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.
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Hemp Seeds Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Medjool Dates - Soft, pitted, 5.3 oz. weighted pitted (note 1)
- ½ cup Peanut Butter (Unsalted) - (note 2)
- 1 ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- ½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- 6 tablespoons Almond Milk - (note 3)
- 1 cup Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats - (note 4)
- ⅔ cup Hemp Seeds - (note 5)
Optional
- 3 tablespoons Dark Chocolate Chips - (note 6)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside
- In a food processor, add soft, pitted Medjool dates, peanut butter, almond milk, and vanilla extract. Blend on medium-high speed until it forms a soft, sticky date paste.
- Add oats, hemp seeds, and baking powder.
- Process again 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.
- Using lightly oiled hands, grab 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough, form the mixture into 9 cookie dough balls, and place them on the prepared cookie sheet. They won't expand in the oven. The shape you give now is what you get at the end.
- Use the palm of your hand to press down each ball into a cookie. The thicker, the more moist, and softer they stay in the center. Optional: press a few chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate on top before baking.
- Bake the cookies for 18-22 minutes at 350°F (180°C) in the center rack of the oven until golden brown on the sides.
- Let the cookies cool on the tray for 10 minutes, and then cool completely on a cooling rack.
Notes
Nutrition
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.
More Vegan Healthy Breakfast Recipes
If you love vegan breakfast cookies I have a few other recipes below for you to try:
Hi I made your banana choc chip muffins many times now. But I’d like to know what I can sub in for bananas bc some family members don’t like them but like the muffin thank thank you so much for having this website. I love it!!
Usually applesauce work well as a substitute, in same amount. Thank you so so much for baking my recipes!
I heard if you heat /bake hemp seeds it looses it’s nutrition. So in this cookie not going to get all the benefit that hemp seeds offer. Please clarify so I can try making it. It surely sound delicious but just concerned nutrition. Thank you
No, heating hemp seeds does not significantly remove their protein content; in fact, studies show that heating can sometimes improve the digestibility of hempseed proteins by promoting unfolding and the formation of soluble aggregates, although it can also lead to protein denaturation and alter functional properties
Thank you for the wonderful recipe. Can we substitute peanut butter with chocolate peanut butter?
Probably, but it will impact the cookie texture since chocolate peanut butter will probably have added oil, sugar and cocoa.
I just made these. I added about three dark chocolate chips on top and while they’re a little crumbly, they turned out terrific. I’d like to try almond butter next time instead of peanut butter.
Thank you!
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!