Gone are the days of runny sorbets and dry cake. With the wide array of dairy-free ingredients now available, making vegan desserts has never been easier. From sugar cookies and cheesecake to peppermint pies, even your non-vegan friends will be reaching for seconds. I tried to narrow the selection down to 20, but it’s just impossible. So here are my top 33 vegan Christmas desserts. Enjoy!
1. Vegan Apple Cider Donuts (Gluten-free and Oil-free)
I know what you’re thinking: gluten-free, oil-free, and dairy-free donuts don’t sound at all appetizing. While this observation is most often accurate, the same can’t be said about these apple cider donuts. Instead, expect nothing but soft and pillowy treats sprinkled with sugar, apple pie spice, and everything nice.
2. Vegan Gluten-Free Gingerbread Men
These gingerbread men are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and incredible in every bite. Also, just look at how decadent they are! That dark-hued batter definitely looks so sinful, you might not believe they’re gluten-free cookies. But surprisingly, these bad boys contain whole wheat grains such as buckwheat, brown rice, and oat flour. That said, they’re not only insanely good but also good for you.
3. Vegan Sugar Cookies
It’s hard to imagine sugar cookies that are butter and dairy-free. These seem to be too good to be true, but they’re 100% legit. Just because they’re vegan, doesn’t mean they’re bland and dry. In fact, these dairy-free cookies are outrageously tender with a mild outer crunch. Use your favorite cookie cutters to make fun and festive shapes.
4. Vegan Linzer Cookies (German Spitzbuben)
Spitzbubens or Linzer cookies are delectable German cookies with a shortbread crust and a fruit jam filling. What’s not to love? They’re crispy and tender with a chewy and ooey-gooey center. And with this fantastic recipe, you can turn them into your new favorite vegan Christmas cookies. It’s up to you the kind of fruit jam to add in there. I like to use as many as I can to make different colors and flavors.
5. Vegan Snowball Cookies
Let’s take a moment to appreciate just how gorgeous these snowball cookies are. I can’t think of a dessert that’s more appropriately named. They look stunning, but they taste even more phenomenal. Flavored with vegan butter and pecans, the cookie balls are scrumptious as they are. But when rolled in powdered sugar, they turn from delightful to absolutely epic.
6. Gingerbread Candied Nuts
Hoping to gift homemade presents this Christmas? Look no further than these gingerbread candied nuts! As simple as they seem, these nuts are out-of-this-world delicious. Cooked in sugar and gingerbread spice, they have the most addictive crunchy, sweet, and spiced coating. The best part? Any nut works for this recipe!
7. No-Bake Coconut Snowballs
Here’s another variation of the classic snowball cookie, and this time, there’s no baking required. It’s a simple, three-ingredient recipe, so it couldn’t be easier to make. Don’t think their flavors are underwhelming, though. With a mix of almond flour, shredded coconut, and maple syrup, these cookies are soft, chewy, nutty, and purely irresistible.
8. Vegan Parfait
Give the classic parfait a boozy twist with this easy peasy recipe. With layers of crushed Oreos, Kahlua-infused chocolate ganache, and whipped coconut cream, this simple dairy-free dessert is a true masterpiece. How can you go wrong with Oreos, chocolate, and coconut, right? With diverse textures and complex flavors, this parfait may be simple, but it’s a certified crowd-pleaser.
9. Chocolate Cranberry Cake
Chocolate and cranberries are the perfect Christmas flavor combination. One whiff of this decadent dessert will instantly get you into the holiday spirit. A moist and fudgy chocolate cake is studded with delectable chocolate chips and tart fresh cranberries. It’s so sinful it’s hard to believe it’s vegan! You can frost it with a simple chocolate glaze, but it’s really not necessary. It’s excellent even without it.
10. Vegan Yule Log
With this festive vegan Yule log, it truly is beginning to look a lot like Christmas! A thin sheet of chocolate cake is rolled with a buttercream filling and frosted with chocolate ganache to create a log-like treat.
11. Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Peppermint Pie
This chocolate peppermint pie is the stuff of dreams. With a chocolate brownie crust and a silky chocolate peppermint filling, it’s simply legendary. I mean, will you take a look at how decadent that pie is? This is the ultimate chocolate lover’s treat! Despite how expensive it looks, it only calls for six budget-friendly ingredients and makes one impressive gluten-free Christmas dessert.
