The most delicious and easy Vegan Gluten-free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies that are just 7 ingredients, oil-free, made in 1 bowl and dairy-free. Ready in about 20 minutes!
VEGAN PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
I am a vegan cookie making machine, haha. I enjoy creating vegan cookie recipes more than anything else! When I’m not making these really popular, Easy Peanut Butter Cookies, I’m usually making these Vegan Gluten-free Chocolate Cookies or these Best Vegan Thin Mints!
My original vegan peanut butter cookies use almond flour, which many people ask to substitute, so therefore, I needed a go-to gluten-free peanut butter cookie recipe that used different gluten-free flours.
I love that these cookies are super fudgy and moist with a slightly crispy edge. In other words, the perfect cookie texture.
INGREDIENTS NEEDED
You don’t need all-purpose flour here. All you need are 7 easy ingredients for these gluten-free peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (+salt if your peanut butter doesn’t have it):
- White rice flour: This gives a wonderful chew to the cookies and keeps them gluten-free. I use Bob’s Red Mill. It also binds much better than brown rice flour and they aren’t as dry as brown rice flour would make them.
- Tapioca starch: This replaces eggs and gives browning, structure and a wonderful texture to the cookies. Using all white rice flour would result in them being too gritty. The tapioca balances out the overall texture.
- Peanut butter: Use an all-natural peanut butter here, without added oil or sugar. Salt is fine. I like the Simple Truth Brand that I buy from Kroger.
- Maple syrup
- Baking powder
- Vanilla extract
- Dairy-free vegan chocolate chips: I use either the Heb brand, Enjoy Life brand or Sprouts or Trader Joe’s. Always check the ingredient list to make sure milk/dairy is not added.
HOW TO MAKE VEGAN PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Step 1: Add the dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk them well.
Step 2: Add the peanut butter, syrup, vanilla and chocolate chips. Stir until a thick batter forms.
Step 3: Form balls using 2 tablespoons worth of the batter and place about 2 inches apart on the pan, 9 on each pan.
Step 4: Flatten each cookie with your hands to 1/4 inch thick which should yield them to about 2 inches wide.
Step 5: Bake for just 10-12 minutes or until the edges are golden. Enjoy!
WHY YOU’LL LOVE THESE PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
- Easy to make with Only 7 ingredients!
- Gluten-free: Including, not having any oats, which many people cannot eat that avoid gluten. So, they are really allergy-friendly!
- Fudgy
- Perfectly sweetened
- 1 bowl
- 20 minutes from start to finish!
- Impress your non-vegan friends and family
TIPS AND SUBSTITUTIONS
- If you are allergic to peanut butter, you could try cashew butter, since it’s a very similar thickness and texture as peanut butter. You do not want to do almond butter here, it is much more oily and runny. I have plenty of almond butter cookie recipes already on the blog, linked below.
- If you are not gluten-free you can try subbing the white rice flour with regular all-purpose flour if you are not gluten-free. See the NOTES below for tips.
- You can sub the tapioca starch with cornstarch and it will give similar results.
- Agave can be subbed for the maple syrup.
MORE VEGAN COOKIE RECIPES
- Cashew Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Gluten-free Sugar Cookies
- Best Vegan Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Almond Butter Blossoms
- Vegan Snickerdoodles
- Vegan Old-Fashioned Iced Oatmeal Cookies
- Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Best Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate Coconut Cookies (reader favorite!)
Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (Gluten-free)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (80g) white rice flour (brown will make them crumble, see NOTES below for sub) This is regular white rice flour, not the "sticky white rice" flour
- 1/4 cup (32g) tapioca starch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (if your peanut butter has added salt, then omit)
- 1/2 cup (160g) pure maple syrup
- 1 cup (256g) natural creamy peanut butter (with no added oils or sugar) I buy the Simple Truth brand from Kroger
- 1 teaspoon (5g) vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup (180g) dairy-free semi-sweet chocolate chips
NOTE
- Always use a scale for accuracy when baking following MY gram weights listed. You never need cups, nor to compare cups with weights, just use the scale and bowl. All my recipes are tested strictly using my weights listed and this will produce exact results.
- I use this scale.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F and line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper.
- Add the rice flour, tapioca starch, baking powder and salt to a large bowl and whisk well.
