The most popular Paleo cookies always seem to be made with almond flour. But, I like to be different. I don’t want all my recipes to contain nuts and I really like tigernut flour (it has a nutty, naturally sweet flavor and is allergy friendly). I also wanted to take this recipe a step further and create a Paleo cookie that was not only nut free but also egg free. Thus, these Paleo, Vegan AND allergy free Tigernut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies were born!

So, what exactly is tigernut flour? As you should have guessed, it’s nut free, Paleo approved and Vegan friendly. But, WHAT is a tigernut and how is it made into flour?

What is Tigernut Flour?

Tigernut flour comes from finely ground, peeled tigernuts. Now, tigernuts are not actually nuts, but small root vegetables. They are naturally sweet and nutty in flavor, perfect for baking!

Additionally, they contain a lot of fiber, a decent amount of potassium, Vitamin E and iron, as well as resistant starch. This resistant starch has prebiotic properties that helps promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut. So, eating tigernut cookies is good for the gut! 😉

Tigernut Flour Nutritional Facts

Tigernut flour is comprised mostly of carbohydrates. Depending on one’s carb tolerance, it can be a part of a ketogenic diet. 1/4 cup of tigernut flour naturally contains 5 grams of sugar, meaning it is naturally sweet. This is great for baking because you don’t need to add as much sugar to sweeten tigernut desserts.

Where To Buy Tigernut Flour

I have two brands of tigernut flour that I love and use:

The best place to buy tigernut flour is online. You can either purchase it from Amazon, or on the company website. Other places to find tigernut flour include health food stores that sell a large selection of organic products. But, I’ve found that buying online is cheaper.

Ingredients in Tigernut Chocolate Chip Cookies

These allergy friendly cookies contain 10 simple ingredients and are extremely easy to make. The ingredients are as follows:

Ingredient Substitutions

Since everyone ALWAYS wants substitutions, I want to say that my first recommendation is to not make any subs. If you don’t mind a slight change in taste or texture, then by all means go ahead. But, if you want the exact cookie I made, then use the ingredients I list in this recipe.

Flax Egg

I chose to use a flax egg in this recipe to make it egg free. Plus, flax is pretty easily accessible and inexpensive. To make a flax egg, simply use a coffee grinder to grind whole flax seed. Then, measure 1 Tbsp ground flax + 3 Tbsp water and mix.

If you don’t want to use flax, a “real” egg, chia egg or gelatin egg should work. However, I have not tried these substitution.

Tapioca Flour

In most recipes, tapioca flour can be substituted for arrowroot starch or potato starch. So, either of these ingredients would work in place of the tapioca.

Shortening

I chose to use non-hydrogenated shortening (a mixture of palm oil and coconut oil) because it is the closest Paleo and Vegan alternative to butter. It produces a dairy free cookie with a similar taste and texture as a cookie made with butter.

In fact, if you are going to substitute the shortening, my first recommendation would be grass fed butter. After that, room temperature coconut oil. But, the thing I’ve found with coconut oil, is that it doesn’t bind as well. So, the cookies will be more likely to crumble and fall apart.

Cream of Tartar + Baking Soda

Since most baking powders are not Paleo friendly, I used cream of tartar and baking soda. Cream of tartar is important for producing a cookie that is crisp on the outside and moist on the inside.

The amount used in this recipe (1 tsp cream of tartar + 1/2 tsp baking soda) is equivalent to about 2 tsp baking powder. So, substituting 2 tsp baking powder for the cream of tartar and baking soda will produce similar results.

For a great Paleo baking powder recipe, see THIS post.

If you make any substitutions, I’d love to know your outcome.

If I had all the time, money and ingredients in the world, I would create recipes using as many substitutions as I could think of…but I don’t! I try my best to perfect the recipes as I have created them and that already takes multiple rounds of baking.

But, I am confident that these nut free, Vegan tigernut flour cookies will bake well and result in a delicious, crowd pleasing cookie!

More Tigernut Flour Recipes

If you’re looking for more recipes using tigernut flour, here are some popular ones from my site:

Enjoy!