Cookies Without Palm Oil | List of Palm Oil Free Cookies

It’s a win when you find cookies without palm oil. If you’ve ever been on the quest for baked goods without palm oil ingredients, you know it’s a challenge. Grocery store bakery cookies most always contain it. Read labels.

Usually, the less chewy the cookie, the better the chance it won’t contain palm oil.

While these cookies are all crunchy, they are still filled with excellent flavor and mouth-feel texture.

To the best of our knowledge, after cross-referencing their ingredients against hundreds of names of palm oil derivatives, these cookies do not have any palm oil ingredients.

We reached out to these packaged cookie companies to confirm; however, this list is not guaranteed. To be certain cookies or any products are palm oil free, they should be certified Palm Oil Free by the International Palm Oil Free Certification Trademark or Orangutan Alliance.

Also, remember you can make your own palm oil free cookies. Check out our cookie recipes at the bottom. 

Cookies without Palm Oil Ingredients

Pepperidge Farm Farmhouse Thin & Crispy Cookies

These cookies from Pepperidge Farm are delicious. Their Thin & Crispy line is available in these flavors, and they are all made without using palm oil ingredients:

• Milk Chocolate Chip
• Toffee Milk Chocolate
• Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

The fact that Pepperidge Farm makes all four of these without palm oil is amazing. We regularly buy the Milk Chocolate Chip and Dark Chocolate Chip which we can find at Target, Walmart, and our grocery store.

They are filled with rich chocolate chips and have the look of bakery cookies. They are about two and a half inches in diameter.

These cookies contain real ingredients, including Chocolate, Flour, Butter, Sugar, Brown Sugar, Cage-Free Eggs, Baking Soda, Vanilla Extract, and Salt.

My son, who has a palm oil intolerance, loves these palm oil free cookies. We are grateful to Pepperidge Farm for making them. See below for their Chessman cookies which my son can also enjoy.

Erin Baker’s

They use whole grain and don’t contain artificial ingredients or preservatives. They are Non-GMO Project Certified. Erin Baker’s have confirmed all of their products, including their cookies, are palm oil free.

• The Original Breakfast Cookie
  • Oatmeal Raisin
  • Double Chocolate
  • Banana Walnut
  • Peanut Butter
  • Carrot Cake
  • Caramel Apple
  • Peanut Butter Chocolate
  • Fruit & Nut
• Breakfast Cookie Minis
  • Double Chocolate
  • Peanut Butter
  • Oatmeal Raisin

Good for a fast grab-and-go breakfast without palm oil.

MI-DEL Gluten-Free Cookies

UPDATED: MI-DEL has changed their ingredients and include palm oil in several of their cookie flavors. Check each package carefully before buying.

These cookies don’t contain palm oil ingredients and are gluten-free.

• • Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • Cinnamon Snaps
  • Flavored Ginger Snaps (in California)
  • Ginger Snaps
  • Gingerbread Men
  • Pecan Cookies

They are crunchy and will satisfy your cookie craving. I’ve never had a gluten-free cookie until trying the Chocolate Chip flavor. They tasted great. They are about one and a half inches in diameter. All of MI-DEL’s cookies are 100% peanut free as well.

Pepperidge Farm Chessmen Butter Cookies

Hooray again for Pepperidge Farm! Months ago, I bought a winter holiday version of these Chessmen cookies when I saw they were palm free. I bought them again.

They are made without artificial flavors or preservatives. These are tasty butter cookies usually available with a printed design for the season. My family loves these cookies. These are usually easy to find.

MI-DEL Simply Mi-Delicious Cookies

This is a great brand to support if you are looking for cookies without palm oil. Their Simply MI-Delicious line of cookies are 100% palm oil free. They  contain organic enriched wheat flour and organic cane sugar.

It’s awesome MI-DEL makes so many cookies without palm ingredients:

• Chocolate Snaps
• Honey Grahams
• Original Ginger Snaps
• Original Flavored Ginger Snaps (in California)
• Lemon Snaps
• Vanilla Snaps
• Gingerbread Men

(Their “Organic” Ginger Snaps do contain palm oil. Therefore, be sure to buy their Simply MI-Delicious line. It doesn’t say “organic” on the front of the package.)

Schar

In addition to making gluten-free breads and snacks, they make these gluten-free cookies without palm oil.

• Butter Cookies
• Shortbread Cookies

Market Pantry Animal Crackers

One would think all animal crackers would be safe, but they’re aren’t. Even the organic animal crackers at Costco are not. However, this brand from Target doesn’t list palm oil or palm oil derivatives on the label. They don’t contain artificial flavors, colors or high fructose corn syrup.

I’ve been buying these for months, and while they are somewhat plain — as most animal crackers are — they make for a great school snack.

We are researching and reaching out to more companies and will hopefully be able to add to this list.

Ben & Jerry’s Frozen Cookie Dough Bites

Not exactly cookies, but sort of! Ben & Jerry’s doesn’t use any palm oil in any of their products. They sell frozen cookie dough as Snackable Dough in the frozen desserts section — near the ice cream — at grocery stores.

• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Chunks
• Gingerbread Cookie Dough Chunks
• Peanut Butter
• S’mores
• Sugar Cookie 
• The Tonight Dough
• Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
• Cinnamon Bun 
• Half Baked Dough 
• Vegan Chocolate Chip

Always Check Ingredients

Companies sometimes change their formulas and use palm oil ingredients because it’s a cheaper oil and it remains semi-solid at room temperature. As an example, my son used to be able to eat original Oreo cookies safely until they changed their ingredients to include palm oil.

Also, often we assume organic products are made without palm oil but that is not always the case. 

Palm Oil Ingredients in Cookies

Whether you buy pre-made cookies from a grocery store, a bakery, Target, Walmart, or from Costco, they will likely have palm oil. Many times you will see in the ingredients the word “palm,” which makes it easy to avoid them. Examples include:

• Palm oil
• Palm kernel oil
• Vegetable oil (Palm)

So it’s easy to avoid products when you see palm-. Examples are palmitate and palmitoyl. However, also learn to look for laur-, stear-, and glyc-, as they are usually made with palm oil ingredients.

How to find products without palm oil

Snacks without palm oil

Eating without palm oil list of foods

Cookies without Palm Oil

It’s so great to have chocolate and non-chocolate cookie options available. I only make palm oil free desserts. Because palm oil is everywhere, I’ve learned to make lots of recipes for homemade cookies without palm oil.

I was sad when I learned Oreos changed their ingredients to include palm oil. But you know what moms do– we improvise. Here is my Oreo Cakesters recipe which is soft, cake cookies with a creamy vanilla filling. They are delicious!

But sometimes I don’t have time to make cookies from scratch or I’m bringing cookies somewhere and want them to be store-bought. It’s great to be able to buy prepackaged cookies free from palm oil.

You may be avoiding palm oil because of environmental concerns or because of a palm oil intolerance. According to the World Wildlife Fund, palm oil is now in up to 50% of products on supermarket shelves.

Make Cookies without Palm Oil

The great news is you can make your own homemade cookies with these easy cookie recipes. When recipes call for chocolate chips, be sure to buy real chocolate. Avoid white chocolate chips because they usually contain palm oil. 

Another tip to make cookies palm free is to use only pure vanilla extract, not imitation vanilla extract. If you add peppermint extract to make mint-flavored cookies, you don’t need to use food dyes to make them green. Keep it natural!

Rather than buying store-bought cookies, make your own. While it may be intimidating to make a platter of several different kinds of holiday cookies at once (at least it is for me), make one kind at a time and enjoy them throughout the year. There are so many reasons to bake from scratch.

Some of my family’s favorites — are all easy to make — are:

• Molasses cookies
• Small batch chocolate chip cookies – A small batch is ideal when you have a craving for cookies but don’t want to make (and eat) an entire batch. It’s also great to make small batch cookies when you are low on ingredients.
• Mexican wedding cookies
• Pizzelles — You need a pizzelle maker; I have a mini pizzelle maker from Target that hardly takes any space.
• Kolacky
• Crispy lemon cookies – Great to make when you have a leftover half lemon.
• Peanut butter blossoms – Hershey’s Kisses classic cookie
• Sugar free peanut butter cookies
• Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
• Peanut butter cookies 3 ingredients
• Madeleines – Cake-like cookies which originated in France; make in a madeleine pan or in cupcake tins.
• Thumbprint cookies – Easy to fill with jam, jelly, preserves, etc. and uses baking staples.

Buy Cookies without Palm Oil

After learning more about palm oil and how increased demand is causing environmental concerns, as a family we are working to eliminate products with palm oil from our home. Palm oil makes our son sick with allergy-like symptoms so we are avoiding it completely.

If you are trying to live without palm oil, see our lists of:

• Cereals without palm oil
• Granola bars without palm oil
• Ice cream without palm oil
• Pretzels without palm oil

Check ingredients for cookies without palm ingredients

Verify labels as manufacturers change ingredients. As of this writing, these cookies are made without palm oil or any palm oil ingredients and derivatives.

A representative from Pepperidge Farm replied with a personalized, lengthy email to my specific questions about palm oil and palm oil derivatives in their cookies above.

What he said holds true for all products in all categories:

Product recipes change frequently and ingredients are periodically added and replaced. This makes it difficult to maintain an updated list of products that either contain or lack a particular ingredient.

So while they may change in the future, these cookies above are a good place to start when you are looking for palm oil-free options.

If you know of other packaged cookies without palm oil, please list them in the Comments so we can add them to this list. Thank you! It’s important we support these lines of palm-free cookies.

We are not medical professionals. This is not meant to be medical advice. Please consult with your physician. Use this information as a starting point as it’s not guaranteed. Read all labels at the point of sale. Contact companies and ask for the source of each ingredient.

The only way to be certain a product is palm oil free is if it has been certified Palm Oil Free by the International Palm Oil Free Certification Trademark (POFCAP) or Orangutan Alliance.

We update this list regularly. Why do you seek out these options? Let us know in the Comments!