Strawberry Sugar Cookies (vegan)
These vegan strawberry sugar cookies are packed with 3 cups of fresh strawberries and use only common pantry ingredients. They are soft and chewy, rather than cakey because we skip the eggs and use a strawberry reduction.
Why you’ll love these cookies
FLAVOR/TEXTURE: Real strawberry flavor with the buttery flavor, and soft chewy texture of classic sugar-coated cookies.
DIFFICULTY: The recipe uses only common accessible ingredients! To make the cookies, all you need is a small pot and a mixing bowl. No stand mixer is needed.
OCCASION: These are the perfect dessert for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or any occasion. They work with fresh AND frozen strawberries so you can make them all year round, just like my double strawberry muffins!
Ingredients you’ll need
The full list of ingredient quantities and instructions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Notes about the ingredients
Strawberries (fresh or frozen). Strawberries contain A LOT of water which will naturally make cakey cookies. However, we’re going to cook down the strawberries to remove excess moisture and intensify their flavor! We don’t need any expensive freeze-dried strawberries or strawberry flavoring.
All-purpose flour for the best results. King Arthur’s measure for measure gluten free flour also works well as a 1:1 replacement.
Pink food coloring, red food coloring or beetroot powder. All brands of colors/powders have different strengths so you may need to add more or less, as needed. With no coloring, these vegan strawberry cookies are a pale pink color.
Reducing the strawberries
For cookies with absolutely no strawberry chunks, puree your strawberries with a stick blender or food processor. Alternatively, you can just add chopped strawberries straight to a saucepan for cookies with very small chunks of strawberries.
I started with 360 grams of strawberry puree and reduced it to around 120 grams (just over 1/3 cup). The reduced mixture should be very thick, with a consistency similar to tomato paste. If you’re in doubt, the more you reduce the strawberries, the better (excess moisture = cakey strawberry sugar cookies)!
Making the strawberry cookie dough
Once you’ve made the reduction, the rest is straightforward!
Add the butter and sugar to a large bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Add the strawberry reduction and food coloring then mix until combined. If you’re not sure how much color you’ll need, start with less and add more later.
Then add all the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Feel free to add more food coloring if you’d like pinker cookies. The color will fade in the oven, so add more food coloring than how you’d like your cookies to look.
Your final cookie dough should be soft and tacky, but not too sticky just like regular cookie dough. If it’s a hot day or your cookie dough happens to be too sticky, chill your dough for 30-60 minutes.
Sugar coating
The sugar coating is an easy and quick way to decorate these vegan strawberry cookies! Sugar extracts moisture from the surface of the cookie dough and encourages pretty cracks to form.
Baking tips
If all the ingredients are measured correctly and you don’t reduce the sugar, these cookies will spread by themselves in the oven.
If your cookies don’t fully spread, gently flatten them with a fork or spatula when they’re still hot from the oven.
Expert Tips
Yes! It’s best to prepare the cookie dough and chill it as a whole in the fridge until needed. When you want to bake the cookies, remove the dough from the fridge, roll it into balls, and coat them in sugar. Alternatively, you can freeze the cookie dough balls (without the sugar coating) until needed.
The cookie dough balls can be baked while they’re still cold or defrosting. They’ll just need a few extra minutes in the oven.
Yes, you can also add:
– white chocolate chips or regular chocolate chips to the cookie dough
– freeze-dried strawberry pieces to the cookie dough
– sprinkles (roll the cookie dough balls in the sprinkles)
You can also make strawberry cookie sandwiches using vegan ice cream, my dairy-free strawberry cream cheese frosting or strawberry buttercream.
Strawberries contain a natural chemical called anthocyanins which give strawberries its bright red color. Anthocyanins break down in heat and can turn into a purple color. Normally, you can add a little acid (such as lemon juice) to prevent this from happening. I tested these cookies with lemon juice but there was no different with color and the cookies spread much less than the original recipe. Instead of adding an acid, I recommend using another variety of food coloring that will balance out any strong purple hues.
More eggless strawberry recipes
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Strawberry Sugar Cookies (vegan)
Ingredients
Strawberry Cookies
- 3 cups (360g) strawberries, fresh or frozen (note 1)
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- ⅔ cup (150g) vegan butter, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
- 1/4-1 teaspoon pink food coloring, or red food coloring, as needed (note 2)
- 2 ¼ cups (280g) all-purpose plain flour, (note 3)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Pinch of salt, if using unsalted butter
Sugar coating (optional)
- ¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
Instructions
Make the strawberry reduction:
- Optional: Blend or puree the strawberries with a stick blender or food processor. You should have about 1 1/2 cups of pure strawberry puree. If you don't blend the puree, you'll just have very small chunks of strawberries in your cookies.
