Looking for a delicious oatmeal cookie recipe that packs whole grains and other real ingredients? Have your cookie and eat it, too! Get the best of both worlds with these Healthy Oatmeal Cookies — something healthy and something sweet.
Cookie lovers, we’ve got DOZENS of healthy cookie recipes here on Fit Foodie Finds. Starting with these healthy oatmeal cookies with mini chocolate chips. Enjoy!
Healthy Oatmeal Cookies
These oatmeal cookies have a bite to them. And? There has to be a chocolate chip in every bite. We substituted some of the processed sugar in this recipe with maple syrup and we use brown sugar to add a chew bite to the recipe.
why we love these cookies
These oatmeal cookies are easy to whip up and freeze for later.
They are lower in sugar than most oatmeal cookies!
You can freeze the cookie dough or the cookies themselves.
We love that you can add your favorite mix-ins to change up the recipe.
Ingredients You Need
- Rolled Oats: for these oatmeal cookies you need to pulverize them a bit! Do do this you can use a food processor or coffee grinder.
- All Purpose Flour: we needed to choose a flour that made these cookies a bit lighter when mixed with the oats so we decided on all purpose flour.
- Light Brown Sugar: brown sugar adds a bit of chewiness to these cookies.
- Cinnamon: what would an oatmeal cookie be without a bit of cinnamon? Don’t skip it!
- Mini Chocolate Chips: mini chocolate chips give you a chocolate chip in every bite.
- Eggs: don’t skip the eggs and be sure they are large eggs.
- Maple Syrup: we use a mixture of brown sugar and a mixture of maple syrup to sweeten these babies up.
- Vanilla Extract: love the bit of sweetness and flavor vanilla gives all cookies!
Ingredient Swaps
All-purpose flour—> 1:1 gluten free flour mix
Rolled oats—> quick cooking oats (you wouldn’t have to pulverize the oats if you use these)
Light brown sugar—> dark brow sugar will work, too.
Mini chocolate chips—> regular chocolate chips
Maple syrup—> we do not recommend substituting maple for honey in this recipe.
Fun Add-Ins
The sky is the limit when it comes to ingredient add-ins. You can add any of the ingredients below to these cookies or feel free to get created.
- Nuts (walnuts or pecans)
- Raisins
- Craisins
- M&Ms
- White chocolate chips
How to Make Oatmeal Cookies
- Pulverize the oats. If you are using rolled oats, pulverize the rolled oats in a small food processor or a coffee grinder. Just be sure to rinse your coffee grinder before and after!
- Whisk dry ingredients together. Add all of the dry ingredients together (minus the brown sugar) and whisk them together until combined. Set aside for later.
- Cream the butter and sugar. Place the butter and sugar into a large bowl and mix for 3-5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Drizzle the maple syrup into the mixture and cream the maple into the sugar mixture.
- Add the egg. Crack the egg into the bowl and mix until just combined.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until combined and a cookie dough is formed.
- Refrigerate the cookie dough. Cover the cookie dough and refrigerate the cookie dough. This hydrates the flour in the dough and firms up the dough so they don’t spread on the cookie sheet. DON’T SKIP THIS STEP!
- Bake. Scoop the cookie dough onto the baking sheet and bake at 350ºF for 8-10 minutes.
Healthy Oatmeal Cookies FAQ
Yes, you can substitute a the large egg with a flax egg. Check out how to make a flax egg.
No, but you can make them gluten free by buy certified gluten free oats and using 1:1 gluten free flour instead of all purpose flour.
Keep these cookies in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, making sure they fully cool before storing.
Simply store in an air-tight container (large Ziplocs work great for this!), and write the date you made the cookies + the name of the cookies on the bag before placing in the freezer.
oatmeal cookie right now, remove a cookie from the freezer and place in the microwave for 1 minute on defrost, or until it’s chewy and delicious.
Yes, make the cookie dough as written in the recipe and the place it in a freezer safe container. Freeze for up to 3 months.
Healthy Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
Dry
- 1.25 cups rolled oats lightly pulverized (or quick-cooking oats)
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar packed
Wet
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Place oats into a food processor and blend for 15-20 seconds to lightly pulverize, shredding them into smaller pieces. If you're using quick cooking oats, omit this step.
- Add oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt to a bowl and mix well. Set aside.
- Using a standing mixer, cream butter and brown sugar together on medium/high speed until light and fluffy.
- Scrape the sides of the bowl and then turn the mixer on low speed and slowly add the maple syrup to the butter and sugar. Beat on medium/high until light and fluffy.
- Add egg and continue mixing. Scrape the sides of the bowl, add vanilla, and mix until light and fluffy.
- Slowly add dry ingredients (everything but the chocolate chips) to wet ingredients, 1/4 cup at a time, mixing on low. Last, fold in mini chocolate chips.
- Place the cookie dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to harden and to allow the flour in the cookie dough to hydrate.*
- Using a tablespoon cookie scoop, roll dough into ball and slightly flatten between your palms. Place on cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.
- Remove cookies from oven, let cool, and enjoy!
Tips & Notes
- This recipe was updated on January 6th, 2022. Click here for the old recipe.
- Refrigerating the dough: don't skip refrigerating the cookie dough or you will run the risk of the cookie dough being too thin and spreading when baking.
