Easy Gluten Free Lemon Shortbread Cookies (Vegan)

Our easy lemon shortbread cookies combine the bright flavor of lemon with buttery shortbread, and it’s completely dairy free and gluten free. These cookies have a perfectly balanced natural lemon flavor and are perfect for spring or any time of year when you want an easy lemon dessert.

When I created our shortbread cookie recipe a few weeks ago, I knew I had to make a lemon version for upcoming spring. Our lemon shortbread cookies turned out even better than I imagined, they taste incredible!

Lemon has been one of those dessert flavors that had to grow on me over the years as I matured. I wasn’t a huge fan of lemon desserts as a kid, but as an adult, it is becoming one of my favorite flavors.

There is so much to love about the bright flavors of lemon zest combined with the buttery tenderness of a shortbread. And our recipe is completely dairy free and gluten free!

Food allergy notes:

• Gluten free
• Dairy free
• Egg free and vegan
• Peanut free

Why you’ll love these cookies

Just like our original shortbread cookies, this recipe is easier to make than traditional shortbread since you don’t have to chill or roll out the shortbread cookie dough, saving you quite a bit of time in the kitchen.

These cookies are so buttery and delicious, even without real dairy. And if you don’t want to take the extra steps to make the glaze, these are still incredibly delicious even without the lemon glaze on top!

How to make gluten free lemon shortbread cookies

Here are the steps to make our buttery lemon shortbread cookies. This is just an overview of steps, the full recipe card is at the end of the post.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet pan with parchment paper.
2. Add the room temperature/softened Violife dairy free butter to a large mixing bowl and cream it together with the powdered sugar, fresh lemon zest, vanilla extract, and salt.
3. Add the sorghum flour to the butter mixture and mix again.
4. Add the gluten-free flour blend to the creamed butter mixture and mix again until a thick dough forms. The cookie dough should be similar in texture to play dough but softer, easy to roll into balls, and not sticky.
5. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and place on the prepared baking sheet.
6. Gently press a fork into the top of the cookie dough twice in a crosswise pattern. These will spread a little, so make sure not to press the dough down too much.
7. Bake for 8 to 9 minutes. I prefer these baked to the 8-minute mark for a slightly softer cookie, especially the next day.
8. Remove from the oven and cool on the baking pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.
9. While the cookies are cooling, mix up the lemon glaze by mixing together the fresh lemon juice from your zested lemon, lemon zest, dairy free milk, and powdered sugar (also called confectioners sugar or icing sugar).
10. Once the cookies are cooled completely, drizzle the lemon glaze over the cookies. You’ll want to use parchment paper under the cookies when you drizzle the glaze (just re-use the baking parchment paper).
11. Once the glaze is set, store leftover cookies in an airtight container or bag for 3-4 days.

If you’ve made our regular shortbread, you’ll probably notice that our lemon version actually needs to cook for less time.

We did some testing and found out that the lemon oil in the zest changes the cookie texture a bit for some reason (probably some chemistry with the dairy free butter or the gluten free flour ingredients), so these need to cook several minutes less than our regular gluten-free shortbread recipe (just 8 minutes vs the 11 minutes our other cookies bake for).

Because these only need to bake for 8 minutes, they are not going to be golden brown like other shortbread recipes, but that’s fine. If you bake these longer than 9 minutes, they will get too crunchy.

On further test batches of these cookies, I discovered that the cookies will be softer if you zest the lemon onto a piece of parchment paper first, then add it to the bowl vs zesting the lemon directly into the bowl like I did in the video. The parchment paper soaks up a little of the excess lemon oil, resulting in a softer cookie.

Notes on the gluten free flour we recommend

This recipe has the best taste and texture when using the specific brand of gluten free flour we recommend in the recipe card, which is the King Arthur gluten free all purpose baking mix.

I have tried our shortbread recipe out with the Bob’s Red Mill all purpose gluten free flour and it didn’t work out for some reason, so for the best results with these cookies, use the flour we recommend and have tested this recipe with.

King Arthur makes a few different types of gluten free flour (you can check out our comparison chart), but the one you’ll want for this recipe is the gluten free all purpose baking mix since it already has xanthan gum and some baking soda and baking powder already in the mix.

What brand of dairy free butter can I use in this recipe?

We tested our regular shortbread cookie recipe with a couple of different kinds/brands of vegan butter: the Country Crock plant butter sticks and the Violife plant butter.

The Violife plant butter definitely creates a flakier, more tender, and more buttery tasting shortbread cookie and is the one I recommend for this recipe.

You can use the Country Crock plant butter sticks in this cookie, but they won’t be quite as tender. I have not tested this with other brands of dairy free butter yet (such as Flora or Miyokos), so I’m not sure how they would do.

But you’ll want to use a dairy free butter that holds its shape well when it’s softened at room temperature, and avoid any dairy free butters that get too liquid/runny when at room temp.

Check out our other gluten-free cookies and desserts:

• Gluten-Free Lemon Cookies (a softer lemon sugar cookie recipe)
• Gluten Free and Egg Free Lemon Bars
• Best Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

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