Update: these are still fabulous, but there’s a new cookie in town. Check it here.
My laptop is down, so I’m posting from my phone because you need this cookie recipe. It’s a cookie recipe my from my sister Holly (she makes the best cookies!) I’ve been veganizing it for several years now, but yesterday I had a breakthrough discovery.
If you’ve been hiding under a rock you may not know that “magic chickpea brine” has taken the vegan world by storm. People are making meringues, pavlovas, macarons, marshmallow fluff, vegan lucky charms marshmallows, sponge cake and even angel food cake with the stuff. I was curious about what else the liquid from a can of chickpeas might do and wondered if it might make a successful egg replacer. I hope you’ll you’ll be pleased to know it successfully replaces egg in a traditional cookie recipe. In fact, it’s the best egg replacer I’ve ever used! it binds, it leavens and it provides that chewiness that I’ve missed in vegan cookies.
Previously I always used ground flax or cornstarch. A neighbor of mine is allergic to flax and cornstarch seems to make a drier more crumbly cookie. I’ve probably tried every egg replacer you can think of and this idea has performed the very best of all. You simply use 3 tablespoons of chickpea brine per egg you need to replace. I’m going to venture out on a limb and say this will easily work for cakes or any other baked good that doesn’t use more than a couple of eggs. These are literally perfect!
Recipe for The Best Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted and veganized from my sister’s recipe)
- 1/2 cup vegan butter at room temperature (earth balance buttery sticks or homemade: Bryanna Clark Grogan, Miyoko Schinner and veganbaking.com have good recipes for homemade vegan butter)
- 1/2 cup packed organic brown sugar
- 1/4 cup organic granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons chickpea brine (from a can of chickpeas, or the liquid from any other can of white beans)
- 1 1/4 cups organic all purpose unbleached flour (or whole wheat pastry flour, for GF use all purpose flour GF flour add 1 teaspoon xanthan gum if xanthan gum isn’t an ingredient in the flour )
- 1 to 1 1/2 cups vegan chocolate chips (I like 1 1/2 cups)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, (or in your stand mixer) Cream the butter and the sugars with an electric beater. Add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, vanilla and chickpea brine. Beat to combine.
Add the flour and beat until well mixed. If the cookie dough seems too wet, add an additional tablespoon or two of flour and mix till combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
Spoon rounded tablespoons onto a baking sheet, I use this medium sized cookie scoop. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden. Let cool on baking sheet for 1-2 minutes. Transfer to cooling rack to cool for several minutes more. Store in an airtight container for up to five days. Makes about 24 cookies.
Notes and troubleshooting: you can also use the liquid from home cooked chickpeas or any other white bean. The key is having a viscous liquid. Think raw egg consistency.
When measuring flour, I use the scoop and level method. Spooning flour into a cup spoon by spoon and then leveling it will make cookies that are too thin and flat.
Be sure to use proper vegan butter and not buttery spread or coconut oil as a substitute. Vegan butter spread has a higher water content and coconut oil needs modifications to work in this recipe.
Vedged Out 
I’m so intrigued by using chickpea liquid as an egg replacer!! this sounds like an amazing idea and I can’t wait to try it in pretty much everything!!
I just pulled the batch out of the oven and VALIANTLY refrained myself as they cooled – slightly!! – and the are great! Thank you! Will be trying this method in other recipes.
Can i use apple sauce instead of vegan butter?
Kristel, you’re welcome to try any alterations to the recipe of course, but I have not tested it that way and cant guarantee results.
or maybe mashed banana in replace of oil?
I used peanut butter- it seems to have worked okay but its a bit overpowering. Mashed banana is more of a binder, so I think you would be better off using orange juice or almond milk idk
Hi! I was wondering if you could tell me where you live, specifically what altitude. I am not a vegan, but my son is allergic to eggs, so I am always on the look out for egg replacers. I joined the aquafaba Facebook page as well. Thanks for your help.
I’m at about 4700 ft.
Thanks!
Definitely trying these! Saw the recipe on Mary’s Test Kitchen!
I’m sooooooo incredibly intrigued of using aquafaba as an egg replacer and I think these chocolate chip cookies will be the best test batch for trying it out!! Thanks for the recipe =)
Wow. Just… wow. I have been searching for a cookie recipe that’s crispy on the edges, chewy near the edges and soft and cakey in the middle for YEARS. Even when I wasn’t vegan and used eggs I never found the perfect recipe. They remind me of my childhood when I would go out for a cookie with my mum as a treat. Thank you. Thank you SO MUCH!
Deeee-licious! I found this recipe on Mary’s Test Kitchen (YouTube). Did you use a dark or light metal cookie sheet to bake yours. Mine seem to have spread a lot more, but the thin cookies were wonderful chewy. They were also darker. I did use coconut sugar instead of brown. I didn’t think that would affect them.
I use aluminum baking sheets lined with a Siloam. Light brown sugar. I haven’t tested coconut sugar in this recipe.
I wanted to leave a comment in case someone finds themselves in the same situation I was in today. I had all of the ingredients except for the vegan butter and did not want to make a trip to the store. What I did have was coconut oil and Smart Balance Light vegan margarine. Knowing that baking is just delicious chemistry I hatched a plan. Earth Balance vegan butter sticks are 11g of fat per TB, so 88g of fat for the 1/2 cup in this recipe. By mixing 5 TB coconut oil with 3 TB Smart Balance Light I was able to get 85g of fat in a 1/2 cup. Pretty darn close and the result was the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made! Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful recipe and I hope my little experiment proves helpful to others in the future. 🙂
Yes, I found it helpful..thanks!