- Add the strawberry puree (or whole strawberries with a dash of water) to a large pot or saucepan over medium heat. Cook the strawberries while stirring occasionally. Or turn the heat to high and stir constantly. This can take 15-30 minutes, depending on your stovetop and pot/saucepan. Your puree is ready when it weighs 120g (heaped 1/3 cup) and is thick like tomato paste. If you're in doubt, it's better to have less puree rather than more. Allow the strawberry puree to cool.
Make the strawberry cookie dough:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Add the sugar and butter to a large bowl and beat until well combined. Add the strawberry puree, vanilla extract, and food coloring and beat until combined.
- Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and beat until just combined. Mix in more food coloring if desired, keeping in mind that the color will fade in the oven. My dough was almost hot pink but the cookies baked into a medium-pink color. The cookie dough should be soft and tacky but not too sticky. If your cookie dough is too sticky, cover the dough and refrigerate for 10-20 minutes.
- Use a small cookie scoop or spoon to divide the dough into about 20 balls (around 2 tablespoons or 38g of dough each).
- Add the remaining 1/4 cup (50g) of granulated sugar to a small bowl. Toss and roll each ball of cookie dough in the sugar.
- Arrange the cookie dough balls on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches (5 cm) apart as they will spread in the oven. If you'd like thinner chewier cookies, slightly flatten each cookie dough ball.
Bake the strawberry sugar cookies:
- Bake the cookies for 13-15 minutes or until the edges appear cooked then remove from the oven. Allow them to cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes then transfer them to a cooling rack (note 4).
- Enjoy the strawberry sugar cookies warm or at room temperature. Store them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, in the fridge for up to 10 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Notes
- For the best results, I recommend weighing the strawberries and flour. The volume of strawberries varies a lot and adding too much flour to the dough will prevent the cookies from spreading. Plus, using a scale means you can wash less utensils!
- For a medium-pink color, I used 3/4 teaspoon of liquid pink food coloring (preferred) or a heaped 1/4 teaspoon of pink gel food coloring. Red food coloring is stronger than pink so you’ll need less. Keep in mind that the color will fade in the oven so add more than you think you will need. You can also use beetroot powder but the color doesn’t always ‘stick’ during baking and it can dull the strawberry flavor. With my old beetroot powder, I added around 3 tablespoons to get a pale pink color and flattened the cookies before baking.
- For chewier cookies with slightly more strawberry flavor, you can reduce the flour to 2 cups (250g). The cookies will crack more and the dough will be stickier. You don’t need to chill your dough, unless it’s very sticky.
For gluten-free cookies, this recipe also works well with King Arthur’s measure for measure flour. The dough will be a little softer than the original, but will bake beautifully. - If the ingredients are measured accurately, these cookies will spread in the oven. If they don’t spread, flatten the cookies with a fork or bottom of a glass when they come out of the oven.
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These are delicious! We had crushed strawberries left over after making jam, so we reduced them and made these and the strawberry ice cream. Yummy! Made them as is (my reduction was a little looser than tomato paste, but I like a cake like cookie) and they are perfect.
Hi Kari, I’m thrilled you enjoyed these cookies and the strawberry ice cream (that combination sounds like a dream too). Thanks so much for your lovely feedback, I appreciate it a lot!
These were amazing!
Question – could I use a slow cooker to reduce the strawberries?
Thanks !
Hi Miranda, I’m so glad you enjoyed these cookies! Yes, you could definitely use a slow cooker to reduce the strawberries – I would just keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn. Hope that helps!
I made these yesterday, and they’re almost done! Aesthetically, they were browned a little cause I used beetroot powder and a little too much sugar coating, I think. But you warned me about that so it’s fine. Taste wise I loved it, everyone loved it and I can’t wait to try another recipe of yours!
Hi Lalitha, I’m so glad you enjoyed these cookies!! Thanks for understanding about the beetroot powder too. I hope you enjoy any other recipes that you get to make!
Made these as directed and they were EXCELLENT! I wonder: has anyone tried making this using premade jam rather than a fresh berry reduction? Think it would work?
