Super easy Vegan Cookie Icing. Made in minutes with just 4 ingredients. It's silky smooth and shiny, dries very quickly, is hard but not tooth-breakingly so, and has that nostalgic crunchy sweet icing flavor. Use it to flood or add detailed designs to any cookie recipe.

2 squeezy bottles of vegan sugar cookie icing laid gently on a layer of undecorated sugar cookies.

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This simple vegan cookie icing is the crowning glory of the Vegan Sugar Cookie recipe I just shared. It's an all-purpose icing recipe that is ideal to use for any cookies that need decorating, in any color, and for any occasion!

It's perfect for decorating sugar cookies, Christmas cookies, and gingerbread people, and it's even strong enough to hold together a gingerbread house. It doesn't soften your cookies so won’t affect the shelf life and it will make your cookies look like they came straight out of a bakery!

Mel x

Ingredients

Here is what you need at a glance, along with some important ingredient notes:

powdered sugar, salt, brown rice syrup, vanilla

Powdered sugar- This is for the sugar cookie icing. I love Wholesome Sweeteners brand BUT for this recipe, I don't use it. I find that it makes a very off-white dirty-looking white icing, so I use cheaper grocery store powdered sugar which is much whiter. That's ok here (in Canada) as it's vegan but if you are in the US you might need to use the Wholesome Sweeteners brand if you struggle to find another. If it is a little off-white you could use brilliant white gel food coloring to brighten it up.
Brown rice syrup or light corn syrup - This gives the icing a better texture and some shine which is important when you want them to look pretty. It also gives the icing a better grip. I think agave syrup would also work well but I haven't personally tried it. Don't use maple syrup. It does not work in the same way.
Vanilla - Or other flavoring (more on that below). I don't find the small amount used affects the color of white icing much at all but omit it if you want it absolutely brilliant white.
Food coloring - I recommend using gel food coloring because liquid food coloring will alter the consistency of the icing too much. Don't forget to check it's vegan. I used Satin Ice Food Color Gel which I purchased at Michaels. Amazon also sells it.

a jug full of white vegan sugar cookie icing with a whisk in it.

If you would like to add flavorings to your cookie icing you can use:

Extracts - You can add any extract to this cookie icing instead of or as well as vanilla. Just remember that if you use more than the amount of vanilla already in the recipe, it will affect the consistency of the icing, so subtract that quantity from the overall amount of water added to the icing to compensate. Note that the color of the extract you use may affect the overall color of your icing.
Citrus - Use lemon, lime, or orange juice instead of water.

undecorated sugar cookies on a wire rack

You can tint this vegan cookie icing whatever color you want, although I do recommend using gel food coloring so it doesn't affect the texture of the icing too much. Also don't forget to check that it's vegan. If you need multiple different colors divide the icing between bowls then mix in the coloring.