12. Vegan Baked Eggnog Cheesecake
Trust only this recipe to make an eggnog cheesecake that’s gluten, dairy, and egg-free. But more importantly, this cheesecake is outrageously delicious. It’s smooth, silky, and wonderfully creamy, despite the lack of dairy. Sure, it’s a bit more complicated than regular cheesecake recipes, but it’s definitely worth the effort.
13. Vegan Tiramisu Dessert with Chocolate Cream
This tiramisu has layers of espresso and amaretto-flavored vanilla cake, chocolate, and cream. Each component is delicious on its own, but together, they create a culinary work of art. It’s excellent as it is, but if you garnish it with cherries and currants for added textural variety, it will soon become your new go-to vegan Christmas dessert.
14. Vegan Orange Cranberry Cake
This cake is packed with bright flavors from cranberries and oranges. It’s a wonderful mash-up of sweet citrus and tart berries, not to mention the stunning colors! You’ll love how it has a pound cake-like texture that’s so moist and wonderfully dense. While it’s technically a dessert, it also makes for a perfect pairing with your morning coffee or afternoon tea.
15. Gingerbread Cheesecake
Can’t decide between a slice of cheesecake and a piece of gingerbread? Why not have them both? With this wonderful vegan dessert recipe, you don’t need to choose. It has a smooth and silky cheesecake filling resting on top of a buttery gingerbread crust. What could be better? As a bonus, this cake is so easy to make, and there’s no baking required.
16. Vegan Mint Chocolate Cake
Chocolate and mint are a match made in heaven, and this cake is proof. With layers of sinful chocolate cake and a mint-flavored buttercream frosting, this is the dessert your Christmas feast is missing. Making a layered cake seems like it requires some expertise, but trust me, it’s not that hard. If it’s your first time, this recipe is a great place to start.
17. Christmas Truffle Cake Pops
Cake pops were such a huge hit a few years back, but they slowly declined in popularity over time. To this day, I’ve never understood why. I strongly believe that cake pops deserve to be a mainstay in the dessert world. These moist cake balls covered with chocolate are always a joy to eat! Plus, they’re loved by kids and grown-ups alike.
18. Vegan Steamed Chocolate Pudding
This chocolate pudding is ridiculously moist and fudgy. Drizzled with a decadent chocolate glaze, this dessert is the stuff of chocolate legends. Whether you eat it on its own or serve it with a scoop of homemade dairy-free ice cream, you can’t go wrong. Here’s the fun part: this pudding doesn’t need the oven, at all. You’ll use a steamer instead. The method may be different, but the result is equally divine.
19. Chocolate Salami
It doesn’t sound appetizing, but chocolate salami is actually a show-stopping dessert. This Portuguese treat, called Salame de chocolate is made of crushed biscuits, melted chocolate, dried fruits, and nuts. Once the chocolate solidifies, you’ll roll the mixture into a log and slice it into thin, salami-like nibbles. How outrageously amazing does that sound?! This would make a terrific addition to your next dessert charcuterie board.
20. Vegan Chai Cake with Orange Cardamom Frosting
If unique flavors are what you’re looking for, you’ll definitely find them in this cake. With a moist, chai tea-infused cake base and a refreshing orange cardamom frosting, this dessert might just be your new favorite. And I bet these would even work well as vegan cupcakes, too. Either way, it’s terrific with coffee or tea.
21. Mini Pumpkin Hand Pies
How adorable are these mini-pumpkin pies? The presentation alone will blow you away. These adorable, pumpkin-shaped pies are filled with a sweet and buttery pumpkin cream cheese filling. The combination of flaky crust, delectable filling, and cinnamon-sugar topping creates the perfect Thanksgiving and Christmas dessert.
22. Dairy-Free Cranberry Christmas Fluff
This dessert is pretty in pink and fully-loaded with flavor. One bite gives you cranberries, pineapple, coconut whipped cream, marshmallows, and pomegranate seeds all at once. It’s creamy, dreamy, and 100% delicious. The color will draw you in, and the flavors and textures will get you hooked.