Hi Eileen, I’m so glad you loved these!! I haven’t heard of anyone making these with jam instead of the reduction. However, jam usually has a bit of sugar and isn’t always reduced til it’s super thick so you would need to make a few other adjustments to the recipe. Hope that helps!
I am wondering if I can use the steps of the recipe but use left overs from you blueberry buttercream frosting and just add flour and baking soda? What would be the ideal amounts though?
Or if you have ideas of what to do with the left over frosting.
Hi Rania, you might be able to though I haven’t tested it myself. To work out the amounts, weigh your frosting and use the original recipe ratios to estimate how much of each ingredient it contains. From there, you can scale the cookie recipe accordingly. Alternatively, the blueberry frosting goes beautifully with my blueberry lemon cupcakes recipe, or any berry cake.
I’ve made these cookies a few times now and they are delightful!
I was wondering though, can I freeze the cookies after baking? And how would I reheat them?
Hi Meg, we’re so glad you love the cookies! You can definitely freeze them after baking, just let them cool completely, then store in an airtight container or freezer bag. To reheat, you can either pop them in the microwave for 10–15 seconds to make them soft and chewy, or warm them in the oven at 160°C/325°F for 5–10 minutes for a slightly crispier texture. Enjoy!
Hi, could I replace the vegetable butter with normal butter if I should use the same quantities?
Hi Lea, I haven’t tested it so I can’t be 100% sure but I’ve never heard of any issues when a reader has done that. Hope that helps!
What a delightful cookie! Not only is it fairly easy to make, but they smell delicious while they bake and they taste so good. I made it as directed and they came out perfect. I will definitely be making these again. Thank you for such a great recipe.
Hi Deborah, I’m so so glad you enjoyed these cookies and that the recipe is a keeper for you! Thanks so much for your lovely feedback ❤️
Hi Anthea, can I make this with frozen raspberries or frozen mixed berries? ( yes, the colour will be different).
Hi Charu, I haven’t tried other berries myself but other readers have and said they work well!
These are ok. Helped me use up our frozen fruit before we move. Mine are blue which is ok. I used some coconut sugar.
Thanks for your feedback! The cookies can turn slightly purple if your strawberries are a little darker which can happen with store-bought frozen fruit. Coconut sugar would alter the color (and flavor) of the cookies too 🙂
Absolutely delicious, the flavour and texture of these cookies were better than anything I could have imagined. I did it with the reduced flour option for a stronger strawberry flavour, plus I reduced my puree way more than it was needed, so I ended up with only around 80g, but with the reduced flour and a bit of elbow grease when beating the dough together, they turned out amazing.
The only thing I’d like to note is that I added freeze dried raspberries into the dough (could not find strawberries), and while I think in terms of flavour it was a nice tangy addition to the sugary cookies, they do burn easily. I worked them into the dough, but any pieces close to the surface blackened, and the few that ended up on the surface fully burned, both with and without the sugar coating. It did not affect the flavour majorly because they were small enough, but in terms of looks, my cookies ended up with dark spots and I did have to scrape some off from the surface as well.
I have no idea how adding freeze dried strawberries or raspberries to the dough could work without burning them, other than sprinkling them on the top when the cookies are freshly out of the oven and still soft.
Hi Sonia! I’m thrilled that you enjoyed these cookies! In my opinion, the stronger the reduction, the better. It sounds like your cookies turned out wonderfully!
However, that’s a pity about the freeze dried raspberries! I would assume that the limited moisture in the raspberries and the cookies accelerates the burning process. I wonder if hydrating the raspberries/strawberries in water beforehand would help. Though, I’m not sure if the extra moisture will change the texture of the cookies. Another possible solution is to cover the cookies with aluminium foil before baking to minimise the direct oven heat, and remove the foil just before the cookies are done baking. I haven’t tested either of these, so it might take a little experimentation. Thank you for letting me know and for your lovely feedback!
Excellent cookie texture and just sweet enough. Thank you
Hi Rick, that’s wonderful to hear!! Thanks so much for your feedback 🙂
You say remaining 50g sugar but the recipe says add sugar. Nothing about 150g sugar?
200g sugar is beaten with the butter for the cookie dough. Then then the cookie dough balls are coated in 50g sugar.
I am planning to make these cookies today, but as I read the recipe I see you have vanilla and salt listed as ingredients but you never use them in the directions to mix the cookies. Please advise.
Sorry about that. It doesn’t really matter when you add those ingredients but I have just updated the recipe with more info. Please refresh your browser if you cannot see the updates.