Sugar-Free Coconut Flour Cookies (Vegan, Keto)
By Carine Claudepierre
Published on 11/02/2017 - Last updated on 10/23/2023
This recipe may contain Amazon or other affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Whether you eat keto, low carb, paleo, or vegan, these coconut flour cookies with no sugar are the healthy cookies you need to make everyone happy for Christmas, Thanksgiving, or any occasion.
You won’t miss your classic shortbread cookies.
These have the exact same texture – they melt in your mouth with a heavenly buttery vanilla flavor – without the carbs, butter, or sugar.
What Are Sugar-Free Coconut Flour Cookies?
Sugar-Free Coconut Flour Cookies are healthy low-carb cookies that are typically made for Christmas but can be enjoyed any time of the year.
They are made with Coconut Flour and have a delicious, slightly crumbly texture.
Why You’ll Love These Cookies
These Coconut Flour Cookies are simple and healthy, and they are:
- Sugar-Free
- Dairy-Free
- Gluten-Free
- Egg-Free
- Vegan
- Low-Carb
- Keto-Friendly
- Ready in Under 25 Minutes
How To Make Sugar-Free Coconut Flour Cookies
All you need to make these vegan keto cookies are 5 ingredients.
Ingredients
- Coconut Flour – Coconut flour is a low-carb flour that is great for bringing taste and texture to recipes. Since it’s very rich in fiber, it’s essential to follow a purpose-made recipe as it can’t be substituted for any other flour.
- Extra Virgin Coconut Oil – this provides a lot of binding to the cookies.
- Erythritol or any sugar-free crystal sweetener you love. It’s a great sugar replacement in sugar-free desserts.
- Vanilla extract – for a delicious taste.
- Nut Butter – I used cashew butter or peanut butter, but the recipe works with any nut butter you love. If you’d rather use eggs, you can use an egg instead.
Making Sugar-Free Coconut Flour Cookie Batter
I made them 4 times, so I learned a lot during the process of making these coconut flour cookies. Below are my tips to make them great every single time.
The dough can be made in a food processor, with an electric beater, or with your hands!
I tested all options. I found it messy to make the dough with my hands, so I prefer to use my food processor or beat the ingredients with my electric mixer first.
It forms a crumb in like 20 seconds, and then I use my hands to gather pieces into a dough ball.
The dough is crumbly. That is normal. That is what you want to make in a delicious shortbread cookie recipe.
It needs a bit of work to gather the crumb into a dough ball – it took me about 1 minute.
The more you knead, the more the coconut oil softens/sticks to the flour and makes that dough ball come to life.
Cooling The Dough
Wrap the crumbs into a plastic wrap, and press firmly. It helps the cookie dough ball form. Place it in the fridge for 10 minutes to set.
Don’t skip the 10 minutes in the fridge. The dough needs to firm up before you roll the cookies!
The crescent shapes are cute but not the easiest to make – the dough is dry/crumbly.
Make it simple, form 12 cookie balls and press them with the back of a fork to flatten. Much faster and super cute.
Baking The Cookies
Using the fan-forced mode of your oven is the best way to bake them.
Don’t touch the cookies when out of the oven. They will be super fragile/soft. They must cool down fully on the cooking tray to get hard and crunchy.
More Keto Coconut Flour Cookies
If you’ve enjoyed this coconut flour vegan recipe, you’ll love the following:
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Coconut Flour Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup Coconut Flour
- ⅓ cup Coconut Oil solid, not melted +/- 1 tablespoon (add if the dough is too crumbly)
- ¼ cup Granulated Sweetener or monk fruit blend
- ¼ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 tablespoon Peanut Butter or 1 large egg at room temperature
Decoration
- ⅓ cup Sugar-Free Dark Chocolate I used stevia chocolate
- 1 tablespoon Pumpkin Seeds crushed
- 1 teaspoon Unsweetened Desiccated Coconut
Optional – to sprinkle on top before baking
- 1 tablespoon Coconut Flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to fan-bake 350°F (180°C). Prepare a cookie tray, cover it with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Place all the ingredients in a bowl, and beat with an electric beater until it forms a crumble. It should not take more than 20 seconds. If you don't have an electric beater, you can also press/rub the dough with your hands until it forms a crumb – just a bit messier!
