your hands). Lightly wetting the spoon or scoop with water will help prevent the mixture from sticking to it.
- Flatten cookies before baking. Using a wet hand, gently press the tops of the oat breakfast cookies to slightly flatten them, since they won’t spread as much as typical cookies.
- For chocolate lovers, vegan chocolate chips can be used instead of, or in addition to, dried cranberries. The antioxidants in dark chocolate still make this a healthy breakfast cookie recipe.
- For a gluten free breakfast cookies recipe, make sure that the oats and oat flour have a gluten-free certification.
- Set in the fridge first. Placing the mixture in the fridge allows the dry ingredients to absorb the wet and for the mixture to become firmer. Don’t skip this step otherwise the dough will be hard to work with!
- As a heads up, these vegan cookies won’t rise or spread much.
📖 Variations
- Different Mix-Ins: Try adding a mix of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, slivered almonds, shredded coconut, sultanas, walnuts or even dried apricots instead of the dried cranberries, to change up the flavor of these healthy vegan cookies.
- Sugar Free Breakfast Cookies: If you are looking for sugar free or low sugar breakfast cookies, you can use monk fruit or skip the sweetener all together. Make sure that your nut butter does not contain any added sugar in it.
- Banana Breakfast Cookies: Next time, try making these easy breakfast cookies with banana! You can easily replace the flax egg with a ripe banana. Mash well and mix in with the other ingredients. You can also check out this banana breakfast cookie recipe.
- Nut Free Cookies: For a nut free option, you can use tahini which comes from ground sesame seeds or sunflower butter.
- Other Egg Replacements: You can use unsweetened applesauce, mashed banana, or chia egg as vegan egg substitutes (alternatives to the flaxseed egg) for these eggless breakfast oatmeal cookies.
❓Recipe FAQs
Traditional bakery cookies are not really ok for breakfast, as they are more of a sugary dessert than a breakfast option!
But, when made with whole foods and nutritious ingredients, cookies can be the perfect breakfast! This simple breakfast cookie recipe is a healthier alternative to sugary muffins or pancakes loaded with syrup.
This breakfast cookie is healthy because:
** It’s low in sugar: You can enjoy one giant cookie with only about 5-6 grams of added sugar per cookie! (the rest of the sugar is natural sugar from the fruit).
** It’s packed with whole grains: The base of these oat flour breakfast cookies are whole oats and oat flour, making them packed with heart healthy whole grains and making them gluten free at the same time!
** It’s balanced: It contains protein, fats, and fiber with whole grains to keep you feeling full for hours.
Each breakfast oatmeal cookie has only about 130 calories, with balanced ingredients to keep you feeling energized and focused on busy days. (Compare that to – most bakery cookies or bakery breakfast cookies will run you upwards of 300 calories per cookie!)
These low calorie breakfast cookies are much healthier than other grab and go foods like protein bars or store bought snacks.
Yes! These healthy vegan breakfast cookies are perfect for kids. Little ones will love these chewy cookies with the subtle sweetness and delicious flavor. It is so fun for kids to be able to have cookies for breakfast, and you can feel good knowing they are getting a balanced meal to start their day. Their first time biting into one of these they’ll be asking for seconds! It will quickly become one of your favorite healthy recipes for picky eaters too!
Store cooled cookies in an airtight container in a cool, dry place for up to 5 days. You can also freeze these cookies to last longer. To freeze, let these breakfast healthy cookies cool, then transfer them to an airtight freezer safe container or freezer bag. To help them last longer, you can wrap each one in plastic wrap beore placing them in the container or freezer bag. They should keep in the freezer for up to 3 months. When ready to eat, defrost frozen cookies or heat up in the oven for a few minutes.
🥞 More Easy Breakfast Recipes!
- Pancake Tacos
- Gluten Free Vegan Waffles
- Spinach Banana Muffins
- Croffles
- Cottage Cheese With Fruit
- Strawberry Donuts
- Homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch
- Baked Oats Without Banana
- Sourdough Croissants
- Cream Cheese Toast
- Overnight Weetabix
- McDonald’s Hash Browns Recipe
- Vegan French Toast Casserole
- Healthy Flapjacks
- Nutella Waffles
- Healthy Banana Bread
- Peanut Butter Banana Overnight Oats
- Mango Pineapple And Banana Smoothie
- Strawberry Smoothie Bowl
Love this plant based breakfast recipe? Please leave a 5-star rating 🌟 in the recipe below and/or a review in the comments section further down the page!
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📋 Recipe Card
🎥 Watch How to Make It
Vegan Breakfast Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp ground flaxseeds
- 3 tbsp water
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ¼ cup oat flour
- ½ tbsp chia seeds
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup peanut butter or any nut butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup dried cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F / 180 C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Mix together the ground flaxseeds and water in a small bowl, set aside for 5 minutes to form a gel.
