About the recipe
One of my favorite, go-to dessert recipes is this no bake Vegan Coconut Macaroons that a friend once brought to a potluck I attended. As soon as I bit into these delicious little dessert treasures I mercilessly pestered her for the recipe. One of the most amazing things about these is that they are relatively healthy (for a dessert) — vegan, no refined sugars and no gluten — and they are super easy to make. So, without further ado, I give you both Vanilla and Chocolate Vegan Coconut Macaroons:
Ingredients
• 3 cups dried, unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1 1/2 cups cocoa powder (or carob powder)
• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup coconut butter or oil
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
For Vanilla (or Blonde) Macaroons: Replace the cocoa powder in the recipe with an equal amount of fine almond flour. I used Bob’s Red Mill almond flour but if you want to make it yourself: soak raw, unsalted almonds for 6 hours, drain/rinse and dehydrate for 12 hours – pulse almonds in food processor for a fine consistency.
Pictured are the ingredients for both the vanilla and chocolate macaroons. You’ll see both golden and dark syrup there. Either will work, but for fun, I mixed the two together and then just separated a cup out for each type of macaroon.
To Make the macaroons:
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl.
Chocolate on the right, Vanilla on the left
Stir well to combine all ingredients.
Depending on how cold and hard the coconut oil is, you may need to get in there with your hands to break up some of the clumps.
Using a spoon or your hands, form the dough into small rounds and place on a plate/cutting board / or cookie sheet covered with parchment or wax paper.
Place the cookies in the freezer and let harden.
You can probably get away with serving them as little as 30 minutes after they were first placed in the freezer or you could leave them in there for a couple of days (though if you are going to leave them for a couple of days, I would cover them with more parchment or wax paper so they don’t absorb any freezer smells. I made these on Tuesday for a Friday event and they were fine in the freezer in the interim.
Take them out of the freezer about 20-30 minutes before you want to serve them so they have some time to warm up a bit.
Serve and Enjoy!