23. Vegan Blood Orange Upside Down Cake
This cake will definitely turn your life upside down. First of all, look how pretty those slices of blood oranges are! Their red and orange hues create such a beautiful blend of colors. More importantly, it’s as delicious as it looks. The cake is ultra-moist and tender, it almost melts in your mouth. And the flavor? Purely phenomenal.
24. Candy Cane Christmas Pretzel Rods
Dress up plain pretzel sticks and turn them into a scrumptious Christmas snack the whole family will enjoy. All you’ll need is to dip the sticks in melted white chocolate and sprinkle them with crushed candy canes. Despite the simplicity of this recipe, the result is a huge success. There’s something magical about the combination of sweet white chocolate and minty candy canes. Add it’s even something the kids can help with.
25. Gingerbread Crumble with Blackberry & Apple
This vegan recipe takes the classic crumble to another level of awesomeness. Not only is it scrumptious, but also healthy! A sweet and syrupy blackberry and apple pie filling is tucked underneath a buttery gingerbread almond crumble to create something truly delectable. As difficult as it is to believe, this crumble is vegan, gluten-free, and grain-free.
26. Vegan Toffee
This vegan toffee is a sweet and salty treat that you’ll have no problem finishing on your own. It’s genuinely that good. Buttery toffee is sprinkled with salted nuts and topped with vegan dark chocolate. It’s crunchy on top while soft and melt-in-your-mouth at the bottom. Seriously, saying that it’s addictive is an understatement. Webster will have to come up a whole other word for this sweet treat.
27. Vegan Fruit Cake
As a kid, I never understood the hype around fruit cakes. How could a cake that tastes bitter be so popular? Luckily, my tastes have matured, and it’s one of the things I look forward to the most come Christmas. This vegan fruit cake is undeniably moist and sweet, with just the perfect touch of boozy flavor. Bejeweled with nuts and candied fruit, your taste buds are treated to a crunchy and chewy surprise with every bite.
28. Pecan Pie Bars
Warning: these hand-held treats are dangerously addictive. This dessert has all the flavors and textures as a traditional pecan pie but in bar form. With a buttery shortbread crust and a crunchy and gooey pecan filling, your diet doesn’t stand a chance. Well, at least they’re vegan!
29. Cinnamon Stars (German Zimtsterne)
Take your family and friends on a culinary trip to Germany with these Zimtsterne cookies! These star-shaped cookies are a staple in Germany during the Christmas season and I completely get why. I mean, just look how festive they are! They definitely give off a Christmas vibe. With ground hazelnuts and almonds at their base, trust these cookies to be overloaded with flavor. The lemon frosting on top is literally the icing on the cake. Serve this to Santa and I bet you he’ll ask for seconds.
30. Vegan Pumpkin Cake Roll
A moist pumpkin cake and a rich vegan cream cheese filling are rolled together in this recipe to create a stunning swirly cake worthy of any holiday table. Besides the taste, this cake is a real show-stopper. Trust me, you can’t have just one slice.
31. Cherry Almond Thumbprint Cookies
These thumbprint cookies are beyond amazing. They’re beyond delicious with their nutty flavor and soft and chewy texture. The cherry preserve center makes them all the more impossible to resist. If you want to give them an extra kick, add a splash of amaretto in either the dough or the preserves.
32. Almond Flour Pecan Sandies
If you’re still on the fence about going vegan, this might just be the dessert to give you that push. These pecan sandies are the definition of dairy-free perfection. With an almond flour base enriched with vegan butter, these cookies are sensational. They’re wonderfully nutty, buttery, and they melt in your mouth. The crunch from the pecans provides a nice textural variety, as well.
33. Vegan Millionaires Shortbread
This last dessert is so much more than just shortbread. In fact, the shortbread crust is only one of three tasty components in this classic British treat. On top of the crust is a sweet, salty, and ooey-gooey caramel filling. And yes, don’t worry, it’s totally vegan! Finished off with a smooth blend of dark and white chocolates, these bars create a mind-blowing explosion of flavors and textures. Merry Christmas, indeed. Click on a star to rate it!
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