My healthy plant-based ORIGINAL Gluten-Free Vegan Flourless Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies recipe is so easy to make with only 8 clean, real food ingredients and is ready to enjoy in about 15 minutes. They're made without white flour, white sugar, eggs, butter or oil but you'll never miss them in these fudgy and gooey cookies everyone will love!
"Flourless Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies" was originally created, photographed, and published on February 17, 2014 by Karielyn Tillman of The Healthy Family and Home™ and not OneGreenPlanet.
Table of Contents
Here's Why This Recipe Works
My top 3 favorite reasons:
- Ready to Enjoy in About 15 Minutes!
- 100% Gluten-Free + Vegan - No Dairy, No Eggs, No Flour!
- Made with Clean Ingredients!
These Flourless Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies are in one word...amazing!
You will be shaking your head in disbelief that these cookies have absolutely no white flour, white sugar, grains, gluten, butter, eggs, or oil and still taste delicious.
"Feel good about what you eat..."
- Karielyn Tillman
Ingredients
Here are the clean ingredients I used to make this recipe. Try to use organic if possible.
- Almond Butter
- Coconut Sugar
- Cacao Powder
- Pecans
- Ground Flax Seeds
- Baking Soda
- Himalayan Pink Salt
- Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Mini Chocolate Chips
- Filtered/Purified Water
Top Tip!
In the photo below, I show what the cookies should look like before baking them. They will have a very wet, glossy texture to them and that's how you want the batter to be.
How To Make This Recipe: Step-by-Step Instructions
Here's how to make this recipe. Begin by preheating the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Step 1: Prepare the Flax Egg
Add all the ingredients for the flax egg to a small mixing bowl and whisk together until well combined, then set aside.
Step 2: Prepare the Cookies
Add all the ingredients for the cookies to a medium mixing bowl and stir until well combined. You can shape them two different ways:
- For Drop Cookies: Drop a spoonful at a time onto your cookie sheet
- For Rounder, Traditional Shaped Cookies: Drop a spoonful at a time onto your baking pan, lightly pan them down with your fingertips to flatten them slightly and pat the edges with your fingertips to smooth them out.
Step 3: Bake the Cookies
Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 10 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool completely before removing them from the baking pan or they will be crumbly.
Frequently Asked Questions
In my opinion, yes!
So you can feel good about eating these amazing little cookies, let's look at the typical ingredients found in a traditional flourless chocolate chip pecan cookies recipe:
S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) Flourless Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies Recipe: Ingredients: 3 cups Powdered Sugar, ⅔ cup Unsweetened Cocoa, ¼ teaspoon Salt, 3 large Egg Whites, 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract, 4-ounce Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar, 1 cup Pecans.
My healthier version is flourless, vegan, gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, egg-free, paleo-friendly and contains no powdered or refined sugar!
Yes! I like to use coconut sugar (or raw coconut crystals) instead of white sugar, but you can substitute it with your favorite granular sweetener.
Just keep in mind that I haven't tested other sweeteners and a substitution may affect the texture and sweetness, so you may need to make adjustments.
Here are some suggestions to make the recipe nut-free, although I haven't tested them:
1. Instead of almond butter --> use sunflower butter
2. Instead of pecans --> use sunflower seeds
This, of course, would change the flavor and possibly the texture of the cookies, but would be the best nut-free option.
Yes! I love flourless cookies because they are gluten-free and I have several to share with you:
1. Gluten-Free Flourless Iced Cut-Out Cookies
2. Gluten-Free Vegan Flourless Chocolate Peanut Butter Thumbprint Cookies
3. Gluten-Free Vegan Flourless Caramel Thumbprint Cookies
4. Gluten-Free Vegan Flourless Fudgy Chocolate Avocado Cookies
5. Gluten-Free Vegan Lemon Chia Seed Cookies
6. Gluten-Free Vegan Flourless Snickerdoodle Cookies
7. Gluten-Free Vegan Flourless Chocolate Pistachio Cookies
8. Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Fudge Mint Cookies
They're all gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, egg-free and contain no refined sugars!
I've experimented using a couple of different options and some were better than others.
