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A fun take on a traditional dessert, these paleo and vegan salted caramel thumbprint cookies are a delicious holiday treat made with clean ingredients!

salted caramel thumbprint cookies
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I may or may not have made these salted caramel thumbprint cookies about 4 times now. Not only are they super easy with simple, easy ingredients, they are so incredibly tasty and addicting.

Traditional versions of these cookies are filled with some kind of fruit jam, but I’m not a huge fan of fruity desserts. But when they are filled with salted caramel like in these paleo thumbprint cookies? I’ll take 5, please.

Watch a Short Video of This Recipe

Paleo & Vegan Salted Caramel Thumbprint Cookies Recipe

After I made a dairy free caramel sauce for my pecan pie cheesecake, I knew it was something I had to use again on another dessert. I just couldn’t believe how delicious it was! That’s when this paleo and vegan thumbprint cookies recipe came to me. I just couldn’t get the idea of biting into soft, pillowy cookies with sweet caramel center out of my head.

Adding caramel topping to paleo thumbprint cookies
Pouring caramel into salted caramel thumbprint cookies

Ingredients in These Salted Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

Not counting salt, these paleo thumbprint cookies only have 7 ingredients, and that’s including the caramel sauce! And if you are accustomed to grain free baking, you should have all of the ingredients in your pantry.

You need to make the caramel sauce before anything else because it needs time to cool and thicken.

  • Almond Butter
  • Maple Syrup: You can substitute with honey if you don’t have maple syrup on hand
  • Coconut oil
  • Sea salt flakes: These are thick sea salt flakes to the top the cookies at the end, and these are my favorite brand.

These are almond flour thumbprint cookies, so almond flour is a big part of what makes up the base of these cookies.

  • Almond flour: Use blanched almond flour, not almond meal.
  • Sea salt
  • Ghee: I really love the buttery flavor of ghee, but if you are ultra sensitive to dairy or if you are vegan, you can substitute with the same amount of coconut oil.
  • Maple syrup: Honey will also work!
  • Vanilla extract
close up of vegan thumbprint cookies recipe

Tips To Yield the Best Results for This Paleo & Vegan Thumbprint Cookies Recipe

While this is a simple and easy paleo and vegan thumbprint cookies recipe, here are some ways to ensure that you have have the best and the most delicious result:

  • The caramel sauce will need a bit of time to set and cool, so make sure you make it first. You can even do this a day ahead.
  • The dough for the cookies will be a bit too moist for handling when you first mix the ingredients together. This is why you’ll want to chill the dough covered for at least 15 minutes.
  • Make the indent in the center deeper than you would expect. The center will rise a bit while baking.
  • If the sides crack while making the indents, smooth it as best as you can. It doesn’t have to be perfect through.
  • The caramel center will solidify at room temperature but it’ll still be soft. If you want it to harden more, you can chill the almond flour thumbprint cookies in the refrigerator once they are done.
  • I highly recommend you sprinkle these cookies with flaky sea salt like this brand. The crunchy saltiness is amazing!

I’ve brought these salted caramel thumbprint cookies to a holiday cookie exchange recently and they were a huge hit. They are wonderful for Christmastime, but you can enjoy them anytime of the year!

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5 from 1 vote
Servings: 16 cookies

Paleo & Vegan Salted Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

A fun take on a traditional dessert, these paleo and vegan salted caramel thumbprint cookies are a delicious holiday treat made with clean ingredients!
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 10 minutes
Dough chilling and cookie cooling time: 25 minutes
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Video

Ingredients 

Thumbprint Cookies

Instructions 

  • Make the salted caramel sauce first and let it cool at room temperature while making the cookies.
  • In a large mixing bowl, mix together almond flour and sea salt.
  • Add in ghee, maple syrup, and vanilla extract, and mix until a wet dough forms.
  • Form the dough into a ball, cover with a plastic wrap, and chill for 15 minutes to set.
  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  • Divide the dough and form into 16 balls and place on the parchment paper 2 inches apart.
  • Make an indentation in the center of each dough with your thumb or the rounded end of a utensil, a little deeper than you would expect. The center will rise a bit while baking. Smooth out the sides the best you can if they crack.
  • Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown.
  • Remove from the oven and if the indents have risen too much, push down on them lightly while the cookies are still hot. Transfer to a cooling rack with a spatula to cool for 10 minutes.
  • Spoon the salted caramel sauce into each cookie. If you have leftover sauce, you can use it with another batch of these cookies, or drizzle over other desserts or fruits.
  • Sprinkle with sea salt flakes.
  • Cool completely until the caramel filling solidifies. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week. The filling will set more as it chills.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cookie, Calories: 129kcal, Carbohydrates: 6g, Protein: 2g, Fat: 11g, Saturated Fat: 5g, Cholesterol: 10mg, Sodium: 29mg, Potassium: 26mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 3g, Vitamin C: 1mg, Calcium: 24mg, Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Tried this recipe?Leave a comment below or tag @whatgreatgrandmaate!
What Great Grandma Ate / Jean Choi is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Regarding other affiliate links and affiliate relationships: In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog. Thank you for your support and understanding.

Jean Choi

Iโ€™m a food lover and recipe developer living in Southern California. I love to share simple and approachable gluten-free recipes that are healthy but never sacrifice on flavor.

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8 Comments

  1. Maura says:

    Wow, best cookie ever. Tastes like shortbread and the salted caramel completes the cookie. I made the toasted coconut chocolate sauce too and filled 1/2 tha Cookeโ€™s with the salted caramel and 1/2 with the toasted coconut chocolate. The salted caramel compliments the cookie so well.
    Thanks Jean this recipe is a keeper.

  2. Liisa says:

    5 stars
    These are SO delicious! I don’t miss the eggs, flour, or refined sugar at all. I used refined coconut oil, and I think it tastes buttery. I found that actually using my thumb to make the indentation, as the original name of the cookie says, works great! The caramel sauce is really just the most amazing thing. I had no idea I could have caramel sauce anymore on my fairly restricted diet. With recipes like these, life is good!

    1. Jean Choi says:

      That’s amazing! Thank you so much for leaving a review!!

  3. Amy says:

    In the instructions you add vanilla to the filling however vanilla is not listed in the filling ingredients – how much to use?

    1. Jean Choi says:

      Oops, so sorry about that! That’s supposed to say sea salt, not vanilla. No vanilla in the filling. I fixed it. Thanks for letting me know!

      1. Bonnie says:

        You added sea salt but Recipe still lists vanilla. Are you saying it should be omitted? ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™€๏ธ

        1. Jean Choi says:

          No, I changed the recipe to the filling so it’s better now and it should be added as written. Sorry about the confusion!

          1. Bonnie says:

            Ok so 1/2 tsp vanilla ? They sound delish and I have ingredients so want to get it right!