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Your search for perfect vegan dark chocolate chunk pistachio cookies ends here!
These pistachio cookies are crisp and perfectly browned on the edges, and ooey-gooey and chewy in the center. You won’t even be able to BELIEVE that these are vegan, because they taste just as good, if not better, than a classic cookie. These truly are bakery-worthy vegan pistachio chocolate chip cookies.
Full transparency, these cookies are the same as my classic chocolate chip cookies, but with chopped pistachios haha.
Before you dive into the recipe, I did want to mention that these cookies are super straightforward, so long as you use metric measurements. It’s the only way to accurately bake, so please, pull your digital scale out from wherever it’s hiding, and use it!!
Ingredients You’ll Need For These Vegan Dark Chocolate Chink Pistachio Cookies
As I said, this pistachio cookie recipe is super similar to my classic chocolate chip cookie recipe, but with the addition of the pistachios.
- Pistachios: Duh! Highly recommend using roasted unsalted pistachios, as they pack a lot more flavor than raw pistachios.
- Spelt flour: You’ve heard me go on and on about their flour before, but One Degree Organics Sprouted Spelt Flour is truly the best (no this isn’t an ad, I just love their flour). Their flour uses sprouted spelt, which means the nutrients are more bioavailable and it’s easier on your digestion.
- Unsalted butter or vegan unsalted butter: Unsalted butter gives you a lot more control over the amount of salt going into your cookies.
- Coconut sugar
- Cashew milk: Baking is super finicky, so using a different milk than I do could skew how the cookie tastes/the texture. That said, I highly recommend using my homemade cashew milk for best results.
- Vanilla paste: Vanilla paste is just so much better than vanilla extract. The extract is just flavor from the vanilla bean, but vanilla paste is the whole ground beans. Which means you’ll get loads more vanilla flavor in your cookies. And yes, almost all vanilla paste will have cane sugar in it. But since we’re using such a small amount in this recipe, I feel like it’s negligible.
- Dark chocolate: I love Hu Chocolate a lot, but other wonderful brands are Blue Stripes Cacao and Evolved Chocolate (both brands use coconut sugar as a sweetener).
- Baking powder and baking soda
- Kosher salt + flaky salt for presentation
Tips & Tricks
- Measure the ingredients carefully. I highly recommend using gram measurements for best results, because something as little as improperly measuring the flour can skew this recipe. Linking my digital scale here.
- Don’t overmix the dough. The more you mix the dough, the more gluten will develop, making your cookie gummy, tough and dry.
- When in doubt, underbake. Nothing is worse than a dry cookie that’s burnt on the bottom. I like baking these cookies for 12 minutes at 350°F, but if they already look done at the 11-minute mark, take the cookies out.
- Bang the cookies on the counter 3-4x. When the cookies are done baking, I like to bang the baking sheet on the counter 3-4 times (this gives the cookies that signature tortoiseshell look and crackle). Don’t slam the cookies on the counter, just a firm but controlled bang!!
How To Store These Pistachio Cookies
Once the cookies have cooled completely, just pop them into an airtight glass container and store them on the counter for up to 3 days. Any longer and they tend to start tasting stale.
Even More Vegan Cookie Recipes
- Classic Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chewy Gingerbread Cookies
- Single-Serve Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie
- Single-Serve Vegan Double Chocolate Chip Cookie
Vegan Dark Chocolate Chunk Pistachio Cookies
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Chill Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 47 minutes
- Yield: 8 cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: American
Description
These pistachio cookies are crisp and perfectly browned on the edges, and ooey-gooey and chewy in the center. They’re bakery worthy cookies!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (93 g) butter or vegan butter, melted
- 1 cup (150 g) coconut sugar
- 3 tbsp (35 g) cashew milk*
- 2 tsp vanilla paste
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 cups (180 g) spelt flour
- 1 cup (123 g) roasted and unsalted pistachios, finely chopped (reserve 1/4 cup for topping each cookie)**
- 1/2 cup (75 g) roughly chopped dark chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F and line both a large and small baking sheet with parchment paper. The small baking sheet will be for freezing the cookie dough, so make sure it fits in your freezer.
- Prep the mix-ins. Chop the pistachios and dark chocolate and set aside. Make sure to reserve 1/4 cup of the chopped pistachios to top each cookie with.
- Whisk the wet ingredients together. Next, add the melted butter and coconut sugar into a large mixing bowl. Whisk together. It’ll look clumpy, that’s totally normal. Next, pour in the cashew milk, vanilla paste, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt. Whisk well until it forms a creamy and smooth syrup. You’ll see it transform before your eyes!
- Fold the dough together. Sprinkle in the spelt flour and fold together until there are streaks of flour remaining. Finally, add in the chocolate and 3/4 cup chopped pistachios and fold into the dough.
- Scoop and freeze the cookies. Scoop the cookie dough using a 3 tbsp scoop, place on the small prepared baking sheet, and freeze for 20-30 minutes. There’s no need to cover the dough, as it’s not sitting too long in the freezer.
- Bake the cookies. Once the cookies are done resting, roll each cookie dough ball in the chopped pistachios, pressing firmly so the pistachios rest on the tops of each cookie. Next, place the cookies evenly spaced apart on the cookie sheet (recommend 6-8 cookies to a large baking sheet so they have room to spread). Bake the cookies in the oven for 11-12 minutes or until the edges are golden-brown and the middle is still gooey. Remove from the oven and bang the pan on the counter 3-4 times; this will give you that signature tortoiseshell cookie look. Let cool for 10 minutes and sprinkle with flaky salt for presentation.
Notes
*Feel free to use homemade almond milk or regular milk instead of cashew milk. I believe you should be able to use any type of creamy milk, but the two ilks are the only ones I’ve tested, and can say for sure that you’ll get the same result.
**You’ll need 80 g of pistachios for the dough, and about 40 g of pistachios for pressing and topping each cookie before they bake.
I don’t know what the vanilla paste is, can I use reg vanilla?
It’s super similar to vanilla extract but has the actual vanilla bean, so it’s a lot more flavorful. Anywho, you can absolutely use regular vanilla extract instead, it’s a 1:1 swap!!
I don’t have spelt flour, can I use something else?
All-purpose flour would be the best substitute!
TY!
Phe-no-me-nol. So yummy. Chefs kiss.
So happy you liked these Shawn, thank you so much for leaving a review!! 🥳
Can I sub in brown sugar for coconut sugar?
While I haven’t tried it, I imagine it should work. Regular cane sugar would be a better 1:1 swap though.
My cookies spread to much, what can i do?
Most likely the dough wasn’t chilled long enough or sat out too long before you baked it. There are other variants that could have made the cookies spread, like inaccurate oven temp, wrong type of pan, etc., but the most likely reason is the dough wasn’t chilled long enough. Hope this helps – let me know if you have any questions/want to troubleshoot!! 🙂