These soft vegan red velvet cookies have a beautiful red tint that contrasts so well with the vegan white chocolate chips. You will love their cake-y texture and rich flavor, plus they don't use any food coloring, thanks to the healthy beets they are made with!
What comes after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year? Valentine's day!
So, I thought now that we are entering February, it was a perfect time to share these amazing vegan white chocolate red velvet cookies!
But even if Valentine's day isn't your thing, you should still try them out. Obv. Because we don't need to celebrate anything to make cookies. They are fudgy with a great cake-y texture and I love their light chocolate flavor making its way through the bright red color. So yummy.
I loaded them with vegan white chocolate, just because, and it made them even more red-velvety.
But what's even better is how healthy they are. Ok, sure, white chocolate isn't exactly considered healthy food, but otherwise, they make for a wholesome snack or dessert. What makes them red? Beets! What makes them extra gooey? White beans! What makes them chocolatey? Raw cacao powder! You see? I told you they were good-for-you.
Why you'll love these cookies
- Beautifully red.
- No chilling required.
- Chewy and soft.
- Made without food coloring or refined white sugar
- High-in-fiber and wholesome, but studded with vegan white chocolate chips to make them special.
- Great cookies for holidays like Christmas or Valentine's day.
Ingredients you'll need
- Fresh beets: you will barely taste them, but they provide such a beautiful bright red color in a healthy way.
- Canned white beans: healthy and tasteless ingredient that make sure the cookies stay moist and fudgy.
- Raw cacao powder: adds a hint of chocolatey flavor.
- All-purpose flour: you could use a whole wheat flour for up to half of the amount of the flour, although this will make the cookies not as soft and moist.
- Coconut oil: cannot be swapped for apple sauce as it would make them too heavy. Use refined oil to avoid a coconut flavor.
- Ground flax seeds: act as a binder, but also bring even more fiber.
- Baking powder: leveling agent.
- Vegan white chocolate chips: they pair so well with the red chocolatey cookies and also the white over the red makes for a classic red velvet look.
How to make them
Pre-heat the oven to 350º and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Cook the beets
In a small sauce pan, add the shredded beets and the maple syrup. Bring to a gentle boil, then turn down the heat to medium-low. Then, keep simmering uncovered for 5 minutes (put a timer on once it starts to boil) stirring often. Careful as it tends to overflow.
Once the beets are cooked, then transfer to a measuring glass jar. You need ¾ cup of that mixture.
If you have more than ¾ cup, then it means you have to cook for a little longer. If you have less than ¾ cup, then add some water, maybe 1 tablespoon at the time, to reach the ¾ cup mark.
Let the beet-maple mixture cool for a few minutes so it is not steaming hot.
Make the cookie dough
In a food processor, add the ¾ cup of beet-maple mixture, the white beans and the coconut oil. Process until uniform and creamy.
Then, add the flour, cacao powder, baking powder and ground flax seeds. Process or pulse until combined. You are looking for a uniform mixture, but without over-processing.
Carefully remove the blades and incorporate the vegan white chocolate chips into the batter using a spatula.
Bake
Divide the dough in between 10 cookies and transfer on the prepared baking sheet. I like to use an ice cream scoop to do that (medium size) since the batter is pretty sticky. I might flatten them slightly, but I mostly keep them in a dome shape so they are extra gooey.
Bake for 13-14 minutes and then, let them cool down for about 10 minutes before enjoying (they will be quite soft after just baked).
Watch how to make them
Baking tips
- To speed up the process, you can buy already shredded beets at the store.
- Do NOT use already cooked beets. You need raw beets that you will cook yourself in the maple syrup. Using already cooked beets might bring more moisture to the cookie batter and make them too soft.
- Once you are done simmering the beets in the maple syrup for 5 minutes, you need to measure the resulting amount. Don't skip this! This is a baking recipe and you want to use a proper ratio liquid vs dry. As explained above, you want ¾ cup of beet-maple mixture. Put it back on the stove and reduce it more if needed. If you end up with already less than ¾ cup, no biggie, it just means that you lost more water while cooking. Just add a little water back to the mixture to reach that ¾ cup!
- I recommend to follow the scoop + level method to measure the flour.
- Cool down the beet mixture before adding it to the food processor or it might make the vegan white chocolate chips melt as you stir them in.
Where to find white chocolate chips
A vegan version of white chocolate chips can be trickier to find as they usually require lots of milk products to prepare them. Even at whole foods where I usually find lots of plant-based ingredients, I still cannot find any vegan white chips.
So here are a few ideas on where you can find them:
- Online: you can try using these Organic vegan white chocolate chips from Pascha and these white chips from DeeBest.
- At Walmart: I don't really shop there, but getting vegan white chocolate chips is worth the detour! They often hold these Nestlé vegan white morsels and these Organic Great Value white baking chips.