- Assemble the crumb with your hands to form a cookie dough ball and transfer the ball onto a piece of plastic wrap. It's crumbly dough. That's normal. Press firmly with your hands to gather the pieces together and firmly wrap the batter to form a ball. If it really doesn't come together after you kneaded the dough for 1 minute, add slightly more coconut oil – up to 1 tablespoon max. Refrigerate for 15 minutes to firm up.
- Remove from the fridge, and open the plastic wrap. The dough will be firm but still crumbly when you take some in your hands. That is ok. The more you knead the dough, the easier it gets to form balls as the coconut oil softens.
- Roll 1 tablespoon of dough into a ball, pressing the dough firmly in your hands. Place the balls onto the prepared baking sheet. If you want to make crescent-shaped cookies, first, shape the ball into a cylinder and slightly pinch the middle to form a crescent shape. The fastest will be to flatten the ball with a fork to form lovely round shortbread cookies. Repeat with the remaining dough until you form 12 cookies.
- If you like, sprinkle extra coconut flour on top of the cookies before baking.
- Bake until they are light golden brown on the sides for 6 to 8 minutes. The cookies will remain very soft at this stage, and that is normal, don't touch them or don't try to remove them from the tray. They firm up when fully cool down.
- Cool down on the baking sheet for about 30 minutes until it reaches room temperature. As it cools down, the coconut oil hardens and creates crispy, crumbly shortbread cookies. I usually place my baking sheet outside in summer to cool down in fresh air quickly or near an open window.
- Decorate with a drizzle of melted sugar-free chocolate if you like. I used dark chocolate sweetened with stevia.
Notes
Tools
Getting Started What Is Keto? Macro Calculator Sweetener Converter Intermittent Fasting Keto Fruits Keto Vegetables Keto Flours Fighting Keto Flu Healthy SweetenersWant My Kitchen Equipment?
Nutrition
About The Author
Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, published author of a cookbook, and founder of Sweet As Honey.
I have an Accredited Certificate in Nutrition and Wellness obtained in 2014 from Well College Global (formerly Cadence Health). I'm passionate about sharing all my easy and tasty recipes that are both delicious and healthy. My expertise in the field comes from my background in chemistry and years of following a keto low-carb diet. But I'm also well versed in vegetarian and vegan cooking since my husband is vegan.
I now eat a more balanced diet where I alternate between keto and a Mediterranean Diet
Cooking and Baking is my true passion. In fact, I only share a small portion of my recipes on Sweet As Honey. Most of them are eaten by my husband and my two kids before I have time to take any pictures!
All my recipes are at least triple tested to make sure they work and I take pride in keeping them as accurate as possible.
Browse all my recipes with my Recipe Index.
I hope that you too find the recipes you love on Sweet As Honey!
Disclaimer
The recipes, instructions, and articles on this website should not be taken or used as medical advice. You must consult with your doctor before starting on a keto or low-carb diet. The nutritional data provided on Sweetashoney is to be used as indicative only.
The nutrition data is calculated using WP Recipe Maker. Net Carbs is calculated by removing the fiber and some sweeteners from the total Carbohydrates. As an example, a recipe with 10 grams of Carbs per 100 grams that contains 3 grams of erythritol and 5 grams of fiber will have a net carbs content of 2 grams. Some sweeteners are excluded because they are not metabolized.
You should always calculate the nutritional data yourself instead of relying on Sweetashoney's data. Sweetashoney and its recipes and articles are not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose, or treat any disease. Sweetashoney cannot be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or advice found on the Website.
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Has anyone tried adding chopped pecans to the dough and rolling them in a keto friendly powdered sugar after cooling so they might come out like Mexican wedding cookies?
It should work but you can also try my keto snowball cookie recipe instead, it describe exactly what you are after a buttery cookie filled with pecans and rolled in sugar-free powder sweetener!Enjoy.
These are delicious. Came out great. I added almond extract to my second batch and it was fantastic. Will be making these around the holidays for sure. Thank you!
I used this as a crust for my chocolate mousse cheesecake! absolutely delicious!
I gave this a go. To the recipe I added fresh lime juice and zest and shredded coconut unsweetened and some grated zucchini and chopped pistachio. I guess I had a green theme going on! :-0) I’m happy with them. Thanks.
These were so good! Thanks for the recipe! The texture is amazing, it held up well but still like a delicate shortbread cookie. I didn’t have coconut oil as I cannot stand the smell of it so I replaced it with grapeseed oil. And used almond butter instead of egg. I also did not include Erythritol or any other types of sugars as my husband is on a no sugar or sweetener replacement diet. Instead I put a handful or pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds in a food processor and mixed it into the dough mixture to replace the bulk of the sugar. Came out amazing!! Your body really doesn’t need the extra sugar! Oh, I also refrigerated it for maybe an hour before I rolled it and popped them into the oven.
