I recently made these easy vegan pistachio cookies for a couple of kind souls I wanted to thank with a sweet gesture. They are incredibly easy to make and have such an elegant flavor, they are absolutely addicting and make a wonderful gift. Although I had a really hard time actually packing them up and sending them to the people I baked them for, I just wanted to eat them all in one sitting!
These easy vegan pistachio cookies are perfect all year but they’d also make amazing Christmas cookies that’ll impress anyone.
Their flavor and texture remind me of my granny’s traditionally Austrian Vanillekipferl and the dough is actually quite similar in its simplicity. The main ingredients are just (vegan) butter, sugar, ground nuts, and flour.
So technically you could make these with any sort of ground nuts you have at home, however, I feel like pistachios are some of the most luxurious choices. Not only because they’re expensive but also because they are so rare to find in baked goods. Usually, pistachio-flavored desserts do not have any actual pistachios in them.
But you know that’s not how compassionate snobs do things, we want the real deal!
By the way, have you ever wondered why we (food) bloggers always write long intros before our actual recipes?
I’m letting you in on the secret today: It’s so you can actually find and enjoy our recipes. Search engines require us to write a certain amount of characters, preferably containing loads of buzzwords surrounding our content such as
- easy
- egg-free
- dairy-free
- vegan
- one bowl recipe
- crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth cookies
- fragrant
I usually try to keep my intros as long as needed but as short as possible. Plus, I provide a “Skip to recipe” link at the very top, so you can easily scroll past all this nonsense!
Easy Vegan Pistachio Cookies Recipe
Easy Vegan Pistachio Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies
- ¾ cups Ground pistachios (unsalted) 130g
- 1 cup Vegan butter, room temperature (I used Alsan) 230g
- ¾ cup Sugar 90g
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract (optional)
- 2¼ cups flour (all-purpose) 280g
- Salt
Icing
- ⅓ cup Icing sugar 40g
- 2-3 tsp Rose water or water
Instructions
- Grind pistachios in a food processor to a fine meal
- Cream together vegan butter and sugar, vanilla and almond extract for about a minute until smooth.
- Add the flour and pistachio and fold under. Once it's combined, knead together using your hand until a dough ball forms. Be careful not to overwork the dough!
- Cover the dough tightly and chill for 30 minutes and up to 2 days. If chilled for over 2 hours, take the dough out 30 minutes before carrying on with the next step.
- Pre-heat oven to 180°C, prepare and line baking sheet
- Roll cookie dough into balls of about 1 tablespoon of dough each and spread them out evenly on your baking tray.
- Bake until the edges are slightly browned, around 14-15 minutes
- Let cool
Icing
- Sieve the icing sugar to avoid any clumps
- Add water half a teaspoon at a time until the consistency is easily spreadable but not too runny. To test the consistency, let the glaze pour off the spoon. The glaze should fall into a ribbon and hold the shape for a few seconds before melting back into the glaze.
- Dip the cookies in the icing
- Optionally sprinkle some leftover pistachio while icing is still wet
- Let dry
Notes
Here’s a little video showing the process:
I adapted and veganized this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction.
If you want to see more of my vegan cookie recipes, check out these:
Pins for Pinterest:
