These Coconut Flour Oatmeal Cookies are easy healthy gluten-free oatmeal cookies made from coconut flour and oats. They are packed with fiber, nutrients, and flavors and are a delicious healthy breakfast cookie recipe.
I love oatmeal cookies as a quick breakfast on the go. But I only shared one vegan gluten-free oatmeal cookie. That’s why I am very excited about this new, gluten-free breakfast cookies using coconut flour. Coconut flour is a healthy, low-carb, gluten-free flour packed with fiber.
However, it can be tricky to bake with it on its own because it absorbs liquid so much that it often leads to dry and crumbly cookies.
What Are Coconut Oatmeal Cookies?
They are healthy gluten-free oatmeal cookies packed with fiber and a soft, moist center. They are egg-free, dairy-free, and vegan-friendly. In this coconut flour oatmeal cookies, I am using a combo of nut butters, ground flaxseeds, and applesauce to keep the cookies soft and crispy.
Since we don’t use any crystal sweeteners like coconut sugar or brown sugar, these won’t be chewy oatmeal cookies. They are soft and moist with crispy edges of oatmeal cookies.
Ingredients and Substitutions
All you need to start this oatmeal cookie recipe are:
- Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats – pick a gluten-free version if you need.
- Coconut Flour – Don’t over-pack the measuring cup, simply scoop and sweep the top. Coconut flour is very high in fiber, and if you over-pack the measuring cup, you easily get too much of it, resulting in dry, crumbly cookies.
- Ground Flaxseeds – This helps the ingredients bind together and also adds fiber and healthy omega fatty acids to the cookies.
- Unsweetened Applesauce, mashed bananas, or pumpkin puree.
- Maple Syrup – Or other natural sweetener like coconut nectar or agave syrup.
- Baking Powder – to make them a bit more airy.
- Peanut Butter or almond butter
- Melted Coconut Oil – to make the batter stick.
- Unsweetened Almond Milk, oat milk, or soy milk. I recommend microwaving the milk for 20 seconds. Using lukewarm milk helps the ingredients come together easier.
- Vanilla Extract – for flavor.
How To Make Coconut Flour Oatmeal Cookies
These cookies are very easy to make, they need a little bit more patience than my usual recipe though. This is because coconut flour is high in fiber, and therefore, you need to:
- Measure coconut flour with precision.
- Set aside the cookie batter to give the fiber time to absorb the liquid ingredients.
- First, in a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients except the chocolate chips.
- Add the rolled oats, coconut flour, baking powder, salt, and flax meal. Stir all the ingredients together until evenly combined.
- Pour your non-dairy milk of choice, peanut butter, maple syrup, apple sauce, vanilla extract, and melted coconut oil.
- Stir all the ingredients together with a silicone spatula. Fold in the dark chocolate chips or dried raisins at the end. Evenly distribute the chips in the cookie batter. The batter is very moist and that’s normal.
- Set the bowl aside at room temperature for 10 minutes. This gives the fiber in the flax meal and coconut flour time to absorb the liquid and bring the batter together.
- Meanwhile, line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Slightly oil the paper with coconut oil or cooking oil spray. Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Use an ice cream scoop to scoop out some batter and pack it firmly into it. Then, release the cookie dough on the prepared baking sheet, leaving a thumb space between each cookie. The cookies won’t spread while baking. Use the palm of your hand to press and slightly flatten the cookie dough balls.
- Bake the cookies on the center rack of the oven at 350°F (180°C) for 15 to 18 minutes until the edges are golden brown.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies cool down on the sheet for 15 minutes. Don’t touch them, they are still soft, and they need to firm up on the baking sheet at room temperature.
- Slide a spatula under each cookie and transfer them to a wire rack for 1 hour.
Flavor Variations
You can create many flavors using these oatmeal cookies with coconut flour. For example, try some of the variations below:
- Coconut Oatmeal Cookies – Replace the chocolate chips for shredded coconut and dried cranberries.
- Raisins Oatmeal Cookies – Swap the chocolate chips for dry raisins and add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
- Nut Oatmeal Cookies – Swap the chocolate chips for chopped walnuts, pecans, or almonds.
- Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies – Swap applesauce for pumpkin puree. Add one teaspoon of pumpkin spice, and use dried raisins and chopped pecans instead of chocolate chips.
Allergy Swaps
Below I listed some options to replace some of the ingredients in this recipe if you need:
- Peanut-Free – Replace the peanut butter with almond butter or cashew butter. Make sure you use a fresh, drippy jar of nut butter, or the cookies come out dry.
- Nut-Free – Use sunflower seed butter instead of peanut butter. Then, swap the almond milk for soy milk or oat milk.
- Gluten-Free – Some brands tag their oats are naturally gluten-free, use this option if needed. Coconut flour is gluten-free.
- Coconut Flour Swap – You can swap coconut flour for 3/4 cup of almond flour, but the cookies are much more fragile.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are my answers to your most favorite questions.
Coconut flour is a high-fiber, high-fat and high-protein flour. With 14 times more fiber than all-purpose flour – 38 grams of fiber per 100 grams compared to 2.7 grams per 100 grams for wheat flour – coconut flour is ultra-liquid absorbent.
It means it dries out a cookie batter quickly if the amount of liquid added to the recipe is too low.
It’s also higher in fat and lower in starch, so it doesn’t bind ingredients together, leaving a crumbly cookie batter.
That’s why coconut flour in cookies need a binder. It’s often an egg, but for a plant-based recipe, we use nut butter, flax meal, or applesauce.
Not with the same ratio. Oat flour contains 4 times less fiber than coconut flour and less fat.
As a result, you will need way less coconut flour – probably 4 times more, and some sort of binder to old the batter together.
This happens if you add too much coconut flour or not enough liquid to bind the fiber from the coconut flour.
Also, coconut flour cookies must cool down on a warm baking sheet before being moved. These give them time to firm up before cooling down on a rack.
More Oatmeal Cookies
If you like cookies made with oats, you’ll love these other recipes:
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Coconut Flour Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cup Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats
- 2 tablespoons Flaxmeal
- ⅓ cup Coconut Flour
- ⅓ cup Maple Syrup
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 2 tablespoons Peanut Butter
- ¼ cup Unsweetened Applesauce
- 2 tablespoons Melted Coconut Oil
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- ½ cup Almond Milk
- ⅓ cup Dairy-Free Dark Chocolate Chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and lightly oil with oil spray.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir all the dry ingredients: rolled oats, coconut flour, flaxmeal, baking powder, and salt.
- Add melted coconut oil, applesauce, maple syrup, peanut butter, vanilla extract, and almond milk.
- Stir with a wooden spoon until all ingredients come together into a wet cookie dough. Set it aside for 10 minutes.
- Fold in the chocolate chips and stir to incorporate evenly.
- Scoop out the cookie batter with a small ice cream scoop (about 50g), roll into a ball between lightly oiled hands, and place on the prepared baking sheet.
- Repeat until you form 12 cookies. Use the back of a fork to gently and lightly press each cookie.
- Bake the cookies at 350°F (180°C) for 15 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.
- Cool down on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Love this recipe!! I made it in the fall ( I was feeling very fall festive) so I added some cinnamon and chopped apple. Delicious! Very easy and quick to make. Great for a quick breakfast tgat tastes like dessert. Thank you for the healthy recipe!!
Thank you!
Love these cookies! Love all your cookies I’ve tried!