These vegan oatmeal raisin cookies are crisp on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, rich and delicious with a hint of molasses.
There is always time for another vegan oatmeal cookie recipe. These vegan oatmeal raisin cookies are so good, you’ll love them even if you don’t love raisins. Seriously.
I’m not a massive fan of raisins, in that you won’t generally find me eating a handful of raisins ever, but I’ll eat them when they come mixed up with salted peanuts or when they’re in a dessert (like this vegan tiffin, then they’re awesome!).
And in these cookies, they are so good and mix in so well with the other flavors, it will pretty much make a raisin convert out of anyone. They are just ultimately good.
We’ve already done a bunch of oatmeal cookie recipes on this blog but there is always space for more. Have you tried our simple vegan oatmeal cookies, vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies or vegan peanut butter oatmeal cookies yet?
If you have, then you know how good they are and how good this one is going to be too!
What sets these oatmeal cookies apart from other oatmeal cookie recipes is well, raisins of course, but also the addition of molasses.
You just use a small amount but nonetheless you will notice the difference in flavor, and that blends so well with the cinnamon and brown sugar, and raisins of course.
You’ll also love our vegan anzac biscuits, vegan cowboy cookies and vegan oatmeal cranberry cookies.
Ingredients For Oatmeal Raisin Cookies:
Ingredient Notes
- Raisins – should be small and seedless. When I first tested these cookies, I could only find jumbo raisins in the store, and they did not work out well at all. They are just too big to go easily into the cookie dough and even when the cookies were baking, it was like these giant raisins were just falling out of the cookies onto the baking tray! So don’t use jumbo raisins! You want the nice and small seedless variety.
- Dessicated coconut – is also called finely shredded coconut.
- Walnuts – these are optional but highly recommended.
- Maple syrup – can be switched for golden syrup or agave nectar or any syrup you may have on hand.
- Molasses – you can really use any molasses here since it’s only a small amount. Our favorite brand is Grandma’s.
- Soy milk – can be replaced with any non-dairy milk.
How To Make Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Add vegan butter and light brown sugar to the bowl of your stand mixer and cream them together until smooth.
- Add maple syrup, molasses and vanilla extract and mix in.
- In a separate bowl add rolled oats, all purpose flour, dessicated coconut, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and mix together.
- Add the dry ingredients in with the wet and mix with a spoon into a crumbly cookie dough.
- Add soy milk and mix again. Your dough should be very thick but you should be able to roll it into a ball and have it stick together perfectly at this stage. If not, add a little more soy milk.
- Add raisins and chopped walnuts and mix in.
- Roll the cookie dough into balls and place them evenly onto a parchment lined baking tray. Aim to get 20 cookies from the batch.
- Place into the oven and bake at 350°F for 12 minutes. The tops will be golden brown and the edges will be firm, but the cookies will still be very soft in the middle.
- Let the cookies cool and firm up directly on the tray.
Quick and Easy
These vegan oatmeal raisin cookies are super quick and easy. There’s no chilling of the dough or any delays in this recipe.
If you have a serious oatmeal cookie craving and have the ingredients on hand then in 30 minutes time you could have a batch of freshly baked cookies coming out of the oven!
You’ll have to wait for them to cool down, but you’ll be enjoying some of this cookie goodness in a very short amount of time.
When they come out of the oven, the cookies are quite soft in the middle. You might even wonder if they’re cooked. As long as they’re nicely browned on top, they’re good. Let them cool directly on the tray and they’ll firm up beautifully.
Recipe Tips
Try and get an even amount of raisins and walnuts into each cookie. There’s no need to be too precise of course, but you just want to keep a general eye on it as you’re rolling the cookie dough into balls. You don’t want some cookies to have a ton of raisins/walnuts and others to have none.
Baking time. For a softer cookie bake for 12 minutes. If you’d like them to have more crunch then you can increase the baking time to 15 minutes.
If your cookies don’t flatten. These cookies will usually flatten on their own in the oven. But if they don’t, you can increase the baking time by a couple of minutes. If they still haven’t flattened then just flatten them gently with a fork as soon as they come out the oven still warm and soft.
Make them gluten-free. These cookies work really well as gluten-free. All you have to do is switch the regular flour for a gluten-free all purpose baking blend. Also make sure your rolled oats are gluten-free.
Storing and Freezing
Keep them stored in an airtight container at room temperature and they’ll stay good for up to a week. You can also store them in an airtight container in the fridge.
You can freeze the baked cookies for up to 3 months.
You can even freeze the unbaked cookie balls for up to 3 months and then bake them directly from frozen (allow an extra couple of minutes baking time).
More Delicious Vegan Cookie Recipes
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
- Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Cookies
- Vegan Sugar Cookies
- Vegan Snickerdoodles
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup Vegan Butter (112g)
- 1 cup Light Brown Sugar (200g)
- 1 Tablespoon Maple Syrup or Golden Syrup
- 1 Tablespoon Molasses
- 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 ½ cups Rolled Oats (150g)
- 1 cup All Purpose Flour (125g)
- 1 cup Dessicated Coconut (80g) Finely Shredded Coconut
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 2 Tablespoons Soy Milk or other non-dairy milk
- ¾ cup Raisins (105g) small and seedless
- ½ cup Chopped Walnuts (64g) Optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Add vegan butter and light brown sugar to the bowl of your stand mixer and cream them together until smooth.
- Add maple syrup, molasses and vanilla extract and mix in.
- In a separate bowl add rolled oats, all purpose flour, dessicated coconut, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and mix together.
- Add the dry ingredients in with the wet and mix with a spoon into a crumbly cookie dough.