Thanks for sharing that Rachel!! I want to try that! Good to know for other recipes also! 🙂
I have made these a few times in the past few weeks and I swear they just get better every time! There’s always a few less cookies than there should be because the dough is so great! Incredible cookies and everyone who has tried them adores them.
Third time using this recipe. Never let me down – even the omnis are impressed! Thanks!
I used coconut oil as a direct sub in this and they worked beautifully! 🙂
Did you use coconut oil that was cold or was it room temperature? It’s really warm where I live and the only way for the oil to stay solid is if I put it in the fridge. I saw a video on Mary’s Test Kitchen where she said not to use cold vegan butter so I was wondering how you made it.
These are seriously the best chocolate chips cookies ever ! Hands down. My non vegan husband loves them. Thank you thank you for the recipe 🍪🍪😋
Just made the gluten-free version and they’ve turned out well, but they don’t look quite like the ones in the picture – they’re cakey in the middle and crunchy at the edges. How can I make them chewy all the way through like the ones in the picture?
Maybe a little less flour. Because often gf flour needs more liquid. I want to try them in gf at the weekend. I can tell you the result.
These are the best vegan gf cookies I have ever had. Making my fourth batch today 🙂 everything you want in a cookie!!!! You should make a sugar cookie recipe!
I just made these and I couldn’t even get them in the oven because my kids ate the dough!!!
just made them and they are awesome! thanks for the new idea!
Hello! How many eggs is equivalent to 3 tbsp chickpea brine? Thank you!
this sounds delicious 🙂
Actually the best cookies I have ever made.. vegan or nonvegan! These are delicious! You must make them! I use bobs red mill 1to1 gf flour but I bet itd taste great with regular flour too! So good! I also use 3/4 cup coconut sugar instead of cane and they taste great. It’s a no fail recipe which I love! And yes! Aquafaba is incredible for baking with!
Would you consider Earth Balance Vegan Baking or Cooking Sticks to be ‘Vegan Butter”?
These are by far the best vegan cookies I’ve ever made. They were absolutely perfect – crunchy, chewy, delicious, and stunning. I took a tip from another reviewer who used half coconut oil and half vegan buttery spread – worked great for me too! They needed about 14 minutes in my oven. Thanks so much!!!!
found this recipe thru the youtube video. i love how simple the ingredients are kept! thanks!
I just pulled the first set of beautiful cookies. I don’t want to bake all of the dough. Have you frozen the dough before?
By the way, I used a food processor in lieu of an electric mixer. The dough came out creamy and even!
We are so happy to have found this recipe! Our little one has multiple food allergies and we’ve been struggling to find her declisous treats! This hit he mark! Please know you helped us so much!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Yum! I came from Mary’s Test Kitchen and I’m so happy I did. I used a little less chocolate chips cause I too like a greater cookie to chocolate chip ratio. So good. These are now my go-to cookie recipe.
Mary’s Test Kitchen sent me over to your site. Awesome recipe!! Thanks!
These are AWESOME!!! I used coconut oil in place of the vegan butter and used Gluten free flour. Really really good, very, very moist I can’t stop eating them. WOW!!! Thank you!!!
I have to say, These are the best cookies I’ve ever made/ had in my life! And the fact they’re vegan is mind blowing. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!!
I have made these a few times, all in the last week! So good. I have a houseful of boys and want to double the recipe. Do I double the baking soda, powder and vanilla?
Double all of the ingredients for best results! Thanks!
Would Crisco work? I know some people don’t consider palm oil vegan anymore but it’s what my mother bought this week (I will be having an educational talk with her hehe). I saw the notes about the different water content and stuff and want to make sure before I commit.
Yes! It would.
Just made these, can’t believe they turned out so perfectly! I used the Earth balance in the tub and added 2tsp veg oil. Also used 2 tsp of hazelnut extract instead of 1 tsp vanilla. You cannot tell that they are vegan, just chewy, buttery, chocolatey goodness! No need to try any other recipes
I was shocked at how good these were! Thanks for sharing and I’ll be trying your updated skillet recipe next!
I’ve made these a few times, and MAN alive, do they taste like SIN! Perfect!!
XO!
Honest to god, the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever made. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
Honest to god, the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever made. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
Hiya, I’ve made this recipe multiple times before and it’s always been amazing.
However, I made it today and it was a disaster. I followed the recipe as normal, but as soon as I added the aquafaba and started mixing it in, the mixture completely separated, into chunky “curds” and a thick dark brown liquid. No matter how much I mixed, I couldn’t get it to combine again and had to dump it.
The only thing I did differently was that I used a different brand of vegan “butter” (a sunflower oil based spread, instead of my usual palm oil based spread), and got the aquafaba from a different brand of chickpeas (that were salted, as the unsalted kind were unavailable).
All the other ingredients were the same as normal, same measurements, same method, even the same whisk!
Do you have any idea what could have caused this disaster? I want to try making these cookies again because I love them, but I don’t know whether it’s the chickpeas or the spread that caused this issue. I really don’t want it to happen again 😦
Sounds like the vegan butter you used with sunflower oil may have had a higher water content than your other spread. I have another recipe that uses coconut oil here. https://vedgedout.com/2017/09/29/the-best-vegan-chocolate-chip-skillet-cookie-pretty-much-ever/ Ignore the skillet part, there’s directions for individual cookies on the post.