Name: Vegan Tahini Cookies with Chocolate Chunks
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 13 min
Total time: 23 min
Yield: 28
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups gluten-free all purpose flour (spoon and level method) (204g); 1/4 cup tapioca flour (28g); 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (6g); 1 tsp baking soda (8g); 3/4 cup light brown sugar (116g); 1/4 cup white sugar (56g); 3/4 tsp kosher salt; 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted (refined) (108g); 1/4 cup oat milk (or other milk) (66g); 1/2 cup tahini (drippy, runny tahini only) (128g); 1 tbsp vanilla extract; 6.5 ozs. dark chocolate (chopped into chunks); flaky salt (for garnish, optional, but recommended)

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If you’re a fan of tahini and chocolate together (and who isn’t?!) then you’re going to LOVE these cookies. After more than a few attempts at these, I finally nailed these vegan tahini cookies and I’m so so proud of them. Everyone that has tried them can’t believe they are vegan and gluten-free. One of the best parts about making these healthy-ish chocolate chip tahini cookies is that you end up with a fairly large batch. So there’s plenty to keep stored in the fridge or freezer for your next cookie craving.

Ingredients

Most of the ingredients are pantry staples, and if you’re looking for any substitutions, you can check those out near the end of this post.

Gluten-free all purpose flour
Tapioca flour
Baking powder & baking soda
Light brown sugar & white sugar (see notes and substitutions)
Coconut oil
Dairy-free milk (any type of milk will work, I’d stick to oat, soy or almond)
Tahini (be sure to use drippy, runny tahini – see brands I recommend below)
Vanilla extract
Dark chocolate (broken into chunks), I recommend using 70%

How to Make:

I really love how easy these cookies are to make. Once you have all your ingredients measured out, you only need one bowl and 20 minutes for the dough to chill a bit before baking.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

Next, pour in the wet ingredients and stir with a spatula until just combined, don’t over mix.

Then fold in your chocolate chunks (I like to use my hands for this).

Preheat your oven while you let your cookie dough chill in the fridge for about 20 to 30 minutes.

Using a cookie scoop, scoop your cookie dough balls onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Be sure to leave some space as the cookies will spread (not like this photo, I just liked the way it looked).

cookie dough balls on parchment lined baking sheet

Place in the oven to bake for 12 to 13 minutes, until the edges are just slightly browned.

Garnish with flaky salt right away. Let them cool for five minutes on the baking tray and then remove with a spatula and set aside on a cooling rack.

Tips for baking the best cookies

Measure your ingredients with a kitchen scale: since everyone will always measure ingredients differently, I do recommend measuring out your ingredients with a scale. If you don’t have a scale, the best way to measure flour is to fluff the flour first and then spoon it into your measuring cup and use the back of a knife to level off the flour (aka the spoon and level method). Do not scoop the flour directly into your measuring cup or pack the flour in and/or tap it to get more flour in. This will result in extra flour being used, which will make your cookies dry, puffy and crumbly.
Don’t over mix: you only want to mix your ingredients until it is just combined, then go ahead and fold in the chocolate chunks (or chips).
Perfectly round cookies: as soon as your cookies come out of the oven, use a large round cookie cutter (or just use a large glass or mug) to swirl over the cookies to get them all uniformly round. See this post for more info!

Ingredients & Products I Recommend:

Tahini:

I recommend using a runny or drippy tahini that is well stirred for these vegan tahini cookies. This will result in a softer and tastier cookie. I also would suggest using a good quality and tasty tahini that you love the taste of.

Parallel Brothers Tahini is my personal tahini of choice.
Soom is another brand I’ve heard great things about.

Baking Sheet: I love these large baking sheets and use them all the time

Cookie Scoop: this makes scooping cookies a lot easier (and much more uniform too). For these cookies, I use the medium scoop #40 (2 tbsp).

Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour: this recipe was tested with Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Gluten-Free blend. I have not tested this recipe with any other gluten-free all purpose flour.

Substitutions

When it comes to baking, I don’t suggest a lot of substitutions as the results can vary. Please keep that in mind when altering any part of a baking recipe.

All Purpose Flour: You can substitute with regular all purpose flour if you don’t need the tahini cookies to be gluten-free. To do this, use 1 3/4 cups regular All Purpose Flour, spoon and level method for measuring. You can omit the tapioca flour.

White Sugar/Brown Sugar: Altering the sugar will alter the cookie taste and texture. You can use coconut sugar instead of brown sugar and omit the white sugar if needed, however, I personally like the taste of these cookies with the mix of both.

Coconut Oil: you can use another oil such as avocado oil, or a vegan butter (melted) in the same quantity. Be sure to use refined coconut oil for this recipe, as it has a much more neutral taste.

Oat Milk: feel free to use any type of plant-based milk (or regular milk) for this recipe.

Chill the Dough

I know, I know, you want cookies asap, but trust me a little chill time is essential for these vegan tahini cookies to taste their best. When you mix up the dough, you may find the dough oily (thank you coconut oil!) and this is totally normal. It does mean that you want to chill the dough in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. This will make it much easier to scoop.

You don’t want to chill the dough for too long though, it will result in dough that is quite hard to scoop. The perfect time will be around 15 to 30 minutes. If it does chill too long, just let it sit out for a bit before scooping. Alternatively, you can also scoop and then chill the dough. You’ll still want to let the dough sit out at room temperature for a bit if storing longer in the fridge otherwise they may not spread enough while baking.

Stir the Tahini!

Don’t skip the stirring! Seriously, if you just pour straight from the jar into the cookies, you may (likely will) end up with too much oil in the cookie dough. Be sure to give your tahini a good stir before measuring and adding it to the cookie dough.

Chocolate Chunks vs. Chocolate Chips

If you want those pools of dark chocolate, you will need to use dark chocolate chopped into chunks. You simply will not receive the same effect by using chocolate chips. Chocolate chips when baked will not pool or melt in the same way.

For the dark chocolate, I recommend using about 70% dark chocolate.

I also much prefer the roughness of using chocolate chunks not just for aesthetics but they also taste better in cookies as well.

I recommend keeping the chunks to about 1/2″ pieces to ensure they melt and pool as they should.

Freeze the Cookies:

These vegan tahini cookies make quite a large batch (around 25-28 cookies), so you may want to freeze them to keep them tasting their best afterwards. To do this, let them sit out at room temperature for the first day and then move them to a ziploc bag and freeze them for longer. When you want a cookie, let it sit out for five to ten minutes (or not!) and enjoy. They still taste so good from the freezer!

** This recipe is inspired and slightly adapted from the genius- Sophia Roe **

Other Cookie Recipes to try

If you make these vegan tahini cookies, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to tag me on Instagram, and/or leave a comment, rating or review below.

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