However, if you need to make a substitution, here are some other alternatives neutral flavored nut butters you could try. I've only tested the sunflower butter and peanut butter option:
1. Cashew Butter
2. Sunflower Butter
3. Tahini
4. Peanut Butter
Here's how I would rank them in order of best tasting and texture based on the substitutions I've tested:
"Ok" --> Peanut Butter...was a little dry and not as fudgy
"Better" --> Sunflower Butter...most similar to original recipe and fudgy
"Best" --> Almond Butter...moist and fudgy
The original almond butter version will give you the fudgiest, moist, melt in your mouth chocolate cookie, the sunflower butter cookies were very similar to the original version and the peanut butter version were "ok" but much drier in taste and texture.
You can see the difference between the two in the photo below. 
That's a great question! Flourless Chocolate Pecan Cookies have been around forever - mostly using egg whites.
However, I had to distinguish my vegan recipe version and photos as "original" because my photos and complete recipe also appear on OneGreenPlanet, who uses bloggers content to generate profit for their website by using bloggers content in their recipe app, cookbooks and by charging readers to print a recipe.
In addition, prior to August 1, 2015, they did not link back to the original authors content for credit or attribution. Their links either went to dead links or to an author page on their website but never back to the original author's website URL.
For this reason, I do not recommend their website and would ask that you visit and support the original author's website for recipe content instead of recycled and duplicate content on the OneGreenPlanet website.
In regard to this recipe, "original" means if you see my photos and exact recipe (word for word) on another site, primarily OneGreenPlanet, mine was the original and was posted first.
This recipe that was posted on February 17, 2014 was not the "original" Flourless Chocolate Pecan Cookie recipe ever created. After doing some research, it appears the original creator of this cookie was Francois Payard.
Karielyn's Expert Tips + Ingredient Substitutions
Almond Butter. I've made these with both almond butter and peanut butter and the texture is so much better with the almond butter, I think because it is creamier than the peanut butter. I make homemade almond butter so I process it until it is ultra creamy and smooth. You could also try sunflower butter, cashew butter or tahini.
Coconut Sugar. I used the organic coconut sugar but feel free to use your favorite organic granular sweetener.
Cacao Powder. This is my preference but you can substitute with regular cocoa powder.
Chocolate Chips. I only use Enjoy Life brand chocolate chips because they are vegan + gluten-free but you can use your favorite brand. I used mini-chocolate chips which do better since these are small cookies.
Pecans. It's best to chop the pecans into small pieces since the cookies are small.
Himalayan Pink Salt. This is the salt of my preference but it can always be substituted with sea salt.
Order Recipe Ingredients
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The ORIGINAL Flourless Vegan Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 1 cup organic almond butter
- ¾ cups organic coconut sugar
- ¼ cup organic cacao powder
- 1 cup Enjoy Life semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
- ½ cup organic pecans (chopped)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon Himalayan pink salt
For the flax eggs:
- 2 tablespoons organic ground flax seeds
- 4 tablespoons water (filtered/purified)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Prepare a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and set aside.
Prepare the flax eggs:
- Add all the ingredients for the flax eggs to a small bowl and whisk until well combined.
- Set aside while you work on the rest of the recipe.
Prepare the cookies:
- Add all ingredients for the cookies to a medium mixing bowl and stir until well combined.
- For drop cookies: drop a spoonful at a time onto your baking pan.
- For rounder, traditional cookies: drop a spoonful at a time onto your baking pan, lightly pat them down with your fingertips to flatten them slightly and pat the edges with your fingertips to smooth them out.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool completely before removing from the baking pan.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information
Copyright Notice
The instructions, notes, and photographs for this recipe by Karielyn Tillman of The Healthy Family and Home™ website are copyrighted material. This copyrighted work is protected and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International License and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and cannot be legally used without my written permission.
More Vegan Chocolate Recipes
- Chocolate Fudge Tarts
- Chocolate Covered Strawberry Truffles
- Avocado Oil Chocolate Cake
- or my Real Food Vegan™ 14-Day Meal Plan Program with 42 plant-based vegan + gluten-free recipes made with clean, real food ingredients just like this one that you will love!
June Abney says
Karielyn, these look delicious...can't wait to try them!
Thank you for sharing.
June
Karielyn says
Hi there June! Thanks so much...I hope you enjoy them! 🙂
Susie says
hi, i just found your site and i see that you use flax eggs in some receipes. can i use regular eggs instead? we have chickens so they are good eggs! thanks
Karielyn says
Hi there Susie! Yes, you can use eggs in place of the flax eggs...just use the same amount (example: 1 flax egg = 1 pasture egg). And good for you that you grow your own eggs in a humane manner!
Thanks for the question and I hope you enjoy the recipe 😉