Are Insomnia Cookies Vegan?
It’s time to take a look and ask the question: are insomnia cookies vegan? A vegan cannot be too careful. You know this. With more choices than ever on a vegan diet in many urban cities today, it can be easily assumed most food joints offer vegan options. Heck, if anything, just order a salad with no meat. Been there! Now, let’s talk baked goods.
No matter if you’ve been a vegan for years, or recently converted, odds are that you have learned to do your own cooking a lot of the time, for gatherings or for everyday eating. There is a real art to vegan baking and, when it’s done right, it is SOOO rewarding!
When feeling a bit less productive and just in need of something sweet, we all know our favorite bakery or at least how to search for a vegan bakery, but it sure would be nice if we did not have to be so careful and if more places would get on board!
Our purpose here is to discover Insomnia Cookies.
If you are a local urban native, or especially if you went to college in an urban area, you know all about Insomnia Cookies. They deliver until 3am. When you’re in the middle of a late-night study session before your big Statistics exam and hunger strikes, so you call up Insomnia Cookies and they deliver warm cookies right to your door! There’s nothing better.
But now that you’re out of your roman noodles and box-pancake phase and discovering the full benefits of veganism, you’re wondering if you can still delve into that old college craving for Insomnia Cookies—or you are just a vegan who is new in town.
Let’s take a look and see if Insomnia cookies are vegan or not
What exactly is Insomnia Cookies? Insomnia Cookies is a college-town staple, it was even founded in a dorm. They have more than 100 locations since starting in 2003 and the people crave them so much that continue growing. Despite the name, they also serve other delicious treats: brownies, cakes and even ice cream. Not to mention the fact that you can earn free cookies with their loyalty program and they ship nationwide.
They have traditional sizes (Cookie’wich) and large cookies (Big’wich) available. Yes, they also do gift boxes! As of July 2020, they launched a Monster’wich cookies featuring two of your favorite cookies together in a cookie sandwich with ice cream between them! YUM!
As if this was not enough to get your sweet tooth throbbing, they also cater businesses and events and deliver from 10am-3am at most locations. Of course, they also have an app and their gift shop features a variety of swag, including “Just out of the oven” onesies for your newborn.
Now, even though we’ve surely caught your attention, what about the brass-tax, are they vegan??
There are SO many tempting options to choose from, including a s’mores cookie. The clincher, 99% of Insomnia Cookies contain eggs, butter, and milk products. Oh, no! The traditional Chocolate Chunk Chip cookie:
- non-fat milk,
- butter,
- Eggs.
That familiar disappointing feeling sinks in.
Veganism is a strict no-animal product, plant-based diet; no dairy! Of course, vegetarians do not eat meat, but will ingest animal products such as dairy so Insomnia Cookies would be perfectly acceptable to a vegetarian or pescatarian or relative variation. Unfortunately, a vegan is without here for the traditional Insomnia Cookies choices.
Not only are their traditional cookies not vegan, but they are also not typically gluten free or organic for those with allergies. The worst part, you will have to suffer through those old college cravings of the Double Chocolate Chunk while your non-vegan friends veg-out (despite the phrase).
Insomnia cookies has a vegan cookie option
Fortunately, Insomnia does offer a vegan, gluten-free Chocolate Chip cookie at most locations. The vegan option is available in their traditional Cookie’wich size or their large Big’wich size. The icing is also vegan.
The vegan, gluten free cookies are made using some traditional vegan substitutes like oat flour, brown rice flour, potato starch, and parve margarine (palm fruit oil, soybean oil, olive oil water, salt, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, potassium sorbate as a preservative, natural flavor, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene color). These ingredients are produced in seperate locations safe with vegan standards.
The company does advise that the cookies are made where there is a risk for contamination with gluten and heed consumer discretion, especially to those with allergies. Although they advise on the chances for gluten contamination, most companies take precautions to make sure that their products are safe:
- Prepared on a separate counter space,
- Using separate sanitized utensils
- By someone who uses clean gloves.
You have probably tasted some of those “attempted” vegan baked goods, some of which are so terrible that you wish you could request a refund or go back there and bake them yourself. Companies that are not exclusively vegan often force the option in there just for good sense and you are expected to pat them on the back for trying even though no one should ever eat them.
So, how are Insomnia’s vegan cookies?
Yelp and TripAdvisor reviews attest to how “fresh and tasty” the vegan, gluten free cookies are at Insomnia, but many others simply point to the obvious wish that they had more vegan options. Social Media comments suggest that these cookies keep Insomnia’s traditional quality and they “do not disappoint!”
If the reviews are not enough for you to try the vegan cookies, perhaps glancing back over the beginning of this post will help get your sweet tooth back up and running.
Call your local store to find out if they can help satisfy your craving or get a box of 12 or 24 vegan, gluten free cookies shipped to you in 1-2 business days! Do not forget that you can also gift them to the vegans in your life by sending a box.
As a vegan, you are sure to instinctively search for an Insomnia Cookies recipe to make at home. There are no actual “Insomnia vegan Cookie recipes” out there, as the company’s strategy is based on their cooking style and warm, fresh quality. Feel free to jump in and try your vegan baking hand on some of those recipes out there!
