Description

These healthy peanut butter oatmeal cookies are easy, fun and delicious. If you enjoy this recipe, please leave a star rating and comment below to share with other readers in our community.

Ingredients

Units Scale

1 cup thick peanut butter (preferably no-sugar & no-salt-added); runny peanut butter will not work
1 egg (or substitute a flax egg if desired)
2/3 cup real maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (omit if your peanut butter contains salt)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup whole rolled oats (plus a few tablespoons more if needed, see recipe note); use 3/4 cup whole rolled oats for a thicker cookie

Optional:

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
optional garnish after baking: flakey sea salt to sprinkle on top

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F and position one of the baking racks in the middle of the oven.
In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients together mix until well combined. I use a hand mixer for about 60 seconds to make quick work of it, but if you don’t have a hand mixer, you can also mix it all together with a large wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Test your dough*
On a parchment-lined baking sheet for easy cleanup, spoon 2 tablespoons of cookie dough onto the baking sheet for each cookie.
Bake for 10-14 minutes until the cookies are set in the middle and the bottom is light golden brown. They should not brown too much around the edges as the bottoms will become too brown. The cookies will continue to set for a few minutes after you pull them out of the oven. I bake mine for exactly 10-12 minutes (I’m at sea level) and they turn out perfect. Ovens vary, so check them at 10 minutes and let them bake up to 14-15 minutes if needed.
Let cook on the baking sheet for 5 minutes (check the bottom, if they are turning darker brown move them to a cutting board or cooling rack. Enjoy or store at room temperature, covered, up to 3 days. These cookies freeze well.

*To Test your dough: The dough will be sticky, but the raw cookies should stay held together when placed on the parchment. If your test cookie spreads flat and does not stay together, your peanut butter may have not been thick enough. Remedy this by adding more whole rolled oats, 2 tablespoons at a time, until the cookies hold together. 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup extra whole rolled oats should remedy this.

Optional: Sprinkle with flaky sea salt while they’re still hot out of the oven for extra flavor.

Notes

Choosing Your Peanut Butter (or Substituting):

Thick peanut butter works best here; I used Justin’s brand. Avoid drippy peanut butter for the best texture. Both smooth or crunchy peanut butter work. Or, you can substitute almond butter or sun butter (sunflower seed butter) one-for-one in this recipe if that suits your needs better.

Sweeter Option

You can increase the amount of maple syrup to 3/4 cup to 1 cup a sweeter cookie; add an extra 1/4 cup whole rolled oats if you do to ensure the dough is thick enough.

Egg (or Egg Substitute)

I use an egg here to bind these cookies together. If you avoid eggs, you can easily substitute it with a flax egg by combining 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds with 3 tablespoons tepid water. Let it sit for 15-30 minutes (up to 2 hours) and the flax will become thick and gel-like. The cookies will be a little more crumbly with a flax egg instead of a regular egg, but still delicious. This also makes the cookies vegan for those who prefer it.