Almond Flour Lemon Cookies (Gluten-Free) (2024)

These Almond Flour Lemon Cookies are soft and chewy vegan gluten-free lemon cookies easy to make with only a few wholesome ingredients. Bonus, these lemon cookies are also refined-sugar-free and paleo-approved!

Table of contents

I love lemon baking recipes! You might have tried my Blueberry Lemon Blondies, 3-Ingredient Lemon Donuts, or 4-Ingredient Lemon Cake. There’s something about lemon that screams summer. So I make lemon recipes in summer because it’s the right time. I make lemon recipes in winter because I want to feel like summer. And of course also in spring and fall, because, why not?

Ingredients and Substitutions

To make these soft and chewy meltaway lemon cookies with almond flour, you need:

• Ultra-Fine Almond Flour – I don’t recommend baking with almond meal. It has a coarse texture and darker color and gives a gritty texture to almond flour cookies.
• Freshly-Squeezed Lemon Juice – or bottled juice.
• Lemon Zest – Make sure you are using untreated lemon to avoid pesticide residues.
• Baking Powder or half baking soda, so 1/8 teaspoon.
• Maple Syrup – or any other liquid sweetener like agave syrup.
• Coconut Oil – it must be coconut oil, no vegetable oil, or the cookie won’t firm up properly.
• Vanilla Extract – for flavor.
• Lemon Extract – optional but delicious to enhance the lemon flavor of these cookies.

How To Make Lemon Shortbread Cookies

These are soft shortbread cookies entirely made of almond flour and vegan lemon cookies!

1. First, bring all the dry ingredients together into a large bowl and stir to combine. Then, add fresh lemon juice, melted coconut oil, lemon zest, and maple syrup and stir to form a sticky cookie dough.
2. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of dough from the bowl and roll the dough ball between your hands.
3. Then place the cookie dough ball on the baking tray and gently press it down with the palm of your hands.
4. You want the cookie to stay a bit thick in the center to be moist and soft.
5. Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 350°F (180°C) for 14 to 18 minutes or until slightly golden-brown on the sides.
6. Remove from the oven and cool down on the baking tray for 10 minutes.
7. Then, slide a spatula under each cookie and cool them on a cooling rack before decorating.
8. To decorate your lemon cookies, combine powdered sugar and lemon juice. Drizzle the glazing on top of the cookies and add a dust of lemon zest to decorate.
9. Then, place the cookies in the fridge to slightly harden the glaze.

Add-Ons

You can add up to 1/3 cup of poppy seeds to these dairy-free cookies.

Add the seeds at the beginning of the recipe, along with the dry ingredients.

Cookie Taste

These are entirely made of almond flour, so they definitely have an almond flour flavor.

But almond perfectly blends with the tangy lemon flavor. They are soft, chewy cookies, way less sweet or buttery than a classic lemon crinkle cookie.

Frequently Asked Questions

Storage Instructions

These almond flour lemon cookies store very well in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. The texture becomes sticky with time as almond flour soaks up some moisture from the air.

You can also freeze your cookies in zip-lock bags and thaw them the day before at room temperature on a cooling rack.

More Almond Flour Cookie Recipes

I love to bake with almond flour because it’s full of plant-based protein, and it tastes delicious in cookies. Below I listed my favorite vegan, gluten-free almond flour cookie recipes for you to try. All are paleo-friendly and dairy-free

About Carine

Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, photographer, and published author of a cookbook and founder of The Conscious Plant Kitchen with my husband Damien.Learn more about us.