Quick Vegan Matcha Cookies (Gluten-Free!)

Thin, crispy, and a little chewy, these vegan matcha cookies come together and bake up from scratch in about 26 minutes, have just seven ingredients, and are gluten-free.

Why you’ll love them:

• They’re super easy and quick to make.
• They’re gluten-free.
• They’re thin, crispy and slightly chewy.
• They have a subtle matcha taste.
• They’re a lovely green color.
• All the ingredients are easy to find.
• No resting or chilling time, just mix together, portion out and bake.
• Eating cookies is a pretty great way to reap all the health benefits of matcha!

If quick tasty vegan cookies are your thing, you might also want to try my easy chickpea chocolate chip cookies, perfect vegan pumpkin cookies, or these luscious pink vegan chocolate walnut cookies.

Ingredients and substitutions

These cookies require just seven ingredients so there isn’t much room for making substitutions. Let’s have a look at the ingredients (double-check the image below to make sure you have the right ones) and then see if anything can be substituted or omitted.

Matcha tea powder: This is a must. The flavor is very delicate and subtle, but it gives a lovely natural green color. There is no need to use ceremonial grade matcha tea, culinary grade (or whatever you have in your kitchen) is just fine. I recommend this brand.

Flax egg: You must use a flax egg for this recipe, other vegan substitutes like aquafaba or apple sauce just won’t work. A flax egg is just a ground tablespoon of flax seeds mixed with water. You can use preground flax seed or grind it yourself using a coffee or spice grinder. It doesn’t matter whether it’s golden or brown flax seed.

Baking powder: Totally necessary. Just a small amount is used in this recipe, but if you don’t have any to hand you can substitute it. One teaspoon of baking powder can be substituted by adding a quarter teaspoon of baking soda to the dry ingredients and half a teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar to the wet ingredients.

N.B. Make sure to use a gluten-free baking powder (e.g. Bob’s Red Mill or Clabber Girl) to keep your cookies gluten-free, as some brands add wheat starch instead of cornstarch.

Oil: You can use any mildly flavored oil here such as canola or sunflower. Coconut oil is really tasty in these cookies but does drown out the other flavors unless it’s deodorized. Don’t reduce the amount of oil or your cookie dough won’t come together properly.

Vanilla extract: Just a touch of vanilla is a nice addition to these cookies but if you just want matcha flavor or don’t have any extract to hand, feel free to leave it out.

Sugar: White granulated regular table sugar will give you the best results in this recipe. Just be sure to check that it wasn’t processed with bone char if you’re living in the US. Brown sugar would taste great but drown out the matcha flavor and also change the color to a more muddy green.

Oat flour: You do need to make these cookies with oat flour and not regular flour or any other gluten-free blend. You can buy it in the shops or easily make your own at home by processing oats until finely ground.

How to make them

These cookies couldn’t be easier to make. You’re just going to basically mix wet and dry ingredients separately, then together, portion out the cookies, and bake them.

In this section, I’ve included some process photos to make it easier to see what you need to do and for you to check in on if you have any doubts about a particular stage of the recipe.

First, make your flax egg as it will need to sit for a few minutes. Mix one tablespoon of ground flaxseed with three tablespoons of water, and place in the fridge for ten minutes. Now would be a good time to preheat the oven as well to 340º F (170º C).

Then, measure and mix your dry ingredients (the matcha tea powder, baking powder, sugar and oat flour) in a mixing bowl, as in image one below.

Mix the dry ingredients together well until they are a uniform pale green mixture, as in image two above. Oat flour can be a little clumpy but don’t worry about any lumps that form, they’ll be worked out when the liquid is introduced.

Measure and add the wet ingredients to another bowl (image three below), including the oil, vanilla extract (if using) and the flax egg.

The flax egg should be goopy and viscous and egg-like. Briefly whisk together until well-combined (as in image four above)

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet (image five below). Move quickly or the wet ingredients will start to separate (it’s not a huge issue, you’ll just need to whisk them again).

Now using a sturdy wooden spoon, mix the wet and the dry together. It will take a little bit of muscle and a few minutes but you should end up with a nice green dough like image six above. Do check and be sure that there are no pockets of dry ingredients hiding underneath the dough.

Now it’s time to bake your matcha cookies!

There is no need to chill your cookie dough, but as this dough is quite soft you can’t roll it into a log and slice it.

Instead, simply place the cookie dough between two sheets of baking paper, roll out with a baking pin until about half a centimeter thick, and then use a 3-inch cookie cutter or a glass to cut out circles and place on the lined baking trays.

When you’ve cut out all the circles gather together the leftover dough, roll into a ball with your hands, then place back between the baking paper and repeat the process until all the dough has been used up.

You should get around 16-18 cookies using this method.

Place one tray in the middle of the preheated oven (no higher) and the second one below it, making sure there is an inch or two of open space between the trays. Bake for six minutes, then swap the trays and bake for a further five.

Remove and allow to cool on the trays for at least ten minutes. You can then either leave them to fully cool on the trays which will give you a crispier cookie, or remove them to finish cooling on wire racks.

FAQs

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Did you make these vegan matcha cookies? Let me know how much you loved them with a star rating, review, and/or comment below.

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