- To the same bowl, pour the syrup over the dry ingredients. Add the peanut butter, vanilla and chocolate chip and stir to combine everything. The batter will seem loose and wet at first but you will need to stir for around 2 minutes until it comes together into a thick, cohesive batter. It should no longer be wet. That is the nature of peanut butter.
- Form balls using 2 tablespoons worth of the batter and place about 2 inches apart on the pan, 9 on each pan. Flatten each cookie with your hands to 1/4 inch thick which should yield them to about 2 inches wide. Flatten them with a patting motion going around the cookie to keep the round shape. Refer to photos in the post for visual help.
- Bake only 1 pan at a time for 10-12 minutes. I did mine at 12 minutes, this will yield a crispier cookie and a nice golden brown color. Repeat with the 2nd pan.
- Cool 10 minutes on the pan, no exception, or they will fall apart. They firm up as they cool. Then transfer to cool completely on a rack.
Notes
Nutrition
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Can cornstarch be used in place of tapioca?
You can try it! It might make them slightly more tender since tapioca has stronger binding qualities, but just make sure to let the cookies fully cool before picking up and that should help.
Can I replace the maple syrup with honey? If so, how many grams of honey should I use? Thanks!
Hi Stephanie, I never use honey so I can’t give advice on how much you would need. I do know that honey is much sweeter than maple syrup and much, much thicker and stickier, so it will change the texture of the batter and sweetness level. I guess try to use the same amount, I’m not sure since it’s been years since I’ve used it!
I subbed Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free baking blend for the white rice flour and it worked just fine. These cookies are delicious!
Oh that is wonderful to hear Tom, thank you so much for the lovely feedback!
Brandi! These were amazing! Super easy to whip up too. I had sweet white rice flour and was afraid it would turn out too sweet, but they came out perfectly. I had to leave mine in the over for more than 12 mins though, but of course it depends upon the oven I am sure. Getting hit with a snowstorm here in WV and have another snow day tomorrow (I’m a teacher) so tomorrow’s mission: THIN MINTS!! 🙂 You have been a lifesaver on our new vegan journey (since July). I can not wait for your book to come out!
Oh yay Jeannine! So happy to hear how much you loved these! Yes, the sweet rice flour is a much stickier flour than the regular rice flour so that could possibly be why it took a bit longer. Oh great, can’t wait to hear what you think of the Thin Mints! Watch out, they are dangerous, haha! Thank you so much for your sweet words!
Just made these with the APF version vs the rice. I used the exact weight listed in the conversion section at the bottom of the recipe, and also added the tapioca flour. The dough was delicious, and we had to force ourselves to stop eating it!! I baked the cookies for 12-13 min, in a convection oven. They are a tad dry I feel. Tasty, very tasty. But dry… Maybe I should have baked them a few minutes less, or maybe a tablespoon or two less Apf??? They didn’t crumble or fall apart, stayed in form perfectly.
I’ll buy some rice flour this week, and try again!!!! Thank you for your recipe, I’ll be purusing the rest of your site for more! 😊
Hi Lisa! Yes, I actually didn’t test the all-purpose version, that was just a guess, so since white flour is more absorbent and finely ground than white rice, then they would definitely cook faster, so I would try 1-2 minutes less next time and they should be perfect! I edited my note!
I just purchased a large bag of Bob’s almond flour. ☹️
Do you think I can use my processor to grind it finer so that I would get good results?
Hi Bari, this recipe doesn’t use almond flour and it won’t work here. Were you thinking of another recipe? I have many recipes using almond flour though here on the blog, many!
This is a family favorite, we have made them a handful of time. Non vegans love them just the same, they are a keeper!
Yay, so thrilled to hear that Stephanie! Thank you for leaving the wonderful feedback!
Hi! Do you think I can sub tapioca starch with arrowroot powder?
I haven’t tried it but think it should work! I never use arrowroot for baking, so I can’t say with 100% but give it a try and let me know! Make sure to let the cookies fully cool too so they don’t crumble 🙂
So yummy! The perfect amount of crispiness. I liked the texture of the rice flour too. Will definitely make again! I promise not to ask about subbing anything. Perfect as is!
