13 Vegan Dessert Recipes You Can Make in Less than One Hour

When the dessert craving strikes, it doesn’t come with patience. There is only one way to tame that tingly, near-crazed state of mind, and that is with something sweet, fast. True, a pint of vegan ice cream or a box of cookies closes the gap between craving and satisfaction faster than something you can craft yourself, but sometimes, baking is satisfying in its own right. 

These easy vegan dessert recipes combine the convenience of store-bought with the grounding practice of home baking. From salted caramel cookies to peanut butter chocolate bars, here are 13 mouthwatering vegan dessert recipes you can make in under an hour. 

Essential vegan dessert ingredients

To avoid the added hurdle of grocery shopping, it pays to have a few vegan staples on hand to whip up something sweet in minutes. Whether that’s a microwave-friendly mug cake or quick, nostalgic pudding, you should always have all-purpose flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, vanilla, egg replacer, baking soda and baking powder, vegan chocolate chips, cocoa powder, maple syrup, smooth nut butter (or an allergy-friendly equivalent like chickpea or sunflower butter), non-dairy milk and butter, and some sort of vegetable oil stocked. 

Other helpful additions—but not quite as common ingredients—to a dessert-ready vegan pantry include silken tofu (in the aseptic package), dates, oats, flax seeds, apple cider vinegar, cornstarch, chocolate bars, full-fat coconut milk, powdered sugar, and bananas. Pro tip: freeze-peeled, chopped bananas to keep them on hand for months at a time. 

If you’re gluten-free, replace all-purpose flour with your favorite one-for-one gluten-free flour blend such as Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour. 

With these essential ingredients, you can make a delightful variety of vegan desserts without a stop at the store. Enjoy!

13 quick vegan dessert recipes

Ready, set, bake! These sweet treats come together faster than an episode of your favorite baking show. 

Tiina Strandberg

1 Vegan Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookie Pizza

Replicate the iconic restaurant pizookie in less than 30 minutes (including baking time) with this straightforward vegan recipe. It’s ideal for sharing, but there are no rules against making it all for yourself and freezing any leftovers. Regardless, please enjoy this giant cookie served warm, preferably with a generous scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream.  
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So Vegan

2 Easy Vegan Banoffee Date Caramel Pots

Traditionally, pudding-like desserts require hours of chill time. This outlier makes for instant gratification. All you do is blend the base ingredients together, whip up a can of full-fat coconut milk, and crumble some cookies. Want to make it even faster? Buy store-bought non-dairy whip. 
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Carleigh Bodrug

3 Vegan Banana Bread Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies

These cookies are so wholesome you can enjoy them for breakfast, and they’re fast enough to make between your morning Zoom meetings if you work remotely. Simply mix up the six ingredients (one of them is salt), roll into balls, and bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool just enough to handle; the gooey chocolate chips are the best part! Freeze the rest for ready-to-go breakfasts or sweet afternoon snacks throughout the week. 
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Ciarra Siller

4 Cookie Dough Chocolate Bars

Sometimes, cookie dough is best left unbaked. It’s even better when thickly slathered across your favorite vegan chocolate bar. Follow this recipe for a quick edible cookie dough recipe (made with heat-treated flour) or simply purchase a tub of vegan dough (try Deux or EatPastry) and evenly spread it across a sea salt-speckled dark chocolate bar and freeze just until firm. Whether you make the dough yourself or purchase it, dessert can be ready in half an hour or less. 
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Sam Turnbull

5 Easy Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Graham Bars

It’s truly incredible how just five ingredients can combine to make a vegan dessert as decadent as these chocolate peanut butter bars. Make these once, and they’ll become your new go-to for potlucks, bake sales, and need-dessert-now fixes. 
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Michelle Norton

6 Vegan Salted Caramel Cookies

We love a one-bowl cookie, and we love it even more when the baking time is under 10 minutes. This foolproof recipe delivers huge, chewy cookies with a crispy edge and a melt-in-your-mouth center. The flaky sea salt is definitely worth the small investment; you’ll sprinkle it on nearly every baked good moving forward. 
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Michelle Sirani

7 Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

We first learned of the phrase “cookies on tap” by Food Network star Sunny Anderson. Essentially, it describes the habit of keeping frozen cookies or cookie dough on hand to calm a cookie craving whenever it occurs. This recipe for thin, crispy, gooey vegan chocolate chip cookies makes 36 sizeable treats, so unless you’re baking for a crowd, you’ll have plenty of leftovers. We recommend making the recipe as-is and freezing balls of pre-portioned dough for future quick cookie fixes. 
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Mareya Ibrahim

8 No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

No patience for preheating the oven? These tender, oaty cookies are made on the stovetop. It’s a Depression-era recipe that stuck, no doubt due to its affordable ingredients and ease—it’s all done in one pot. Don’t worry if you can’t wait the 10 minutes to add the chocolate chips; if they melt, you’ll just have chocolate cookies instead of chocolate chip cookies. Your taste buds certainly won’t notice. 
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Heather Bell & Jenny Engel

9 Vegan Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake

A milkshake is one of the fastest ways to whip up dessert beyond digging straight into a pint of ice cream. This fun flavor combines plant-based marshmallows with a few scoops of vanilla ice cream and toasted pecans for a taste beyond the average chocolate or vanilla shake. Note: add the non-dairy milk just a tablespoon at a time if you’re looking for a spoonable shake consistency. 
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Linda Soper-Kolton

10 Four-Ingredient Oreo Truffles

Decadent, rich, and completely addictive, we argue that these humble Oreo bites are better than cake pops (they’re also far less time-consuming). The most challenging part is waiting for the chocolate shell to harden. For this task, the freezer is your friend. Make the full batch and refrigerate any remaining truffles for a sweet treat in the future. 
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Dr. Katie Takayasu 

11 Silky Vegan Chocolate Avocado Mousse

Yes, this recipe has two whole avocados that serve four, but if you didn’t read the recipe, you wouldn’t know it. Ripe avocados add a decadent richness and body to this silky mousse, but their taste (and color) are masked by maple syrup and dreamy melted chocolate. As long as you have faith in your food processor and mix thoroughly, you will be rewarded with a new go-to chocolate mousse recipe that’s suitable for late-night chocolate needs and dinner parties alike.  
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Luce Hoiser

12 Chewy Vegan Peanut Butter and Jam Swirled Brownies

The trick to super fast brownies? Make them on the thin side. The swirl of raspberry jam and peanut butter provides the richness you would expect from biting into a thicker brownie. This is a solid recipe for a dense, fudgy brownie, but if you’re short on ingredients, swirling jam and nut butter into a store-bought vegan brownie mix works just as well. 
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Kim Lutz

13 Vegan Zucchini Snack Cake

What is snacking cake? We’d define it as any type of cake baked in a single layer served unadorned or with a very simple glaze. This quick vegan zucchini cake is ideal for afternoon nibbling or even a subtly sweet breakfast enjoyed with a cup of coffee or tea. To cut down on the 30-minute bake time, divide the batter into a lined muffin tin and bake for 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
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Tanya Flink is a Digital Editor at VegNews as well as a writer and runner living in Orange County, CA.