Soft, chewy, perfectly dense cookies made with all of the best oatmeal ingredients: nut butter, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, and lots of add-ins like chopped dark chocolate, nuts, and dried fruit! These cookies are the perfect option for busy mornings or a fun change to your usual breakfast routine! They’re also naturally gluten-free and vegan friendly, and can be made nut-free if needed!
**AUGUST 2019 UPDATE**
This recipe was originally posted in May of 2016, and is seriously such a fun breakfast option! I hadn’t made them in a few years and am so glad I did because these babies are so worthy of my regular breakfast rotation. The original recipe was photographed with almond butter, hazelnuts, raisins, and pumpkin seeds, but today I made them with peanut butter super dark chocolate, raisins, and walnuts; feel free use whatever combination of nut/seed butter and add-ins you love in your morning oatmeal! I’ve left the original blog post in tact below for the sake of nostalgia, and simply updated the photos and recipe. Feel free to scroll straight to the bottom to get the recipe, if you’ve already read this old blog post!
Oh, what beautiful time to be alive.
COOKIES.
FOR BREAKFAST.
Say no more, I’m in.
A few years ago I started making breakfast cookies every Sunday to bring to work for a mid-morning snack, and in true Chelsea fashion, I never wrote down the recipe, instead assuming I would just remember it. For some recipes, like banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, pizza dough, and a few other lifelong staples, that’s a legitimate assumption. I can just pull out the ingredients and go, not even thinking twice about what goes into them.
For most of the others, though, I have to check my own website for the recipe or it’s a total fail. Like, scraping the disaster of a pancake into the compost bin because it’s so bad, this food waste hating lady can’t even bring herself to eat it.
I think I’ve just written so many recipes that I can’t be trusted to remember if it was a half teaspoon of this or a quarter cup of that for recipes that I don’t make over and over.
Long story short….I forgot the recipe for breakfast cookies and was seriously disappointed in myself. Partly because I really, really thought I would remember it, but mostly because they were just so dang good.
So, I got to work recreating them. This final version still isn’t the same as the originals (maybe it’s just that nostalgia is a liar, or maybe I’m still forgetting a crucial element), but I’m loving this version regardless.
They’re super simple to make: maple syrup, coconut oil, nut butter, water, and flax seeds get mixed in a bowl, oats get pulsed in a food processor to turn into flour, then dumped into the bowl of wet ingredients with whatever cookie mix-ins you’d like (I used walnuts, raisins, and dark chocolate here, but use whatever you have/love!). The cookie dough is then just divided into 10-12 cookies, baked until barely golden, and you’re in breakfast cookie heaven.
There’s nothing complicated about these cookies, and thats what I love about them. Just simple, wholesome ingredients that keep me full and satisfied in the mornings delivered in a cookie-shaped package that makes life just a little bit more exciting.
If you happen to have little ones in the house, these also make a great grab-and-go breakfast on school days, or a healthy snack to pack for later in the morning. I love baking them into 10 medium sized cookies, but they can easily be made smaller to accommodate tiny hands and bellies.
If you make them, let me know what you think! Leave a comment below, or take a picture of your Thick + Chewy Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies and share it with me on Instagram so I can see!
Thick + Chewy Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies
Time: 20 minutes
Yields: 10-12 cookies
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 cups oats
- 1/4 cup virgin coconut oil, melted
- 1/4 cup nut/seed butter of choice (I used peanut butter)
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 Tablespoons ground flax seeds
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 cup finely chopped dark chocolate
- 1/4 cup dried fruit of choice (I used raisins)
- 1/2 cup roughly chopped nuts or seeds of choice (I used walnuts)
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Place oats in a food processor or blender, and blend on high until a flour-like consistency is achieved. Set aside. Alternately, you can use 2 1/4 cups oat flour instead, if you already have it in your pantry!
- Whisk together the oil, nut butter, maple syrup, water, flax, and vanilla until smooth. Add in all remaining ingredients (including the oat flour you made in step 2) and stir well to combine.
- Divide dough into 10-12 cookies (I like to use a large cookie scoop to make them all even), pressing down on each cookie with your fingers to slightly flatten. These won’t spread as they bake, so there’s no need to leave much space between each one on the pan.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until just set around the edges and soft in the center. These cookies dry out easily, so it’s best to underbake them than overbake!
- Let cookies cool completely on pan before transferring to an airtight container and storing at room temperature for up to 5 days. These also freeze very well if you want to make a double batch and keep them on hand for busy mornings!
NOTES: I have tried these cookies with just about every combination of nut/seed butter, dried fruits, and nuts/seeds imaginable, and they all work well! Some notable combinations are: almond butter, pistachios, and chopped apricots with almond extract instead of vanilla; tahini, chopped dates, and pumpkin seeds; peanut butter, double chocolate instead of any dried fruit, and pecans.