Vegan Christmas Cookies + Natural Food Coloring
Plant Based Recipes
December 8, 2015 | Kathryn Kellogg
Last Updated on May 2, 2022
These Vegan Christmas Cookies have the perfect crispy edges and tender centers. Topped with a homemade icing made with natural food coloring, they are the best vegan sugar cookies.
Growing up our one, yes one and only, Christmas tradition was to bake cookies, listen to classic crooner Christmas music, and put up the tree after Thanksgiving. As an adult, I prefer to make dairy free sugar cookies and use vegan food coloring too as part of my holiday traditions.
Table of Contents
why i use natural food coloring
The best part of making cookies is all of the colorful icing and the freedom to decorate! I had no idea how I was going to do this zero waste. I really didn’t want to buy tiny plastic bottles of artificial dye. Then I started thinking what is food coloring? Apparently, it’s made out of crude oil. Seriously. The same stuff that makes – you guessed it – plastic.
They are made in a lab with chemicals derived from petroleum, a crude oil product, which also happens to be used in gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt, and tar. NPR.org: “Artificial food dyes are made from petroleum and approved for use by the FDA to enhance the color of processed foods.
So yeah…who really wants to feed that to their family members and friends? Ugh.
Great news the solution was staring me in the face. Quite literally. On my spice rack. You can make vegan food coloring with spices and they make beautiful colors. Here are my recommendations:
Turmeric = gold
Matcha = green
Beets = red
I had all of the makings for natural food coloring so we I could have a tasty and festive occasion right in my kitchen! I’m sure I’m not the first person to think of this, but I felt like a genius for a hot second. Now all that’s missing is friends and adult drinks!
ingredients needed for vegan christmas cookies
- vegan butter
- sugar
- brown sugar
- mashed sweet potato
- pure vanilla extract
- coconut milk
- unbleached all purpose flour
- cornstarch
- baking powder
- baking soda
- salt
how to make dairy free sugar cookies
step 1: prepare vegan sugar cookie dough
Cream together the butter and sugar together in a medium sized bowl. Mix in the mashed sweet potato, pure vanilla extract and coconut milk. Stir in the dry ingredients.
step 2: make cookie shapes
Sprinkle flour onto your work surface and roll out the dough. The vegan sugar cookies dough needs to be about 1/8″ thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes.
step 3: freeze and bake
Place the dairy free sugar cookies on a baking sheet and put in the freezer for 10 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 12 minutes or until they are set around the edges. Let cool on a wire rack then decorate.
ingredients needed for vegan food coloring
- vegan butter
- powdered sugar
- coconut milk
- turmeric
- beet juice
- matcha tea
- water
how to make vegan food coloring
step 1: prepare the icing
Combine the butter and powdered sugar. Slowly add in one tablespoon of milk at a time. Add milk until it’s the desired consistency.
step 2: make colors
Divide the icing into three small bowls. Use the beet juice, matcha tea, and turmeric as natural food coloring to dye the icing. Stir well and decorate cooled vegan Christmas cookies. Enjoy!
can I make homemade powdered sugar?
Yes, you can make powdered or confectioners or icing sugar by blending regular sugar until it’s fine. How cool is that? This works great in a pinch or when you get a great deal on regular sugar.
can I double this vegan sugar cookies recipe?
Yes! You can make as many batches as you need. Each batch of dairy free sugar cookies makes around 12 cookies, depending on how big you make them.
why do I have to freeze vegan sugar cookie dough?
Freezing the dough for a few minutes will help prevent the cookies from spreading so much. This will give them a much cleaner design, so it’s vital that you don’t skip this step!
Vegan Christmas Cookies + Natural Food Coloring
These Vegan Christmas Cookies have the perfect crispy edges and tender centers. Topped with a homemade icing made with natural food coloring, they are the best vegan sugar cookies.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup vegan butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup mashed sweet potato
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon coconut milk
- 1 3/4 all purpose flour, unbleached + more for dusting
- 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Natural Food Coloring
- 1/2 cup vegan butter, softened
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 6 tablespoons coconut milk
- 2 teaspoons of turmeric
- 2 tablespoons of beet juice
- 2 teaspoons of matcha
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
Vegan Sugar Cookies
- Cream together the butter and sugar.
