Have Oreos always been vegan and you never knew?! Grab a glass of oat milk and let’s split open this cookie to find out what it’s made of.
It’s almost impossible to resist one of the most beloved cookies on this planet.
Imagine a sweet creme filling, hugged by two crunchy chocolate wafers, dunked into a cool glass of any kind of milk. It’s the only type of snack officially recognized by 3 am refrigerator lights everywhere.
This humble cookie first rolled out on March 6, 1912 in an enormous Nabisco factory in NYC. From that day onwards, milk sales rose astronomically. (Ok, slight exaggeration).
In those days, you could buy tins of these simple but satisfying cookies for $0.30 per pound. Eventually, the packaging evolved and Nabisco (now Mondelez International) tempted us with luscious flavors like Red Velvet, Mint, Gingerbread, Carrot Cake, and Lemon.
They also covered them in more chocolate, shrunk them so they fit in our cereal bowls, or crushed them into our ice cream. What a versatile cookie!
There are even celebrity collaborations: who could forget that shiny, hot-pink package of Lady Gaga-inspired golden Oreos sitting on our store shelves?
But if you’re a vegan, can you bring home these delectable pieces of cookie heaven?
Let’s find out if Oreos are truly vegan.
Jump to:
How are Oreos made?
You can almost smell the sweet, toasty aroma in the factories that bake about 40 billion Oreos each year. It’s an intricate production process that will make you drool.
First, workers fill a huge machine with granulated sugar, cocoa powder, flour, oil, water and other ingredients. Then, a heavy-duty mixer turns the sweet concoction into a firm dough.
Next, they feed the mix into a molding machine. This remarkable tool presses and cuts the dough into circular chocolate biscuits and stamps the Oreo embossing onto the plain wafers.
The biscuits pass through an industrial oven and a fan cools them off for the next step: the stuffing!
The workers add ingredients into a tub to prepare the creme filling. Then, another machine drops a portion of this deliciousness onto a fast-moving line of wafers, plain side facing up.
Finally, an upper chocolate wafer caps the sweet goodness and the brand-new Oreo cookies are ready to be packaged.
What is the shelf life of Oreos?
A true Oreo lover devours their cookies waaaaay before they have to wonder about expiration dates.
But if you’re the type to savor your chocolate cookies over a longer period, Still Tasty says you have between 6-9 months to hold on to an unopened package. Try to keep it in a cool, dry place to avoid mold.
Once opened, you have about 2-3 weeks to enjoy your treats.
Don’t feel like sharing your Oreos? Check out this clever disguise.
Are Oreos made in the United States?
The first Nabisco factory was located on 9th Avenue, between 15th & 16th Street in Manhattan (“Oreo Way”), where the current Chelsea Market now resides.
Today, there are two US factories that produce Oreos - Portland (OR) and Richmond (VA).
What are the main ingredients in Oreos and are they vegan?
As you know, vegans do not eat animal products (e.g poultry, red meat and seafood) or animal by-products (e.g. milk, cheese, eggs and even honey). Vegans also avoid foods that use gelatin (also derived from animals).
Over the years, Mondelez made two significant improvements to their Oreo recipe:
- After years of using lard (animal fat) in their original Oreo cookies, they switched to vegetable oil in the mid-90’s in an effort to make their products kosher-friendly.
- Another helpful change to the original Oreos was removing the whey protein (found in cheese).
Here’s the ingredient list for the classic Oreos:
- Unbleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate {Vitamin B1}, Riboflavin {Vitamin B2}, Folic Acid)
- Sugar
- Palm and/or Canola Oil
- Cocoa (Processed with Alkali)
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Leavening (Baking Soda and/or Calcium Phosphate)
- Salt
- Soy Lecithin (oils extracted from soybeans)
- Chocolate
- Artificial Flavor
Mondolez does not claim that their Oreos are vegan but as you can see, there are no obvious animal or dairy products in the list above.
However, if you follow a strict vegan lifestyle, here are a few things you should be aware of:
- Mondelez produces several other brands in the same factories so there is always a risk of cross-contamination with a trace amount of non-vegan milk (especially important for those with dairy allergies).
- They do not identify what type of artificial flavors are used.
- Mondelez does not state what type of sugar they use. Some food manufacturers use sugar that has been treated with bone char to give the brilliant white color we’re used to.
Are there any controversial ingredients in Oreos?
In addition to avoiding animal products, many vegans do not consume food from questionable sources or processes.
One example of this is palm oil.
Maybe you’ve seen the articles of the Girl Scouts who raised awareness of the destructive use of palm oil in food manufacturing, even in the fundraising cookies they sell.
What’s so bad about palm oil?
It’s more about the way it’s obtained. Palm oil plantations try to make more space for palm trees through deforestation, removing diverse plants and animals in the process, and sometimes use child labor to harvest the palm products.
Mondelez issued a statement regarding their use of sustainable palm oil but some in the vegan community don’t feel that their efforts justify using it.
Overall, if this doesn’t sit well with you, you may want to reconsider your afternoon Oreo retreats. Try one of these instead: Catalina Crunch or Back to Nature.
But if you’re willing to overlook the vagueness of certain Oreo ingredients that appear in small quantities, go ahead and dunk that yummy snack.
Do Oreos contain real chocolate?
Yes, Oreos use Dutch-processed cocoa powder, which means the cocoa powder has been treated with an alkaline to neutralize the acidity.
Sally’s Baking Addiction describes it as mellow in flavor and easily dissolvable in liquids. And by liquids, we mean milk!
Are all Oreo flavors vegan?
The type of Oreo we’ve explored so far is the classic black wafers with white filling. But what about all the other wild and limited-time flavors?
In your quest to find the right Oreo for your taste buds, avoid the varieties that contain honey or fudge (which contains non-vegan milk).
But the good news? The vast majority of Oreo flavors make excellent vegan snacks.
Let’s rule out the Swedish Fish Oreos and Peeps Oreos though. While these do not contain gelatin, their outlandish taste was too much for most Oreo lovers.
Can you make vegan Oreos at home?
Still hesitant to buy these popular sandwich cookies? Then, it’s time to get creative in the kitchen!
Using wholesome ingredients, you can make your own vegan Oreos and indulge in some vegan junk food.
To create your own version, gather your vegan replacement ingredients, prepare the wafer dough, bake it (some recipes allow you to skip this step!), make the vegan cream filling, and combine the two elements.
Here are some scrumptious vegan recipes to satisfy your Oreo craving:
- Addicted to Dates has a no-bake version using simple ingredients like maple syrup and rolled oats
- This nutty version from Rhian’s Recipes is super cute!
- Adventures in Cooking’s vegan Oreos feature homemade coconut butter
- This yummy one from Short Girl Tall Order also looks fun to make!
- The Little Blog of Vegan uses aquafaba for her vegan Oreos. Find out how to gather, store and use aquafaba in this handy tutorial.
Also check out some of my favorite vegan recipes with a huge chocolate kick:
And here’s my vegan buttercream frosting recipe you’ll use again and again. It’s perfect for the Oreo filling.
So are Oreos vegan? The answer depends on how rigid your vegan diet is. Strict vegans choose to stay away from all questionable food products. If store-bought Oreos are a no-go for you, you’re going to love experimenting with DIY vegan recipes above or finding vegan Oreo alternatives from reliable vegan manufacturers.
But if you’re not as particular with questionable ingredients that appear minimally in the final product, eating a few Oreos here and there won’t compromise your lifestyle.
And for you, there is a whole world of Oreo flavors to explore!
Just don’t ask about the Fruit Punch or Cherry Cola Oreos.
More vegan resources
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