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:
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 :))
If using date syrup instead of dates, how much would you use?
I am not sure, I didn’t try at all so I can’t recommend
Can you swap the almond Milk for coconut?
sure
I don’t have a food processor. Would working the dough with my hands work?
Thank you.
You need a food processor to pulse the dates into a paste, so I don’t think it will work by hand unfortunately
They came out really good ! I did not put any baking soda or Powder. They were still great !! Yum Yum. Thanks.