- Add the sweet potato, vanilla extract, and coconut milk.
- Blend in the dry ingredients and mix until well incorporated.
- Sprinkle flour onto your work surface and turn out the dough.
- Roll until it's approximately 1/8" thick.
- Cut into shapes and place on a baking sheet. Freeze for 10 minutes.
- Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack completely before decorating.
Natural Food Coloring
- Combine the butter and powdered sugar until creamy.
- Mix in 1 tablespoon of milk at a time until it's the texture you want. (make it as stiff or runny as you want)
- Divide the vegan icing into 3 bowls. Add turmeric to one bowl, and beet juice to the 2nd bowl. Then dissolve 2 teaspoons of matcha in water and add it to the 3rd bowl. Combine icing until well mixed. Add more spices as needed to reach the desired colors.
Love how you use turmeric for icing on the cookies! Such a good idea! I haven’t thought about certain foods to make for the holidays, but I think cookies would be the easiest to make! As far as traditions, seeing light displays is one of our favorites.
I love looking at lights and sipping hot cocoa! The turmeric gives it such a nice spice. Next time I might add a pinch of ginger.
I love cookies! Awesome job you guys (:
Thanks Christine! 🙂
I’ve always loved seeing how people use natural foods to recreate some of our favorite recipes/traditions! I LOOOVE Matcha, so I may just try green! 😉
Matcha is DELICIOUS! Mmmmm.
Nice to not use artificial colors and dyes, will need to try it too!
You should definitely try – it’s so easy and way better for you!
I tried vegan for a while. It was so hard with traditional meals and holidays. This is great. I will certainly try them.
My family has always had to make everything without dairy; because, I’m allergic. Haha. Once you practice a little it becomes second nature. I love experimenting and making vegan cheese. You should definitely try!
I never knew that food colouring was made from crude oil that is shocking. I love that is cruelty free too. I am a vegetarian.
Right!? I was so shocked when I learned that! Yummy….. oil….. Mmmmmm.
Our favorite Christmas tradition is eating coffee cake on Christmas morning! Funny how traditions also tend to include delicious food 😉 I never knew natural dye existed, I’m curious to go and try it now!!
I love coffee cake! Mmmmmm. You should try it! It’s so easy and extra delicious. 🙂
I’ve seen natural dyes used to color wool for knitting, but I never thought about it for food — crazy, right? I love this idea, and it’s perfect for baking with the kids!
I imagine lots of beet stained hands, and they will LOVE it. Haha.
So awesome you guys!
Thank you!
I really want to try this recipe. It sounds so yummy! I try to stay away from artificial dye as much as I can.
You definitely should! It’s so easy to make your own dye. I had no idea it was made from petroleum! I will definitely stay away now! Lol.
You & zero waste teacher are so cute! And, CRAZY about food coloring–plastic packaged in plastic. Yuck 🙂
Haha, I didn’t even think of it that way. You’re totally right – plastic in plastic. Wish you were closer litterless, would love to party in the kitchen with you.
I seldom use food dyes, but this is good to know. I am glad there is a natural option to color our food.
I LOVE that there is natural dye! Fabulous, we try to avoid excess dye!
Looks yummy. I will share this recipe.
Thanks! Please do!
What a great idea to have natural dyes for the sugar cookies. Thanks for the ideas and the recipe!
This is very cool, I have never used natural dyes but I think it is a great idea. Our Christmas traditions are to go buy a natural tree, come home decorate it, drink hot chocolate, and listen to Christmas music. Another is to make cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve, my boys enjoy both so much as do I 🙂
Those sound like so much fun!
This is awesome! I have always been super intrigued by natural dyes (when it came to make-up). It’s great to see how well in works in the kitchen!
I was watching this really fascinating thing about using natural dyes in paint focusing on Rembrandt and his contemporaries. Buckwheat berries make a nice shade of green. It would be a nice eye shadow color I think – if you’re into green. lol.
I am wondering if you have tips for how to apply icing to the cookies? without the use of a plastic piping bag I am not sure how to decorate. Thanks!
You can also pipe with parchment paper, which is compostable
I use a reusable piping set from wilton. They’re plastic, but they’re reusable!