Description
Chocolate Chip Cookies are truly the most quintessential satisfying cookie that just saying the name makes you smile, and these perfectly soft, ultra-thick, amazingly delicious Healthy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies are all that and more! Warm gooey melty chocolate chips are nestled inside a soft, chewy cookie that is sure to knock your socks off. Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups almond flour, lightly packed *
- ½ cup rolled oats, chopped (not instant oats)
- ¼ cup brown rice flour *
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 Tablespoon flax meal (ground flaxseed)
- 4 Medjool dates *
- ½ cup maple sugar *
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
- 1/3 cup unsweetened almond butter, softened *
- 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 Tablespoon molasses
- ½ teaspoon sea salt *
- 1 cup vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place oven rack in the upper-center position if using 1 cookie sheet, or place the oven racks towards the middle if using 2 cookie sheets, avoiding the lower oven rack placement.
- Line one (or two) baking sheets with a silicone mat or parchment paper. We used silicone pads.
- Place the oats in a food processor and process just to break up the oats, about 20 seconds. Then add to a medium sized bowl. Add all the other dry ingredients (almond flour, rice flour, sea salt, baking soda, baking powder, flax meal, maple sugar) to the bowl with the oats, and whisk to combine.
- Place the Medjool dates, softened almond butter, molasses, and vanilla into the food processor and process until everything is combined. Then add it to the dry ingredients, use your hands to evenly distribute the wet mixture throughout the dry mixture. It will look like sawdust, that is OK.
- Add the applesauce to the dry ingredients, stir well to combine. You will feel like it won’t come together, but it will, just keep mixing the dough, then the dough should be a sticky lump.
- Add the chocolate chips (see notes if using Mega Chunks), stir to mix in.
- Take a golf balled-sized piece of cookie dough and roll it in your hands to form a ball, then place the ball onto the parchment paper/silicone mat lined cookie sheet. Try to keep the cookie size uniform. Continue until you have rolled all the dough into balls, and placed the dough balls on the baking sheet(s). See notes about cookie dough tips.
- After the 2nd round of cookie ball rolling, then slightly flattened each ball to form a thick disk. Firm up the edges (if needed) to keep a cohesive well-formed disk. The cookies only spread a little bit while baking.
- Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 12 minutes, rotating the cookie sheets from bottom to top racks and vice-versa half-way through if using two cookie sheets. If using one large (14 x 20) cookie sheet, just use the center rack and there is no need to move the cookies around the oven.
- After 12 minutes, remove from the oven, allow the cookies to sit on the baking sheet(s) undisturbed for 4 minutes to firm up, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.
- Enjoy warm, soooo delicious!
Notes
*Medjool dates and Maple Sugar: We get tons of questions about sweetener substitutions. We totally get it. Some folks want to use all Medjool dates, while others want to use all maple syrup. We’ve tried these cookies using all Medjool dates, they turned out gummy. We also tried using all maple syrup, they just didn’t hold up. Honestly, the best sweetener for this cookie recipe is the combination of Medjool dates and maple sugar. Additionally, using date sugar is not recommended either as it just doesn’t have the same flavor and texture needed for this recipe. ***We also get a lot of questions about using coconut sugar, if your diet permits, you can substitute coconut sugar for the maple sugar. However, we have not tested with coconut sugar; many of our readers have let us know that coconut sugar works well as a substitute for maple sugar.
*Mega Chocolate Chunks: We love the Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Mega Chocolate Chunks, the issue we have with them is that they can be challenging when making chocolate chip cookies simply because the mega chunks are not uniform in size. They have some really long pieces, so we lay out the one cup measurement of mega chunks out on our chopping board and chop in half the really big ones to make it easier to roll the cookies.
*Cookie Dough Tips for Success: The cookie dough is sticky, but it should form a ball easily. Tip: The more round and smooth you make the cookie ball, the better cookie texture results. What we have found works well and creates a great cookie is the following: We create all the cookie balls, washing our hands between every 5 to 6 balls until we have created all the cookie balls. Then we wash our hands again and with slightly dampened hands, pick up each cookie ball and roll it again in our hands to create a very smooth round ball. The 2ndround of rolling is not required, but it does make a really nice cookie shape. Then slightly flatten each ball to form a thick disk, understanding that the shape that you just formed will be very close to the cookie size and shape that comes out of the oven.
*Almond Flour/Brown Rice Flour: We designed these cookies specifically to use almond flour and brown rice flour. We do not have any substitutions to offer.
*Almond Butter: Bring the almond butter to room temperature to soften. Do not melt in the microwave. Additionally, we do not have any substitutions for the almond butter as this recipe was specifically designed to use almond butter.
*Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
*Serving: Makes approximately 17 to 20 cookies.
*Storage: Use within 5 days. Freezes well.