Vegan Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Maple Glaze

Soft, perfectly pumpkin spiced and chewy, these easy vegan pumpkin oatmeal cookies with maple glaze are also gluten-free using only oats and oat flour. One bowl and no mixer needed for this recipe and despite having no eggs, no dairy, and no gluten, these are delicious fall flavored pumpkin oatmeal cookies!

Please don’t stop reading just because I said gluten-free and vegan!  You will not know it – I promise, despite their “healthy” label, these pumpkin oatmeal cookies are chewy, deeply fall-spiced, unbelievably easy to make, and perfect for pumpkin season.

If you love pumpkin recipes, check out these other options:

• Pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting
• Easy small batch pumpkin spice muffins
• Pumpkin pancakes
• Pumpkin chocolate chip bread
• Baked pumpkin donuts with maple glaze

Recipe Development Process

These super soft and chewy cookies came about because — have you caught on to how I create recipes yet? — I was feeling lazy a couple weekends ago.  It was cool and crisp and very October-y outside, we were lounging around watching college football, and I really wanted some pumpkin oatmeal cookies with mega fall flavors.  

Normal, right?

I actually have a go-to pumpkin cookie recipe from a friend that is chock full of gluten and definitely not vegan.  It’s also one of those recipes that somehow contains four different kinds of sugar, and it involves creaming of butter and folding of flour and …all those fun baking things I sometimes have the energy to do, but this day did not.

Nope, on this particular day I felt like stirring everything together with a fork and dropping it on a cookie sheet and eating pumpkin oat cookies as soon as possible.  I had a football game to watch, after all.  It’s feelings like these that, in the past, have inspired such joys as my easiest chocolate chip cookies, so I knew my lazy tendency had the potential to lead me somewhere new and possibly great.

I have a tried and true recipe for banana breakfast cookies on here that uses only oats for the flour, so I decided to swap pumpkin puree in for the banana and use pumpkin spice seasoning instead of cinnamon.  I also increased the amount of maple syrup slightly since pumpkin purée is not nearly as sweet as mashed banana.  On the whole, though, these were already shaping up to be FAR healthier and easier than traditional pumpkin cookie recipes, and the only question was whether they’d measure up in taste.

Spoiler alert: they did.

Ingredients

How a few simple, wholesome ingredients can come together and create vegan cookies this magical without the use of eggs, butter, or sugar, I still really don’t know. It’s baking magic. No flax egg or egg replacer needed here!

• Old-fashioned oats (use certified gluten-free oats if needed). We’ll be turning half of them into oat flour; see below for details. Alternatively, you can use commercial oat flour! I like Bob’s Red Mill oats and oat flour.
• Canned pumpkin puree (homemade pumpkin puree would work too; do not use canned pumpkin pie filling or pumpkin pie mix)
• Pure maple syrup (can substitute honey, another liquid sweetener, brown sugar, or coconut sugar)
• Olive oil (can substitute coconut oil, or another neutral oil, melted butter or melted vegan butter)
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Baking soda
• Salt
• And for the maple glaze: powdered sugar and maple syrup

How to make vegan pumpkin oatmeal cookies

This recipe is unbelievably easy: one bowl and no mixer needed. If you buy oat flour, you won’t need a blender either.

Step 1: Use a blender to grind half the oats into flour, and half of them into chopped pieces.  If you have commercial oat flour, you can skip this step and add the dry ingredients directly to the wet ingredients – see recipe card for details!

Step 2: In a large bowl, stir oat flour and oats with the rest of the ingredients thoroughly, until well-combined (no gluten formation to worry about here, yay!).

Step 3: Scoop the cookies into a parchment paper lined baking sheet with a small cookie scoop and flatten each of the cookie dough balls slightly with your fingertips if desired. If you don’t flatten them, no problem, they’ll just be a bit puffier.

Step 4: Bake for about 15 minutes until the edges are a little brown. If desired, make your maple glaze while they’re baking (simply stir together maple syrup and powdered sugar, with a little water to thin if needed).

Step 5: Remove the baked cookies to a wire cooling rack to cool completely, then finish with the glaze.

The whole recipe takes about 10 minutes to make (less if you’re faster at measuring than me), plus baking time.  The pumpkin oatmeal cookies come out soft, perfectly spiced, and just sweet enough to curb the cookie craving but not cloyingly sweet.  Hooray!

Storage

These gluten-free vegan pumpkin oatmeal cookies will keep, glazed or unglazed, at room temperature for up to 3 days in an airtight container. You can also store them in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer, tightly wrapped in plastic, for up to 3 months. Simply thaw at room temperature for an hour or heat in the microwave for 30 seconds to serve. 

The cookie dough can also be frozen and baked later: scoop dough onto a flat surface like a plate or baking sheet, and place in the freezer for an hour.  Then store frozen cookie dough balls in a freezer-safe bag to be baked whenever cookie cravings strike!  Bake from frozen for 15 minutes at 350 degrees F, or 17 minutes if you’d like them crispier on the edges.