Hi!. Ir works with Butter???
Yes, it will work
Hi Carine,
Can pure powdered stevia be used in this recipe as a sweetener?
Unfortunately you can’t swap sugar alcohol (erythritol or xylitol) in keto baking recipes by pure stevia powder. Pure stevia won’t add bulk to the cookies or cakes plus its overly sweet and the amount required will be very small. You can use my keto sweetener converter here to help you convert my recipes easily. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
Made these and they were great! Made it with a little less coconut flour (by accident) but think it turned out in my favor because it wasn’t as dry as my sister’s batch. Made it with coconut sugar and cyst almonds instead. Very happy with the recipe! Thank you!
Thanks for the lovely feedback! I am so happy to have you and your sister on the blog. Enjoy the recipes around here. XOXO Carine.
is it possible to take out the sweetener and have it unsweetened? thanks!
I guess yes but it will be very bland in flavors. Enjoy the recipe on the blog! XOXO Carine.
Never mind! The nutritional panel magically showed up when I closed the site and opened it again!
YEAH! Thanks so much for reporting back I was worried about that. Enjoy the low carb recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine.
I cannot see ththe nutrition panel, either. Viewing from my phone. I have scrolled from top to bottom several times, but alaalas, it is not there. Could you please tell me the carbs per one cookie? Thanks so much! Excited to try these, as it is not easy to find baked goods that are low carb, GF, AND egg free!
I have made these twice now successfully. So quick to make. I followed the recipe exactly and both times they have turned out beautifully.
I did crush up couple of sugar free butterscotch hard candies and sprinkled that over the top before baking. It worked very well. Thank you 🙂
Lovely ! Thanks for the lovely feedback. Enjoy the low carb recipes on the blog. XOXO Carine.
Hi,
The cookies have a great taste, & I followed the recipe to the letter. My problem is that they have a gritty texture. Did I do something wrong?
Thanks for the lovey comment! You did not do anything wrong, coconut flour is always giving a gritty texture in baking but it is such a great low carb flour if you are on low sugar diet. Some people don’t feel it much some does, I hope you still enjoyed that recipe. XOXO Carine.
Hi! I made this cookies yesterday and they are really dry. I did everything by the recipe, except I substituted cashew butter for peanut butter and I baked them a few minutes more because they were not golden brown yet. Any idea why they are so dry? Is there I way I do something (now after baking) to make them a little bit drier? Thanks!
I guess the two changes impact the texture as you cook them longer they dry out and peanut butter has 3 times more fibre than cashew butter so it is more liquid absorbent drying out the mixture as well. I will definetly recommend to follow the recipe for perfect result. Enjoy the recipes on the blog and Merry Christmas. XOXO Carine
Hi, I can’t see the nutrician information?
The nutrition panel is after the recipe box, simply scroll down and you will see it ! Enjoy the cookie recipe. XOXO Carine.
Hey !
Needed to write a comment to tell how good they are !
Really easy to make and wonderful to eat ! I follow a ketogenic diet and my girlfriend has allergy to almonds so coconut flour is the only alternative.
I added a few cinnamon in the mix and once cooked and cooled down i coated them in a homemade dark chocolate, taste like magic !
I ate 3 of them, i busted my net carbs limit today 😀
Thanks for the recipe 🙂
YEAH! thanks for the lovely comment. Merry Keto Christmas to you. XOXO Carine.
Hi I am wondering how you get your coconut oil to be the perfectly solid the way you need it for this recipe included the summer? In the summer my coconut oil is completely melted at room temperature. Cookies look lovely, will try soon. Thank you.
Hello! In summer I store my coconut oil in the garage or in the fridge! It is the best way to keep yours solid. I hope this helps you make the coconut flour cookies. Enjoy, XOXO Carine.
Will definitely be making these for Christmas ????
Awesome news! Enjoy them. XOXO Carine.
Can Xylitol be used for the sweetener?
Yes sure! Any sugar free crystal sweetener works use the one that you prefer. XOXO Carine.
Can maple syrup or honey be used for the sweetener?
Thank you!
Leyla
No, you must use a crystal sweetener or the cookies will be too soft. Try any unrefined cane sugar for an healthy vegan option Enjoy XOXO Carine.