- In a mixing bowl, mix together the oats, oat flour, chia seeds, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flaxseed gel, maple syrup, peanut butter and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Next, add the dried cranberries and wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
- Mix until well incorporated. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes for the batter to firm up.
- Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out 2-3 tbsp of cookie mixture and shape into a ball and place on prepared tray. Repeat with remaining mixture.
- Lightly flatten the tops of each cookie.
- Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.
- Remove and allow to cool on the baking tray before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Store cooled cookies in an airtight container in a cool, dry place for up to 5 days.
Notes
- The cookie mixture will be a little sticky, so using your own hands to roll it into balls will be challenging. I recommend using a small ice cream scoop or spoon. Lightly wetting the spoon or scoop with water will help prevent the mixture from sticking to it.
- Using damp hands, gently press the tops of the cookies to slightly flatten them.
- A ripe banana, mashed, can be used instead of the flaxseed if preferred.
- Vegan chocolate chips can be used instead of dried cranberries.
- Use gluten-free oats and oat flour to make these cookies gluten-free.
- Placing the mixture in the fridge allows the dry ingredients to absorb the wet and for the mixture to become firmer.
- Any nut butter can be used such as almond, cashew or peanut butter or even tahini if you’re wanting a nut-free cookie.
- Try adding pumpkin seeds, slivered almonds, currants, sultanas, walnuts or even dried apricots instead of the dried cranberries, to change up the flavor of these cookies.
- These cookies won’t rise or spread much.
- Store cookies in an airtight container in a cool, dry place for up to 5 days.
- Cookies can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months.
This would be a great idea to make with our boys. They love baking as much as I do, and cookies as well.
My daughter helps me make these all the time! 🙂 I can’t wait for you and your boys to make this recipe!
My kids would have been so excited if we had ever made them cookies for breakfast! These look really delicious!
Haha! Totally – my daughter always feels like she’s getting a special treat when we have these cookies, so I don’t tell her that they’re actually pretty healthy!
I buy granola bars by the truckload! lol These look so good, and I bet it would save me a lot of money!
haha!! I love granola bars too 🙂 And yes these would save you money and are much healthier than most granola bars on the market!! Enjoy!
This does sound like the perfect breakfast snack. I like the different fruit options. I’d enjoy trying a few!
Yay!! You’ll have to let me know how these turn out when you try the different mix-ins too!
Wow, this looks absolutely amazing. I know my daughters would love this. Thanks for such a great recipe. Bookmarking!
Woohoo!! Can’t wait for you and your girls to try this recipe!
I make a recipe similar to this, and they’re always a huge hit! Though I’m going to be trying your recipe, since I love the inclusion of pumpkin in them!
Awesome!! I can’t wait to hear how this turns out compared to the recipe you usually make! 🙂
I love breakfast cookies. It’s so easy to just grab and go with them. Looking forward to trying this recipe.
Yes!! These cookies make a healthy breakfast so much easier to manage!
Yum, I would love to have these for breakfast. These cookies look fantastic.
Thanks so much!! I’m so excited for you to try them!
Breakfast cookies sound so delicious! My kids would love to try these as they are cookie monsters. It would also help them to get some more fruits into their diet.
Haha my kids are cookie monsters too – I feel like all kids are! 🙂 I’m sure they will love these cookies!
These cookies are making my hungry. I haven’t had breakfast yet. I will see if I can make this WW friendly.
Hi Heather! If you do have to make modifications to this recipe to make it WW friendly, I’d love to know what you end up doing! Can’t wait for you to try these!
This sounds like my kind of breakfast. I’m not crazy about traditional breakfast foods but I’m totally onboard with these cookies.
Yayyy!! Enjoy Alli! 🙂
Cookies look delicious!
What is the substitute of eggs in the recipe as i am vegetarian.
Thanks
Hi Rakhi! Instead of regular eggs, you can use flax eggs! I’d recommend 2 flax eggs to replace the 1/4 cup egg whites in this recipe. Hope that helps and I hope you love this recipe! 🙂
Making these along with the veggie chili today so we have something to grab before heading off to wine tasting bridal shower tomorrow, they look so yummy I can’t wait!
Oh perfect!! I can’t wait to hear how it all goes – have lots of fun this weekend Jessica! 🙂
Looks like a very appetizing breakfast recipe!
Thank you! Enjoy!
This looks great – love the idea of a “grab and go” cookie!
Hehe totally!! Convenient and healthy – just the way I like it!
Sounds really delicious!
Thanks Laila!