Recipe Variations and Substitutions

Maple Glaze: I am of the opinion that nearly everything benefits from a maple glaze, and these pumpkin oatmeal cookies were no different.  They came out of the oven smelling amazing, and they tasted amazing too, but they were just a little too plain for a dessert cookie.  So I made a simple glaze of 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 2 tbsp maple syrup to drizzle on, and it made all the difference for me.

Could you skip the glaze and call these pumpkin breakfast cookies?  Definitely.  Would I tell anyone if you used the glaze and still called them breakfast cookies?  Definitely not.

Add Chocolate Chips: This is another version that I’ve tried instead of using the glaze and it’s delightful. Pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that are healthy, gluten-free, vegan, egg-free, all the things, but still absolutely delicious?? It’s wizardry. I would add 1/2 cup (85 grams) of dark chocolate chips or chopped chocolate to this recipe.

Add Nuts: chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds, or pumpkin seeds would be great here!

Substitution Options:

• use commercial oat flour instead of making your own oat flour (see recipe card for details)
• use quick oats instead of old-fashioned oats
• use any liquid sweetener or brown sugar or coconut sugar in place of the maple syrup
• use any neutral oil, melted coconut oil, or even melted butter in place of the olive oil
• use cinnamon or a combination of spices instead of pumpkin pie spice
• add vanilla extract if you want!

I highly recommend trying these healthy cookies on a day you’re feeling only semi-ambitious in the kitchen.  You’ll feel super accomplished in a very short amount of time.  And you’ll have the perfect fall cookie for this time of year — but trust me, they won’t last long.

More Healthy Oat-Based Recipes:

• Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies (vegan, gluten-free; this recipe is adapted from that one!)
• Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins (gluten-free, vegan option)
• Honey Almond Granola (gluten-free, vegan option)
• Salted Maple Pecan Granola (vegan, gluten-free)

If you make this vegan pumpkin oatmeal cookie recipe, please leave a star rating and review to help other readers! Thank you!

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4.80 from 10 votes

Vegan Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Maple Glaze

Soft, perfectly pumpkin spiced, and gluten-free using only oats and oat flour, these vegan pumpkin oatmeal cookies are ideal any time of day. Maple glaze optional!

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time15 minutes mins

Total Time25 minutes mins

Course: Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: cookies, gluten-free, oatmeal, pumpkin, vegan

Servings: 18 cookies

Author: katiebirdbakes.com

Equipment

• Blender or food processor

Ingredients

For the pumpkin oatmeal cookies:

• 2 cups (180g) old-fashioned rolled oats divided (see below)*
• 1 cup (260g) canned pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) olive oil
• 1/3 cup (78 ml) pure maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

For the maple glaze (optional):

• 1/2 cup (56g) powdered (confectioner’s) sugar
• 2 Tablespoons pure maple syrup

Instructions

For the pumpkin oatmeal cookies:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place 1 cup (90g) of the rolled oats in a food processor or high-speed blender and blend on high speed until the oats become a flour-like consistency – you now have oat flour. Place in a large bowl.
• Take the other 1 cup (90g) of rolled oats and place in the same food processor or blender, and pulse or blend on low speed until the oats are in small pieces – about 30 seconds. Do not grind them into a flour. Place in the same large bowl with the oat flour.
• Add the pumpkin puree, olive oil, maple syrup, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt to the bowl and stir vigorously (I like to use a fork) until everything is well-blended. 
• Scoop batter using a cookie scoop or a tablespoon onto two baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake for 15 minutes, or until edges are golden and cookies are set.  They will be soft!

For the maple glaze:

• While cookies are baking, in a small bowl whisk together powdered sugar and maple syrup until smooth.  Drizzle over cookies in whatever pattern you like!

Notes

*If you have commercial oat flour, you can use 1 cup (90g) of that in place of 1 cup (90g) of the rolled oats (skip step 1).  You can also skip step 2 and just use the second cup of rolled oats as-is without chopping them, if desired.  NOTE: steel-cut oats will not work in this recipe.  Use the flat, old-fashioned rolled oats!  

 

Storage: Cookies keep for 2-3 days well-wrapped at room temperature, 1 week in the fridge, or 3 months in the freezer.  You can also freeze them wrapped individually in plastic wrap, and then microwave for 10-15 seconds any time the cookie craving strikes.

 

Spices: use all cinnamon in place of the pumpkin pie spice if you prefer, or a different blend of spices.

 

Add chocolate chips: you can add up to 1/2 cup (85g) of chocolate chips or chopped chocolate to the batter before scooping for pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!  Bake as directed.

 

Ingredient Substitutions: see “Variations and Substitutions” note in the post above, but generally, you can sub any oil in place of the olive oil, and any sweetener in place of the maple syrup.

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