A wide panoramic shot of the Scottish Highlands

Oh Scotland… you are the place dreams are made of! Especially if your dreams include breathtaking vistas, crisp mountain air, scruffy scotsmen in kilts, and melt-in-your-mouth buttered shortbread cookies. If you’re vegan, you can enjoy all but one of those things. Until now! Did you know you can easily make your own, totally vegan, Scottish shortbread cookies at home? Let me show you how!

But before we continue, I gotta tell you about my recipe series! This is recipe number two in my Vegan Travel Recipes. Check out my Vegan Irish Apple Cake to see the first in the series, and stay tuned for more to come!

We first became obsessed with these delicious cookies when we visited Scotland with my sister and her husband last year. At every Airbnb we stayed in, the host graciously left us an adorable welcome basket. Every single one included a box of shortbread cookies. Some were the popular Walkers shortbread cookies with their iconic black and red plaid packaging, and some weren’t, but they were all addicting. And yes, before you ask, I ate them, in all their buttery glory. I am a reasonable vegan, after all. I don’t always hold to the strictest vegan standards when we’re traveling.

But, I’m thrilled to now have a vegan, cruelty free and guilt free version to enjoy at home. Now we can all bake up some shortbreads, brew a cup of tea, and browse Scotland travel inspiration on Pinterest endlessly. If you squint your eyes just right, it might even feel like you’re there, having grand adventures in the wild highlands!

Close up view of the finished vegan Scottish shortbread cookies.

Why should you make these cookies?

You only need three simple ingredients
They’re vegan
They are easy
They are delicious
It’s a small batch recipe, so you won’t be overrun with cookies, but,
It’s an easy recipe to double, and you can wrap extras and freeze them!
They’ll make you pine for the highlands of Scotland

What you need:

3 simple ingredients for vegan Scottish shortbread cookies

It’s so simple, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been making your own butter cookies for ages! I based my recipe off of this one, 3-Ingredient Scottish Shortbread Cookies, from The Seasoned Mom. Check it out for the the non-vegan version. But the only real difference is the butter! And as long as you can find a good vegan butter, you’re as golden as these fresh golden brown cookies.

If you’ve been hanging around the blog very long, you’ll know I favor Country Crock’s Plant Butter. It is my go-to vegan butter; it’s affordable and readily available in my area. Plus, I think this is super cool: According to their website, the ‘production of Country Crock ^® Plant Butter results in less than half the carbon emissions than the production of dairy butter. That means, if everyone in the US made the switch, more than six billion pounds of CO2 a year would be saved. That’s like taking more than 1.3 million cars off the road!’ (Also, I’m not sponsored or paid for this mention, I just really really like it.)

If you’re not a fan of Country Crock’s, feel free to use your favorite dairy-free butter. You can even do half butter and half vegetable shortening, but this will yield a slightly crisper cookie. A classic shortbread cookie recipe will usually call for unsalted butter, but I find they come out just as good with salted vegan butter.

Other ingredients you need include powdered sugar and all purpose flour. To make sure it’s 100% vegan, you can use organic powdered sugar. This makes sure no bone char was used to bleach the sugarcane in processing. (You’ll notice mine isn’t. I don’t go through a ton of powdered sugar, so I have this giant bag that was bought way before I was vegan. No use throwing it away!)

The in a traditional shortbread recipe you’ll find a simple 1:2:3 ratio, meaning it’s one part sugar, two parts butter, and three parts flour. If you remember that it’s so easy to scale up or down. This is really helpful if you want to make a big batch for special occasions.

Mixing butter and sugar, and the finished dough — Butter and sugar

Method:

Start with softened, room temperature butter.
Cream butter and sugar together. You can do this by hand or in a stand mixer.
Add flour and mix until a soft dough forms. It may have a crumbly texture at first, but as you continue mixing or kneading gently, it will come together.
Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Press dough out to be between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick, and cut into rectangles using a knife or pizza cutter. Alternatively, you can use a round cookie cutter. Or get crazy and pull out the animal shaped cookie cutters! I stayed with the traditional shape of the walkers shortbread fingers, but I’m just stuck on recreating every exact detail of our trip. (send help! Or airline tickets!)
Place cookies on baking sheet lined with parchment paper, or use a baking stone if you have one.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until just lightly browned.
Allow your vegan Scottish shortbread cookies to cool on the sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to cooling rack or sheet of foil to cool completely. Enjoy with tea or scotch whisky to really complete the Scottish feel.
Store in an airtight container (or fill up the cookie jar!)

vegan Scottish shortbread cookie dough, rolled out and cut into rectangles.

Finished vegan Scottish shortbreads stacked on a plate, backed with orange and blue plaid

Ok, get baking!!