Healthy Oat Cookies

These delicious, healthy oat cookies are perfect for a sweet, little snack anytime of day. Both adults and kids love these cookies. They’re perfect as a pre-workout or after school snack, tucked into lunch boxes and packed on hikes, flights and adventures. Plus, this recipe is plant-based, gluten-free, oil-free and contains no refined-sugar making them suitable for most dietary needs.

My Favourite Oats

My favourite rolled oats to use in all my recipes are the Sprouted Rolled Oats from One Degree Organic Foods. Why? Well for one, they’re sprouted, helping to improve digestibility. They’re also glyphosate and gluten-free, so you can feel good about using them in your kitchen or sharing the recipes you create with them.

Healthy Oat Cookie Ingredients

Here are the main ingredients you’ll need to make these tasty treats:

  • One Degree Organics Sprouted Rolled Oats. You’ll need 2 cups total but will be blending half of them into oat flour. To make oat flour, simply add the rolled oats to a blender or food processor and blitz into flour.
  • Tahini. Tahini helps to bind the recipe and firm the cookies up. It also adds a wonderful nutty flavour and keeps the cookies nut-free! You can, however, replace the tahini with any nut or seed butter as long as it’s a drippy consistency and not too dry.
  • One Degree Organics Flax Seeds. One Degree Flax Seeds are sold whole, which is actually ideal so they’ll keep longer. I blend about 1 cup at a time into ground flax to use in recipes, oatmeal and smoothies. Quick tip: To keep your flax seeds fresh and at their peak nutrition, store the whole flax seeds in the freezer and ground flax in the fridge for daily use.
  • One Degree Organics Hemp Seeds. Hemp seeds are my favourite superfood. They’re packed with vitamin E, iron, antioxidants, omega-3 essential fatty acids and have anti-inflammatory properties. They’re optional but I would recommend using them to boost the nutrition of these cookies.
  • Maple syrup. The cookies get a little boost in natural sweetness from pure maple syrup. Maple syrup is an unrefined, natural sweetener that adds a beautiful flavour to baking recipes.

In addition to the above, you’ll need some baking basics such as sea salt and baking soda as well as extra add-ins like raisins and chocolate chips.

Low-Fat Healthy Oat Cookie Option

To make these low-fat healthy oat cookies, the tahini can be replaced with ½ cup of ripe mashed banana or unsweetened applesauce. If you make this substitution the cookies will have more of a soft, cakey, muffin-like texture and if using banana, the cookies will have a fairly strong banana flavour.

Add-In Variations

For add-ins, I used raisins, hemp seeds and chocolate chips but the cookies can easily be customized to your preference or whatever you have available. Use any add-ins you choose, up to ¾ cup total. Here are some yummy add-in ideas:

  • Dried cranberries
  • Chopped dates
  • Chopped walnuts or pecans
  • Shredded coconut
  • Chopped dark chocolate

You can mix-and-match or use just one. How about all chocolate chips, coconut and cranberries, dark chocolate and pecans or walnuts and raisins? Yum!

Healthy Oat Cookies

These simple oat cookies with chocolate chips make the perfect sweet treat or snack and are loved by kids and adults alike.

Ingredients

2 cups (200 g) One Degree Organics Sprouted Rolled Oats, half of them blended into oat flour (1 cup oat flour, 1 cup rolled oats)
1 Tbsp (7 g) ground One Degree Organics Flax Seeds
¼ cup One Degree Organics Hemp Seeds
4 Tbsps water
¼ cup (60 g) tahini
¼ cup (80 g) maple syrup
½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp baking soda
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup dairy-free chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the ground flax and water together in a medium to large-sized mixing bowl. Blend half of the rolled oats into fine oat flour. Add the tahini and maple syrup to the flax mixture and whisk together until smooth. Add rolled oats, oat flour, sea salt and baking soda to the mixing bowl with the wet ingredients. Fold in the hemp seeds, raisins and chocolate chips.

Spray a baking tray with non-stick cooking spray or line with parchment paper or a silicone baking-mat. Shape the dough into 12 equal-sized cookies and place on the baking tray. Bake for 14 minutes.

Let the cookies cool on the pan for 5-10 minutes before handling then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before storing. Once cooled, the cookies can be stored in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 4 days, in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Notes

*The cookies will work with 2 cups rolled oats and no oat flour but are harder to form into cookies if you just use rolled oats.

*The hemp seeds, raisins and chocolate chips can be substituted with any add-ins up to ¾ cups total. Cranberries, coconut and walnuts all work well as alternatives.

*For a delicious twist, add 2 tsp orange zest and use cranberries instead of raisins.

*For soft and chewy, low-fat oat cookies, the tahini can be replaced with ½ cup of unsweetened applesauce or ripe mashed banana.