Dairy Free Snickerdoodle Protein Shake (Gluten Free)

Indulge in “cookies” for breakfast or after a workout with our dairy free snickerdoodle protein shake! It’s gluten free, dairy free, and high in protein so you can start your day with healthy fats and a delicious protein boost.

If you have a sweet tooth but want something a bit healthier to meet your healthy eating goals, make our snickerdoodle protein shake! It’s completely dairy free, gluten free, and peanut free.

We’re revisiting this older recipe from 2013, back when my blog was just a “baby”. The recipe is still amazing, so I wanted to give the post a refresh and rewrite.

So if you want to have a healthier snickerdoodle “cookie” for breakfast or anytime, mix up this yummy protein shake!

Food allergy notes:

• Dairy free
• Gluten free
• Peanut free

Why you’ll love this protein shake

Our dairy free snickerdoodle protein smoothie is packed with protein, a little bit of fiber, healthy fats, and fruit-based sugar from dates.

Depending on the type of protein powder you use, this can be thick like a milk shake and only tastes like an indulgent cookie!

I used oat milk in my re-make of this recipe, you can use just about any dairy free milk you prefer. If you’re watching your calorie intake, you can use lower-calorie unsweetened almond milk. One of my favorites is the Blue Diamond unsweetened almond coconut milk which is just 40 calories per 8-ounce serving.

Rather than using peanut butter in this shake, I opted for Sunbutter since my kids have peanut allergies. But you can use almond butter or cashew butter in this recipe as well if you prefer those.

What kind of protein powders can I use in this recipe?

When I originally wrote this recipe, I was using the SunWarrior vanilla brown rice protein powder. My body can’t do brown rice protein anymore (like most of the other protein powders I used to use regularly…), so when I remade this recipe I used some unflavored collagen powder and added vanilla to the shake.

Collagen powder of course isn’t vegan if you’re looking for that, but it’s a great option for people who can’t have dairy and who also have multiple other food allergies as well, such as soy, peas, eggs, etc.

And if you can’t have beef due to alpha-gal or other reasons, there is a marine collagen powder option as well.

Here are some good options for different types and brands of dairy free protein powder you can use in this recipe. The ones I list below are also soy free (check labels for cross contamination for soy) and are reputable, well established, and high quality brands.

The ones listed below are also free of artificial sweeteners as well.

Vegan dairy free protein options (most of these include pea protein and brown rice protein):

• OWYN plant based vanilla protein powder (this brand is also top 8 free)
• Orgain vanilla plant protein powder
• Garden of Life protein powder (includes raw and sprouted ingredients + digestive enzymes)
• Vega plant based protein (they offer this in different nutritional combinations, like a greens blend, sports blend, etc. They do have cross contamination warnings for multiple allergens however, so make sure to check the label).
• KOS vegan protein powder

Non-vegan dairy free protein options:

• Vanilla collagen powder
• Marine collagen powder
• Egg protein powder (typically made from just egg whites, the NOW Foods brand is really good about separating allergens in their facility and rigorous cleaning processes).

Can I skip the flavorings in this snickerdoodle shake?

I added just a few drops of McCormick cake batter extract to this shake to add a little more cookie flavor to it, but this is optional and you can skip it if you don’t want to add anything besides vanilla.

When I re-wrote this post and recipe, I switched from using butter extract that I had originally written in the recipe to cake batter extract. The McCormick butter extract used to be imitation but they may have changed their recipe since it’s now listed as being made with natural flavors, including actual butter flavor.

The McCormick cake batter extract is noted as vegan by the McCormick company in customer Q&As on Amazon and on their site as well as, so it does not have real dairy in that flavoring.

A bit of almond extract would also be a good replacement for the cake batter extract if you wanted something a bit different as well!

A little history about this recipe

I originally published this recipe on January 15, 2013, as one of the first sponsored posts I ever did on my websites. The recipe is still up on the Silk website. I like to re-write some of my old posts but also don’t want to lose some of the history of my website either.

I enjoy looking back sometimes and seeing how far I’ve come in this blogging journey.

Here’s the original photo of my recipe as well, my photography sure has come a long way, too 😂

Fun fact: during my early years of blogging, I had 2 separate websites: one for food (this one) and one for fitness (Fit Betty). I eventually merged my 2 sites into this one, and that’s why you’ll occasionally see FitBetty written on some of our old photos.

Check out some of our other high protein recipes!