What can I use instead of vegan white chocolate chips
If you don't have or don't want to use vegan white chocolate chips, then you can easily use chopped macadamia nuts instead. This would keep on the beautiful red and white contrast, plus would add a nice crunch.
Other nuts would work too. In a pinch, simply use vegan dark chocolate chips and it will be delicious!
Storage tips
I was happy on how gooey and soft these cookies stayed while storing. We ate each batches I tested within max 3 days, so I'm honestly unsure if they would dry out more if storing for longer than that. Be sure to let them completely cool down before storing in an air-tight container. I usually keep them at room temperature, but transfer in the fridge if you plan to keep them longer.
FAQ's
No, I didn't chill the dough at all before baking them. The coconut oil will soften a lot in the food processor and that's fine for this cookie recipe.
I had different shade of red depending on the beets I used while testing them, but they were pretty red each time. Obv, be sure to use red beets opposed to yellow or orange beets.
Including beets in the cookies might add a hearty background of flavor, but it was really subtle to us. I guess it depends on your tastebuds though! I believe that just like in these beet chocolate muffins, the cacao flavor takes over on most of the beet taste.
No! The beets add not only color, but also is an important ingredients for these cookies.
Other vegan cookie recipes you might like
- Vegan lemon cookies
- Vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
- Pumpkin and banana cookies
- Almond flour thumbprint cookies
- Cinnamon oatmeal cookies
- Vegan coffee bean cookies
- Sweet potato and apple breakfast cookies
- Edible raw cookie dough bites
- Almond flour peanut butter cookies
- Matcha white chocolate cookies
More beet recipes
I hope you like these vegan red velvet cookies as much as we do! If you try them, please leave a comment below and rate the recipe to let me know how they were. Your feedback is so helpful!
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Vegan Red Velvet Cookies (without Food Coloring)
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
- 1 cup grated RAW red beets
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1 cup canned white beans - navy or cannelini beans, rinsed and drained
- ¼ cup coconut oil - solid
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp raw cacao powder
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp ground flax seeds
- ½ cup vegan white chocolate chips - or vegan dark chocolate chips or chopped macadamia nuts
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 350º and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small pot, combine the shredded beets with the maple syrup. Stir and warm up on medium heat. Once it starts to boil, put a timer on for 5 minutes. Stir often and let it simmer uncovered watching carefully so it does not overflow.
- Once it simmered for 5 minutes, transfer to a measuring cup to ensure that you have ¾ cup of the beet-maple mixture. If you have more, then put back on the stove and simmer longer. If you have less, then it means more water evaporated while simmering. So, add a splash of water to reach ¾ cup total. Set aside so it cools down for a few minutes.
- In a food processor, add the white beans, coconut oil and beet-maple mixture and process until uniform. Then, add the flour, cacao powder, baking powder and flax seeds and process/pulse to combine. Then, carefully remove the blades and add the white chocolate chips and stir using a spatula.
- Divide the dough into 10 cookies and bake for 13-14 minutes. I like to use a medium size ice cream scoop and I mostly keep them in a dome shape so they stay extra gooey. Let the cookies rest for about 10-15 minutes after done before enjoying.
Video
Notes
- To speed up the process, you can buy already shredded beets at the store.
- Do NOT use already cooked beets. You will cook them yourself in the maple syrup. Using already cooked beets might bring more moisture to the cookie batter.
- Once you are done simmering the beets in the maple syrup for 5 minutes, you need to measure the resulting amount. Don't skip this! This is a baking recipe and you want to use a proper ratio liquid vs dry. As explained above, you want ¾ cup exactly of beet-maple mixture. Put it back on the stove and reduce it more if needed. If you end up with already less than ¾ cup, no biggie, it just means that you lost more water while cooking. Just add a little water back to the mixture to reach that ¾ cup!
- I recommend you use a scoop + level method to measure the flour.
- Cool down the beet mixture before adding it to the food processor or it might make the vegan white chocolate chips melt as you stir them in.
Pin it for later!
Jess. I have powdered red beet. Any thoughts on how to sub that in? I was curious like 1 T with 1/2 c applesauce maybe?
Hi Laura! I am worried the batter would end up too thin. If trying this substitution, you might need to add more flour to compensate. Let us know if you tried it! 🙂
So delicious and so pretty!! The instructions were easy to follow and it came together really well! I used white kidney beans and swapped a little bit of the all-purpose flour for almond flour and it was DELICIOUS!
These were so good ! Soft and perfectly sweet… I will make them again for Valentine’s Day.
Sad that u say the oil can’t be subbed….i don’t bake/cook with oil. Applesauce and banana seem to work just fine usually. What do u mean it makes them too heavy?
Hi Lauren! What I mean is that there are already a few 'very moist' ingredients such as white beans and beets, so I'm worried that more moisture from the apple sauce or bananas would be too much for this recipe. But I haven't tried it yet, let me know if you do! 🙂