So awesome to hear Nina! Thank you so much for making them and not asking for a sub, hahaha 🙂
Hi Brandi. These were absolutely delicious 😋!!! I made them as is, weighing out all the ingredients and they turned out superb! I was wondering if it’s possible to use coconut sugar instead of maple syrup as a sweetener? I know it’s 2 different textures. I looked through the comments but couldn’t see any reference to this question. I would love to make this as is every single time but it’s just that maple syrup here is super expensive, so curious if there’s an alternative…like coconut sugar, which isn’t that expensive. I’m in South Africa 😊. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful recipes 😃
Hi Nalini! Yay, I’m so happy to hear how much you loved them! And guess what, I’m posting a brand new chocolate chip cookie today made with coconut sugar, haha! So you should definitely try those. They are incredible. As far as subbing this one, I wouldn’t suggest coconut sugar since you need the liquid from the syrup to come out correctly. Agave would work though and is much cheaper (here anyways) than syrup. Do you have agave there? And thank you again for the lovely review, it means a lot! If you get a chance to leave the star rating, I would really appreciate it, they are beneficial to me!
SOOOO Yummy and scrumtious!! Or is it Scrummy and Yumtious?? I can’t tell cause I’m just beaming with joy after consuming enough cookies to do serious harm to a large farm animal!! haha lol. I ate all of them in front of my daughter while she ate those crappy chips ahoy. Haha she doesn’t even know what she’s missing! Poor girl. My wife BEGGED me to let her have one but NO WAY!! her taste buds are not refined enough to enjoy this level of yumminess. MAybe when she’s older. Maybe. Getting old is strange. Time seems to speed up and before you know it all of your friends are dying. Maybe I’ll outlive mine. And my family for that matter. It seems like our world is at a real turning point. speeding rapidly toward some apocolyptic catastrophe. you think it will be a climate related ecologocal collapse that will do in the humans? I do. I really do.
I’m so happy you loved these so much Peter!! Haha, you are so bad not sharing! These taste super rich so I’m betting she would like them, I know so many kids that gobble these up that aren’t vegan. I hear ya, life does go by really quickly so just keep being an example and hopefully family will come around 🙂
We LOVE these cookies!! We even made a video on it lol and the kids loved them too. So simple, and so yummy! It’s been decided- you’re a genius. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I loved the video on youtube, it was such fun to watch!! It even made me hungry for my own recipe, haha! I’m so happy y’all loved them, thank you so much for making and sharing!!
I will be trying these! They look fabulous.
Awesome!
These look so good!! Do you think I could sub potato starch for the tapioca starch? Thanks!
Hi Laura! Cornstarch would be better, as potato starch makes things more dry and crumbly and isn’t my favorite to use for cookies.
These were incredible! Thank you so much for sharing. I was amazed by how bold the flavor was, and I loved the texture (crunchy on the outside but soft inside). I definitely have to try more of your recipes.
Yay!! Very happy to hear you loved them so much, thank you for sharing your review!
I had something like these at my co-op, but they were made with oat flour. They were wonderful; thus, I am going to try using oat flour instead of the white rice and see what happens. I’ll let you know. Ty for the recipe.
Hi Beth! It will change the texture of the batter to more wet since oat flour becomes really moist and rice flour is drier, so the texture will definitely change overall baked as well.
Brandi you never disappoint with your baked goods! These cookies are delicious! Should they be kept in the fridge or just at room temperature. Thanks
Thank you so very much Debbie!
WOW These are so amazing and simple & fast to make. We LOVE these so much! They are so yummy they are dangerous to have in the house somedays! For my second batch, I’m going to try using Adams Crunchy Natural PB. We’ll see how they turn out! The first batch was amazing, it’s hard to ration them out so we don’t eat them all at once!
Yay, that is awesome feedback Melanie, so glad y’all love them so much!
OH MY these are GOOD! I can’t stop eating them. And they are way too easy to make. I love the texture of these cookies. I’m going to be repeating this recipe often!!
Just wanted to say I tried this with all purpose flour and almond butter instead of peanut butter and they turned out divine! Gave them 10 minutes in the oven and they were nicely browned.
Thanks so much for your wonderful recipes! I always check here first to see if you’ve made something that I’m planning to (:
These are so freakin’ delicious!!! And they did NOT crumble (for those that are concerned about that)!
I made my 2nd batch last night and they are so amazing!!! Thanks for sharing, Brandi!
Yay Amy, so glad you love them! Yes, they really do hold their structure perfectly!! Thank you for the feedback!
Super yummmy! Your recipes are always perfect! I’ve replaced the chocolate chips with raisins and it’s a perfect combination😍