Enjoy these Vegan Salted Caramel Cookies with homemade caramel sauce. These non-dairy cookies are a decadent fall dessert everyone will love. Perfect for parties, potlucks, or food gifts with everyone’s favorite fall flavors.
Easy homemade caramel sauce!
This recipe involves a very easy Vegan Salted Caramel Sauce that takes only four ingredients (three if you skip the salt for basic caramel), and takes under 10 minutes to prepare.
You can use store-bought caramel sauce if you want to, but this sauce is really easy to make. It’s basically the only caramel sauce recipe you’ll ever need.
The ingredients used are: sugar, coconut oil, and coconut cream. Don’t worry because it doesn’t taste like coconut at all. Especially if you use refined coconut oil when making it.
An important tip is to let the caramel sauce cool down all the way before making the frosting, and before using it to assemble the cookies. However, the sauce should still be at room temperature. If it’s too cold/hard, it won’t spread right, and it will form clumps in your buttercream. If it’s too warm, it will melt the butter when you make the frosting.
How do you make the cookie dough?
To make the cookie dough, start by creaming the butter with an electric mixer.
Add sifted powdered sugar and cocoa powder to the bowl.
Add cream and stir until incorporated, about one minute.
Now it’s time to add the dry ingredients: flour, salt, and baking soda.
Stir to combine and form a dough ball. Wrap it in plastic and rest it in the fridge for one hour, or overnight. That’s why this dough is perfect for making ahead.
Once the dough has chilled through, remove it from the fridge. You may have to let it sit for a few minutes on the counter to let it soften up so you can roll it easily.
Divide the dough into four parts. Roll each piece at a time, until it’s 1/4″ thick.
Use a cookie cutter to cut circles of dough. I used a 2.5″ cookie cutter. Place circles on a baking sheet lined with a silicon mat or parchment paper.
Use a small circle to cut holes in the middle of the cookies. I used a round piping tip, since I didn’t have a cut as small as I would like the hole to be.
Important baking tip:
Place cookies in the fridge or freezer to get the butter cold while you pre-heat the oven. The cookies will have a better structure when you bake them.
Let the cookies cool down before proceeding with the filling. Pipe a ring of frosting around the edges of each bottom cookie.
Now, pipe or spoon a bit of the caramel sauce in the middle of each cookie.
Then place the other cookie on top and you have your Vegan Salted Caramel Cookies!
They are perfect for cookie baking season, to bring to parties. Everybody will be impressed with these delicious and addicting cookies! My husband had no idea they were vegan! He was also very surprised when I told him there was coconut oil and cream in the caramel sauce, as he couldn’t taste any of it!
I hope you give this recipe a go and see for yourself. If you love cookies, and if you love caramel, these Vegan Salted Caramel Cookies are the perfect dessert for you!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 10 tbsp vegan butter
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1/4 cup coconut cream
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup vegan butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 1/4 cup vegan caramel sauce
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1-3 tsp soy milk, as necessary
Instructions
- Sift powdered sugar and cocoa powder together. Set aside.
- Cream the butter with an electric mixer for about 1 minute, until creamy and smooth.
- Add sifted powdered sugar and cocoa powder to the butter and cream for another minute to combine.
- Add the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- Mix until you form a dough.
- Wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for about 1 hour. This will help the gluten structures set in the dough, and it will give time for the flour to get fully hydrated. Plus, it’s great for making ahead. The dough will last in the fridge for 1-2 days.
- Remove the dough from the fridge.
- You may have to let it sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes to let it soften up a bit before rolling it out.
- Divide the dough into 4 parts to make it easier to roll.
- Sprinkle some flour on the work surface. Roll out the first piece of dough until about 1/4 inch thick.
- I used a 2.5” cookie cutter. Cut circles of dough and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicon mat.
- Use a smaller cookie cutter, or a round piping tip, to cut smaller holes in the middle of half of the circles, so they can serve as the top cookie. I used a round piping tip, as I didn’t have a cookie cutter small enough.
- Do this until you are done with all the cookies.
- Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF.
- I like to put my cookies in the fridge or freezer before baking them so the butter in the cookies becomes nice and cold before entering the oven, which provides the cookies with a much better structure and texture.
- Bake cookies for about 10 minutes. They shouldn’t look completely baked in the oven. They should still look and feel soft, but firm enough. That’s because they will keep cooking as they sit after being removed from the oven.
- Let cookies cool down completely before filling.
- Place sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat and stir constantly until it melts.
- When you see the very last beat of sugar melting, quickly remove pan from the heat and immediately pour coconut oil and coconut cream in the pan.
- Be very careful because the mixture will splash all over the place.
- Return mixture to the heat, keep stirring and cooking mixture for 1-2 minutes.
- Never stop stirring. Stir and cook over medium-low heat until all the sugar has re-melted and the caramel is thick and smooth.
- Add the 1/4 teaspoon of salt at this point. Stir to combine.
- Remove to a heat-proof bowl.
- Let it cool completely before using.
- Place vegan butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and cream at medium-high speed for 1 minute.
- Add sifted powdered sugar. Cream to combine for another minute.
- Add room temperature caramel sauce. Cream at medium speed to combine. The caramel sauce needs to be at exactly room temperature for this.
- If mixture seems too stiff, add a bit of non-dairy milk or water, 1 teaspoon at a time. Asd more if necessary.
- Add vanilla.
- If buttercream seems too runny, add more sifted powdered sugar.
- Pipe a ring of Caramel frosting around the edges of each bottom cookie. Spoon or pipe a bit of caramel in the center of cookies. Place a cookie with the hole in the middle on top.
- Repeat until you are done with all the cookies.
- These cookies will store nicely in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Notes
Home Chef Tip: You can use coarse salt flakes to decorate the top of the cookies. Also, you can substitute part or all of the butter in the frosting for shortening, which also gives the frosting a better piping consistency.

We hope you enjoy these Vegan Salted Caramel Cookies from SoFabFood Home Chef, Camila from Pies and Tacos, as much as we do. If you love this recipe, you can find more like it by visiting our Dessert Section. For daily recipe inspiration, like us on Facebook and follow us on Pinterest. Enjoy!
Leave a Reply