- Add in the soy milk and mix again. Your dough should be very thick, but you should be able to roll it into a ball and have it stick together perfectly at this stage. If not, add a tiny bit more soy milk.
- Add in the raisins and chopped walnuts and mix in.
- Roll the dough into balls and place them evenly onto a parchment lined baking tray. Aim to get around 20 cookies. Try to ensure the raisins are spread out in the cookie dough so that you don't end up with some cookies having no raisins and some cookies having a lot of raisins.
- Place into the oven and bake for 12 minutes. The tops will be golden brown and the edges will be firm, but the cookies will still be very soft in the middle.
- Let the cookies cool and firm up directly on the tray.
Video
Notes
- Baking time. For a softer cookie bake for 12 minutes. If you’d like them to have more crunch then you can increase the baking time to 15 minutes.
- If your cookies don’t flatten. These cookies will usually flatten on their own in the oven. But if they don’t, you can increase the baking time by a couple of minutes. If they still haven’t flattened then just flatten them gently with a fork as soon as they come out the oven still warm and soft.
- Make them gluten-free. These cookies work really well as gluten-free. All you have to do is switch the regular flour for a gluten-free all purpose baking blend. Also make sure your rolled oats are gluten-free.
- Storing: Keep them stored in an airtight container at room temperature and they’ll stay good for up to a week. You can also store them in an airtight container in the fridge.
- Freezing: You can freeze the baked cookies for up to 3 months. You can even freeze the unbaked cookie balls for up to 3 months and then bake them directly from frozen (allow an extra couple of minutes baking time).
- This recipe has been updated with new photos and extra tips but the recipe itself is the same.
WOW! These cookies are delicious! Had a craving for these for a week now and made one batch and they’ve disappeared in 24 hours- our family came over for mother’s day and they gobbled them up. I subbed honey for the golden syrup and cut the brown sugar to 2/3rds since I prefer a wee less sweet. Thank you for yet another brilliant recipe.
Awesome! Thanks so much Meggie!
This recipe is soo good! If you don’t have molasses (treacle is what we call it in Ireland) I promise it’s worth going out and buying it for this recipe. Yum!!
Thanks so much Siobhan!
Hello, made your choc cookies last week and was a hit with the kids! Would love to try the oatmeal cookies but I don’t have dark molasses. Can I skip this?
Thanks!
You could use something like maple syrup instead of the molasses. 🙂
Didn’t look like yours, alot more raised but still fantastic. All my fault for not following the recipe. My raisins didn’t all fold in, probably because they were too big, and didn’t have molasses, so used agave instead. Fantastic recipe as always, and will definitely, definitely will make again.
So glad they were good! If they are still quite puffy when they come out the oven you can also just press down on them with a fork to flatten while they are still warm and soft. Thanks for the great review! 🙂
Hi Alison, Love this recipe… However I made a double batch today and I left out the coconut and molasses my own and I made my own syrup and my cookies didn’t flatten out at all…. What went wrong?
It may be due to any of those substitutions but it’s not a problem, if they don’t flatten on their own you can flatten gently with a fork as soon as they come out the oven still warm and soft.
Love the cookies!
Thanks Tommy!
I had to cut down on the sugar, because it was too sweet. Other than that, I liked the coconut flavor!
Can I add vegan choc chips and maybe even some pnut butter ? I want to make a double batch so just doubling recipe. And I’m trying cranberries cause I don’t have raisins.
Chocolate chips yes, but peanut butter would change the recipe. We do have a recipe for peanut butter oatmeal cookies.
The best cookies! I skipped the coconut and used cloves instead of nutmeg. They’re just so delicious. I always turn to your site when I want to cook or bake a new recipe because you have never lead me wrong!
So happy to hear that Amber! Thanks a million!
This recipe is amazing Alison. Thank you 🙂 This is my second time trying the first time I tried this everything went perfectly and we finished the cookies in two days!! But somehow this time I have got a problem making the mixture into proper balls at the end of the batch. The mixture was too dry and I couldn’t bind the ingredients together. This is very weird as I followed the exact amount as per your recipe for the wet ingredients. Any suggestion for this?
Hi Shane, if this happens just add in a little more soy milk so that it can roll into balls. It may be that you used a little more flour than before. 🙂
I made these for my vegan son and they turned out amazing. They have a beautiful texture and are delicious. Thank you! 🙂
So happy to hear that Sarra! Thank you!
I don’t know what went wrong, but I had parchment paper on my brand new beautiful baking pans which I previously used for a vegan peanut butter chocolate chip cookie which turned out beautifully by the way. But, these ones stuck to the parchment paper so badly I couldn’t get almost any of it off. It was really weird. Any tips?
Hi Amber, are you 100% sure it was parchment paper? I have made a mistake in the past where I used wax paper instead of parchment paper and it stuck very badly. They can look the same but wax paper sticks like crazy.
What I sub for the coconut?
Thank you
Hi Cindy, other commenters have noted that they just left it out and it worked out fine. You may be able to just skip the soy milk altogether in that case.
I’ve been making this recipe for years and they turn out great every time! Sometimes I don’t have everything on hand (coconut flakes, golden syrup, etc) but the recipe is very versatile in a pinch. I make them once a week and eat two every morning for breakfast.
Awesome! Thanks so much Abby!
I usually avoid cookies because of the fats and sugars, but there are times when a really good cookie is worth the indulgence, and oatmeal raisin are my favorite. I got 2 dozen with a Tbsp ice cream scoop and had to immediately freeze half so I couldn’t see them! No way to eat just one, but these are verry tasty and certainly worth an occasional treat.