These Hemp Heart Cookies with peanut butter are easy, soft, chewy cookies naturally sweetened with Medjool dates. It’s a healthy vegan protein cookie recipe 100% refined sugar-free and gluten-free.
What Are Hemp Seeds?
Hemp seeds are an amazing vegan protein source, full of healthy fatty acids and fiber. Hemp seeds are the seeds from the hemp plant, similar to cannabis but in a different variety.
They are safe to eat compared to hemp leaves as they don’t contain cannabidiol (CBD), the active compound of cannabis, so they are perfectly safe to eat, even for kids!
Hemp seeds are rich in important micronutrients like magnesium, calcium, zinc, and iron. Adding hemp seeds to your vegan diet is a great way to get a lot of vegan protein and important nutrients without taking any supplements.
Hemp hearts are relatively small and don’t have much texture compared to other seeds like chia seeds, which are very crunchy. Hemp seeds have a delicious nutty flavor that goes well with nut butter or dairy-free yogurt.
Apart from baking these hemp seed cookies, you can use hemp seeds in:
- Vegan smoothies or vegan protein shake – add up to 1/4 cup of seeds in the blender.
- Non-dairy yogurt – top up your yogurt with 1-2 tablespoons of seeds.
- On top of meals – top up your vegan pasta recipe with hemp seeds. It adds an amazing flavor and nutrients.
Ingredients and Substitutions
All you need to make these peanut butter hemp heart cookies are 6 wholesome ingredients:
- Oat Flour – I use homemade oat flour. Place rolled oats into the jug of your blender and blend on high speed for just 30 seconds to make homemade oat flour. You can also use almond flour for a grain-free paleo option.
- Medjool Dates – pitted, fresh for the best soft, chewy cookies. The quality and texture of your dates highly impact the cookie texture. I recommend using Medjool dates, not Deglet Noor dates or other varieties that are dry and not as soft.
- Peanut Butter – or any nut butter you love like almond butter or sunflower seed butter for a nut-free option.
- Vanilla Extract – for flavor.
- Hemp Seeds are also known as hemp hearts.
- Baking Powder or half the amount of baking soda. Why half? Because baking soda is twice as potent as baking powder, you need less of it!
How To Make Hemp Cookies
It’s very easy to make healthy hemp cookies using hemp seeds or hemp hearts. Here I am sharing a soft, chewy hemp cookie recipe naturally sweetened with Medjool dates.
To make this hemp cookie dough, you need a food processor.
- Add all the ingredients into the food processor, except the hemp seeds, or you will break them into a powder.
- Process it on the high-speed setting to form a sticky cookie dough.
- Then, add the 1/2 cup of hemp seeds and pulse quickly to just combined. The dough shouldn’t be sticky but easy to shape into balls. You can grease your hands with coconut oil to prevent the dough from sticking too much to your hands.
- Form small balls of cookie dough and place them on a lined baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Flatten down each ball into a cookie with your hands.
- Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 325°F (160°C) for 12 to 15 minutes. Your cookies are ready when the top is golden brown.
- They are still soft when out of the oven and firm up after they cool completely.
Add-Ons
This recipe is very versatile, and you can play with flavor by adding 1/3 cup of the ingredients below:
- Vegan chocolate chips
- Cranberries
- Desiccated coconut
Storage
These are egg-free, dairy-free cookies, and they don’t need to be refrigerated. You can store your cookies in a cookie jar at room temperature for up to 4 days or freeze them in a sealed container. They get softer with time, but their chewy texture enhances after a few days.
More Vegan Healthy Breakfast Recipes
If you love vegan breakfast cookies I have a few other recipes below for you to try:
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Hemp Seeds Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Medjool Dates - Soft, pitted
- ½ cup Peanut Butter (Unsalted)
- 1 ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- ½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- 2-4 tablespoons Almond Milk
- 1 cup Oat Flour - or almond flour
- ½ cup Hemp Seeds - also called hemp hearts
Optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 °F (160 °C). Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a food processor add soft, pitted Medjool dates, peanut butter, almond milk, oat flour, vanilla, and baking powder.
- Process until a dough-like texture forms—this takes a couple of minutes, and you will have to stop the food processor every 30 seconds, scrape down the side of the bowl, and repeat until the dough comes together. If the dough is too dry, add an extra tablespoon of almond milk and process again to combine. If it is too wet, add an extra tablespoon of oat flour.
- Add hemp seeds and pulse to combine into the cookie dough.
- Using your hands, form the mixture into 9 cookie dough balls and place them on the prepared cookie sheet. They won't expand in the oven and can be close to each other on the tray.
- Use your hand to press down each ball into a cookie. The thicker, the chewier and softer they get. Optional: press in a few chocolate chips on top before baking.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes at 325 °F (160 °C) in the center rack of the oven until golden brown.
- Let the cookies cool on the tray for 10 minutes, and then cool completely on a cooling rack.
- Store in a cookie jar for up to 4 days at room temperature or freeze in a sealed container.
Since there is sometimes a difference in size of dates, it isn’t clear if you are measuring a cup of dates whole or cut up. In that case it would make it more clear to give a count. I am attempting the recipe. If I measure 1 cup of dates it equals (6 DATES). So not cut up? Whole. I always buy Medjool. There are large sized and small. I get mine from Nuts.com. Excellent quality, BTW. Thank you.
I am using pitted whole medjool that I press and pack in the cup so it’s about 8 Medjool I would say
I’m so glad I found this recipe. These are my kids new favourite cookies, they even like them more than my unhealthy choc-chip cookies. Have made them every week for about a month now! They are also very versatile, I’ve also used normal flour and wholemeal flour when I didn’t have oats and they still turned out great.
Thank you!!
Just made a batch. They are chewy and peanut buttery and delicious. Every now and then there’s a bite with a piece of date that didn’t get pulverized in the food processor. YUM. I followed the recipe as it was written, although I used almond fIour. I made 16 cookies. Perfect size for us. Next time I will incorporate chocolate chips by hand into the dough before I form the cookies. Prefer that to placing the chips on the top of the cookies. This is a keeper.
Can I substitute the dates with date syrup? And how much date syrup should I use?
No, you can’t both doesn’t add the same texture to the cookies. Here it must be a dried fruits, like dried dates or figs.
Can you use hemp protein powder because I can’t eat anything with seeds? Thanks. Karen
That will be very different because the powder absorb liquid, while seeds don’t. I am not sure of the ratio because I didn’t try this option yet.
I love anything dates and these did not disappoint! Thanks for an awesome recipe! By the way, I got 15 cookies from the recipe. I guess yours must be huge 🙂
Thanks again!
I ended up buying Hemp Seeds instead of Hemp hearts or shelled Hemp Seeds – is there anything I could use these Seeds for?
Usually, the term is interchangeable and it’s basically the same thing. Hemp seed are normally not eaten because they are too hard, the heart refer to the center of the seed
Made these yesterday and my toddler loved them! I did too had to swap out peanut butter with pumpkin seed butter, and the almond milk with oat milk, so it could be nut free and safe for school. Turned out great!
Do you have to soak the dates first? Xx
If your dates are fresh and soft, no need to soak them. If they are quite dry though, you can soak them for 10 minutes in warm water.
I am ABSOLUTELY INLOOOVE with the possibility of switching to the metric measures. It took me a few recipes to notice that button, but hey, at least I did it :)) no more extra google search for each quantity :))