These came out amazing!! I don’t understand all the negative comments because these cookies came out perfect. Delicious flavor. Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. I did add a little bit of extra flour and oats because the dough looked a bit too wet at first.
I love the flavor of these cookies! They are soooo good. . My only issue (which for me personally isn’t an issue) is that they were crisp on the edges but really soft in the middle. I like my cookies like this, but I wasn’t sure if that’s how it was supposed to turn out. I got tricked up after beating in the egg. It said to only mix until combined, but it never looked…well, combined lol. Is that normal or did I not mix it long enough?
These were delicious but I may chill them longer next time. They still spread a lot. I’d try them again with a few alterations: less maple syrup, more oats and longer chill time? Like everyone has mentioned, they were pretty wet. But delicious, none the less! Worth tweaking!
Honestly not too bad if you just cook them longer.
Amazing!! Im glad I waited till my cookies were in the oven baking before reading these comments. I followed the receipt to a T and let them rest in fridge for 30 mins. The only thing I changed while making them was the size and I made each cookie 2 tablespoons. Made the cooking time over all around 15-20 mins but they came out big and fluffy!
Delicious! And hey… I like cookies that spread. And yes, they were still wet at 10 minutes. A couple more minutes in the oven gave me exactly what I like in a cookie… thin, crispy, yummy – but not too sweet.
Lots of complaints about this recipe… but my batch turned out perfect. It’s a little sweet for my liking, but there’s no reason that the outcome should’ve been anything different.
Happy to hear this, Maycee! We love how these cookies turn out when we make them too 😀
Cookies were great, we added an extra half cup of old fashion oats and an extra egg. Didn’t refrigerate the dough and they were perfect. Loved that they weren’t too sweet.
Happy to hear these tweaks worked for you, Sandra!
I really liked these and so did my kids and husband. Yes a bit wet and had to bake a few extra minutes but the taste is yummy. My only compmaint is they spread too thin. I might add in some extra oats and see if that makes a difderence. All that to say. The cookies themselves are good tasting.
These were yummy! I was worried when I read the reviews, but they turned out great. Perfect for my daughter’s lunches…”cookies” with a more reasonable amount of sugar. I did cook them for a few extra minutes, they still looked wet at the 10min mark.
What a great idea to send in your daughter’s lunches! So glad you enjoyed these cookies 😀
I’m really baffled? Truly? How was this recipe page not updated to reflect the reviews of the current iteration of the recipe. Like others recently, my dough was much too wet and slick and did not bake at all. I guess the oversight of a rating update was overshadowed by the need for page views which I guess the author got? Even though there were multiple individuals who have complaints without any recognition by the recipe author. My guess is that the flour amount was too low; .5 cups??? Yeah, huge pass.
Oh we’re so sorry to hear this, Alexis! Wondering if you refrigerated the dough before baking? We’ve found this to be crucial to hydrating the flour and preventing spreading during baking.
Me encantan las Cafeteras, hace poco tuve la mia averiada, se trataba de una distinguida marca las cafeteras SAECO, no hay lugar a duda que tuve que repararla dado que sin mi café no podía estar.
A diario la uso y me parece de lo mejor! el Café con galletas uf delicioso, les recomiendo también café con pan de leche, muy rico.
Si las cafeteras son de lo mejor
This was not good. I saw this and should of read the reviews before wasting my ingredients. I made them and had to throw them out Sorry for the bad review
Maybe you all should go back and look at this recipe and make sure the measurements are right cause there is NO WAY this is how this is supposed to come out T^T. I used to make the old version all the time and those were great. This was a horrible soggy mess and YES I followed it to the t. I was sure I was doing something wrong but I tried twice and same results. It definitely didn’t need revision so maybe go back to the old one
This was a terrible recipe. The last step, where you put the batter in the fridge, is not cookie like at all. It’s more like cake batter. There is zero chance I could have taken a spoonful and flattened with the palm of my hands. Gooey and weird. Waste of time and ingredients. I wish I’d read the reviews first instead of just looking at the stars. 👎👎
Huge miss. For starters, swapping out a bit of the sugar for maple syrup doesn’t really make these much “healthier”, whatever that even means when you’re making cookies (why are we trying to ‘healthify’ cookies anyways?). But I decided to try the recipe because the maple flavor sounded interesting and I was looking for something a little different. I don’t know there I went wrong, but these ended up being a sloppy mess. They spread out and basically turned into a giant cookie mess on the pan. I’ve reread the recipe a dozen times and can’t figure it out because I followed the recipe exactly. It seems like a half cup of syrup was just too much. Can’t say I’ll make these again. I’ll probably just go back to my regular “unhealthy” cookie recipe.
I loved the recipe, with a little change, they turned out delicious, crunchy, moist and just the right touch of sweetness. I reduced the brown sugar to a little less than half a cup, added a ripe mashed banana and some walnuts.
Thank you for this healthy cookies recipe, love baking them more than store bought.
Reducing the sugar and adding a ripe banana was an awesome suggestion. Everyone loved these!!!
Way too sweet and batter way too dry. I did no read reviews before cooking. Should’ve. How this has almost 5 star rating I don’t understand.
Los postres son siempre mejor si están acompañados con un buen café
Si! Delicioso!
These have a great flavour and the oatmeal texture was nice. I used 2/3 organic cane sugar and 1/3 coconut sugar. I chopped up some dark (70%) chocolate for the chips. The only criticism is that they didn’t flatten out.