Vegan Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe by
Plant-Based Recipe Developers

Masha and Anya are the plant-based cooking duo behind Golubka Kitchen. They believe that the most nourishing meals come from fresh, whole ingredients prepared with love and intention.

Vegan Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1
    Preheat the oven to 360°. Prepare a parchment-covered baking sheet.
  2. 2
    In a mixing bowl, combine the coconut oil and sugar, and mix with a fork until evenly incorporated. Add the sourdough discard and vanilla, and mix well. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder, and mix until you have a unified cookie dough. Fold in the chocolate chips.
  3. 3
    Using an ice cream scoop or a spoon, scoop out even portions of the dough and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten the dough with the palm of your hand and shape it into round cookies (these cookies will not expand on their own in the oven).
  4. 4
    Bake for 15-17 minutes, until the cookies are golden and the surface is somewhat dry to the touch. Start checking at 10-12 minutes. Sprinkle with more salt if desired. Let cool for 20-30 minutes, preferably on a cooling rack. Enjoy!

I’ve been thinking about making a sourdough starter and baking bread ever since I finally got a Dutch oven this summer. Spending all our time at home recently opened up space for all kinds of long-term kitchen projects. I finally mixed up a 100% rye, 100% hydration starter last week and it’s been so fun to see it develop. Keeping my hands busy with rewarding cooking tasks has been so helpful in terms of getting out of my head lately. Cooking has always been a source of solace around here, but I never realized how much I depend on it as meditation. Highly recommend!
The seemingly counterintuitive thing about keeping up a sourdough starter is that you have to discard a good amount of it when you ‘feed’ it, which for me is twice a day. Without getting rid of some starter at every feeding, you’ll quickly build up way too much of it, which in turn will require way too much flour to feed it. But there does come a point, about a week in or so, when your starter is mature and the stuff you’re discarding can totally be used for baking. That’s where sourdough discard recipes come in. There are lots of them on the internet, and you can make anything from pancakes (we have a recipe for that here) to waffles, banana bread to English muffins. The other day, I wanted to use up my discard that I’d been saving in the fridge, but I was also really craving chocolate chip cookies, so I went for it and made these.

Vegan Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies - Golubka Kitchen

Vegan Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies - Golubka Kitchen


Once my starter got going, I saved my discard in a covered container in the fridge instead of composting it and about 5 days in, I had enough to make these cookies. The 100% rye 100% hydration starter recipe that I’ve been following is here (it’s super detailed), but I think that you could use any starter discard for these cookies. The flavor of the cookies will vary depending on the flour you use for your starter and how sour it is. My rye flour starter brought a lovely earthiness and depth to the flavor of the cookies. In terms of sourness, my discard was pretty young and barely sour, so there was just a hint of sourness that read more like complexity than straightforward sourdough flavor.

Vegan Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies - Golubka Kitchen

Vegan Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies - Golubka Kitchen

Vegan Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies
 
Serves: makes about 12 4-inch cookies
Ingredients
  • ½ cup refined coconut oil - solid or semi-solid
  • ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons coconut sugar
  • ½ cup sourdough starter/sourdough discard (I used this method)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1¼ cup all purpose flour
  • generous pinch of sea salt, plus more for sprinkling on top
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ cup dark dairy-free chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 360°. Prepare a parchment-covered baking sheet.
  2. In a mixing bowl, combine the coconut oil and sugar, and mix with a fork until evenly incorporated. Add the sourdough discard and vanilla, and mix well. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder, and mix until you have a unified cookie dough. Fold in the chocolate chips.
  3. Using an ice cream scoop or a spoon, scoop out even portions of the dough and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten the dough with the palm of your hand and shape it into round cookies (these cookies will not expand on their own in the oven).
  4. Bake for 15-17 minutes, until the cookies are golden and the surface is somewhat dry to the touch. Start checking at 10-12 minutes. Sprinkle with more salt if desired. Let cool for 20-30 minutes, preferably on a cooling rack. Enjoy!
Notes
These cookies are on the more subtly sweet side, depending more on the sweetness of the chocolate chips. If you like your cookies sweeter, increase the amount of sugar to ½ cup.
3.5.3226

About Golubka Kitchen

Welcome to Golubka Kitchen, where plant-based cooking meets seasonal inspiration. We're Masha and Anya, and we believe that the most nourishing meals come from fresh, whole ingredients prepared with love and intention.

Our journey began with a shared passion for cooking that celebrates the natural flavors of fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes. What started as casual conversations about seasonal ingredients has grown into a platform where we share recipes that honor both tradition and innovation in plant-based cuisine.

Reader Comments (8)

See what other home cooks are saying about this recipe

N

Neico

Hi , Really thank you for the amazing discard cookies. It’s seriously addictive. I’m wondering how can I store it the best way ?

E

Ely

These cookies are delicious! I added some maple syrup into the batter since it was a little dry (and I wanted them a little sweeter :) and they turned out really well! I’ll definitely be making these again!

J

Julz

All I can write is *WOW* . These cookies are sooooo delicious. I followed the recipe exactly adding in just a little extra coconut sugar. I have a ton of classic San Francisco starter/ discard. So that’s what I used and organic AP flour. My dough was really dry but I baked them as instructed (out of oven at about 11 minutes). I could eat the whole plate. Such an easy, quick recipe, thank you!

J

Jennifer

I attempted to make this recipe but I’m still unsure if I did it right. Am I supposed to melt the coconut oil? I used solid coconut oil and melted the 2 tbsp. As I was mixing all of the ingredients it didn’t form into cookie dough. Am I doing something wrong? Or could it be my sourdough starter discard? (I followed a different sourdough starter recipe that was half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour). Thank you!

M

Maria

HI Anya I made this cookie and they are amazing my son says they are addictive Thanks so much for the recipe

C

Christine

Great idea for using up discarded starter! I have a gluten free sourdough starter made from fine ground brown rice flour. Any recommendations for what type of gluten free flour to replace the all-purpose flour?

M

Milounette

what a wonderful idea…

T

thefolia

Well this is enough to get me started on my starter I have been dreaming to attempt for the second time but scared of another failure.