About a year ago I was on the hunt for a recipe for healthy cookies that actually taste good. I’ve tried healthy recipes for cookies or brownies in the past that use yogurt or applesauce as substitutes, and they taste like cardboard. You eat a couple just hoping that the taste will improve, and by that time you’ve eaten the same amount of calories that a regular cookie or brownie has.
Well, I’m proud to say that I’ve discovered an amazing healthy cookie recipe. These cookies are butter-less, flour-less, egg-less, but NOT taste-less. They have the same texture as a macaroon or a haystack, but the only source of sugar is from the bananas and chocolate chips. Now you can have your healthy cookie and enjoy eating it too.
I made a batch on Sunday for the cottage this weekend (very easy to make), and just popped them in the freezer. They freeze really well & defrost quickly so you don’t have to wait too long to dig in. They’re also not very high in calories; about 60 calories per cookie (depends on how big you make them).
I adapted this recipe from 101 Cookbooks – enjoy!
Healthy Cookies
Ingredients
Wet:
3 large, ripe bananas mashed (about 1 ½ cups)
1 tsp of vanilla extract
¼ cup of coconut oil (you can also use olive oil)
Dry:
2 cups of rolled oats
2/3 cup of unsalted peanuts, ground or almond meal (my husband is allergic to almonds so I substitute peanuts, which is so yummy with the chocolate chips)
1/3 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut
½ tsp of cinnamon
½ tsp of fine grain sea salt
1 tsp baking powder
½ cup of 50 – 70% cocoa chocolate chips
Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and make sure the racks are in the top third of your oven.
Put 2/3 cup of whole peanuts in your food processor and grind until just fine. Don’t go too far or you’ll make peanut butter!
In a large bowl combine bananas, vanilla and oil – stir to combine. Set aside.
In a medium bowl mix together all the dry ingredients until combined well.
Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet, and mix until just combined.
Fold in your chocolate chips. The batter is quite wet compared to other cookie dough, but that’s how it’s supposed to be!
Spray 2 large cookie sheets with canola oil, and spoon 1 tbsp of batter onto the sheets about 1 inch apart. The cookies don’t rise or expand so don’t worry about them being too close together.
Bake for about 13-15 minutes or until bottoms are just brown and cookies are firm (depends on your oven). I have a small oven, so I have to stack my cookie sheets. In order to make sure they cook evenly; I switch them half-way through.
This recipe yields about 2 dozen cookies.
Awesome cookies! Made them at the lake this weekend and they were a big hit, thanks!
I just made your cookies! They’re really good! (though I might have added a bit more chocolate chips to the recipe…) It’s so great that they’re really healthy and Ian’s mom can eat them too (gluten free!)
Thanks Holly – so great to hear! I don’t blame you, the chocolate chips are so yummy in there!