Healthy Chocolate Cookies with no butter, white sugar, oil, or flour! These cookies are thick, chewy, and filled with good-for-you ingredients.
Try some of our other wholesome recipes: Healthy Sugar Cookies, Healthy No-Bake Cookies, or Healthy Pumpkin Bread.
We make a lot of cookies at my house, and while I wish I could feel great after eating the entire batch of these Caramel Snickerdoodles…it doesn’t usually work that way.
So, here are some healthy cookies for the win! These Healthy Chocolate Cookies are made with natural ingredients and are naturally sweetened. They’ve also got peanut butter in them which has lots of protein and healthy fats, making these cookies more substantial and more filling than most.
Healthy Chocolate Cookie ingredients
- Peanut butter: This forms the base of these cookies and is integral to the texture and flavor.
- Coconut sugar: If you aren’t familiar with coconut sugar, you can read up on it here. Essentially, it is a natural palm sugar produced from the stem of a coconut palm. I don’t find it makes these cookies taste at all coconutty, but if you’re super sensitive to the flavor of coconut you may be able to notice it. Light brown sugar can be used instead but does make these cookies less healthy.
- Vanilla extract: Just a dash provides so much flavor enhancement.
- Dutch-process cocoa powder: Make sure to get Dutch-process instead of natural or plain cocoa powder. The Dutch process offers a much more robust and intense chocolate flavor. Regular cocoa powder will make these cookies dry and less flavorful. Here’s the exact cocoa powder I use (and highly recommend).
- Egg: The egg binds all the ingredients together and also contributes some extra protein to these cookies.
- Salt and baking soda: These important baking agents add flavor and texture.
- Dark chocolate chips: While any type of chocolate chips will work in these cookies, dark chocolate chips have more health benefits and offer antioxidants.
Quick Tip
What’s the big deal with Dutch-process cocoa? Here’s a great article explaining it, but the tl:dr version is this: Dutch-process cocoa is washed with an agent that reduces the alkalinity. This mellower coocoa is darker than standard cocoa powder. But because the alkalinity is reduced, Dutch-process cocoa reacts differently with leavening agents like baking soda. Many recipes using Dutch-process cocoa call for baking powder instead of baking soda. Because of this, natural cocoa and Dutch process aren’t interchangeable.
How to make Healthy Chocolate Cookies
The descriptions below correlate with the photo collage above this text.
- Add peanut butter, coconut sugar, and vanilla to a large bowl. Mix until smooth and creamy.
- Stir together cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda in a separate bowl.
- Combine the wet and dry ingredients. Mix until combined.
- Add in the egg and stir until combined.
- Add in the chocolate chips.
- Stir until combined.
- Using a tablespoon, measure cookie dough balls, roll them, flatten, and bake.
- Add a few chocolate chips on top of the finished cookies and a sprinkle of sea salt if desired.
Baking tips
- Flatten the cookies before baking. These cookies don’t spread much, so press them down a bit before baking.
- Watch bake time carefully. Healthy Chocolate Cookies go from perfectly cooked to burnt very quickly so watch carefully. They’re a bit gooey and crumbly right out of the oven, but they firm up quickly as they cool.
More cookie recipes
- Healthy Oatmeal Cookies with chocolate chips
- Shortbread Cookies with a chocolate drizzle
- Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- M&M Cookies
Healthy Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2/3 cup coconut sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (Note 1)
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, plus extra for topping
- Optional: Maldon sea salt flakes
Instructions
- PREP: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper or a nonstick liner.
- WET INGREDIENTS: In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the 1 cup peanut butter, 2/3 cup coconut sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Don't heat the peanut butter at all, even if it's a little stiff and hard to work with. Beat together with a hand mixer until smooth.
- DRY INGREDIENTS: In a separate bowl, combine the 1/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Stir to combine.
- COMBINE: Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Add in the egg, beat until just combined. Stir in the 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips.
- FORM COOKIE DOUGH BALLS: Use a tablespoon measuring spoon to measure exact amounts of dough. Roll the tablespoon of dough into a ball and flatten slightly with your hands. Press 3-4 chocolate chips into the tops of the cookie dough balls.
- BAKE: Bake for 6-8 minutes. Watch them carefully because they go from perfectly baked to burned very quickly (because of the coconut sugar). If desired, add a few more chocolate chips on top, let melt slightly from residual heat, and then add on a sprinkle of sea salt.
- COOL: These cookies are crumbly while they are hot. Let them cool completely to firm up and harden (or enjoy some deliciously hot, but crumbly cookies right out of the oven). Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Cookies are best eaten within 2-3 days.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
my other thought is if you did NOT change it, I also make your healthy oatmeal peanut butter cookies, and I wonder if I just ‘combined’ the recipes and used the brown sugar amount listed from that recipe. ? Either way, they are delicious with brown sugar lol.
No you are right!! I wanted to re-do the pictures for fun and somehow in my editing my post got deleted 🙁 I experimented with the recipe and did change up a few ingredients because I couldn’t remember my exact combo and wasn’t happy with what I was making 🙁 Huge bummer and I’m so sorry to you!! It was SUPER similar to my healthy oatmeal peanut butter cookies, so I started there. In the original recipe I believe there was brown sugar and honey in replacement for the coconut sugar. Your comment helps if there was 3-4 tablespoons brown sugar maybe 1 or 2 tablespoons of honey. So that is what would replace the coconut sugar. So sorry for the disappointment of a recipe change!! 🙁 I do save all of my recipes but unfortunately they are in a storage unit right now while I’m in Australia. I know it’s a while a way but I will definitely update this post with both recipes when I get back to the states!
no worries at all. Thank you so much for the insight and getting back to me so quicly! I think you are correct in that it also had honey. I tried making them with just the brown sugar, they were still yummy but just missing ‘something’, and were a not quite as sweet as the other times I made them. I can only get coconut sugar at Whole Foods around here, and the nearest one is 40 minutes away, so we don’t make it there more than once a month. But next time I go I will surely give that version a try as well! I’m glad i wasn’t just losing my mind though! 🙂 Anyways like I said, everything we have made of yours is absolutely delicious. So glad I stumbled upon your site.
Hi!!! I have been following and making a lot of your recipes over the last few months, these included. Did you recently change this recipe?? I made these as recent as last week(or possibly the week before), and I swear I have never seen the recipe say to use coconut sugar before. I have them all bookmarked and went to make these tonight and was totally thrown off! I can’t remember the recipe by heart, but did it used to be 3-4 tablespoons of brown sugar? I do not have coconut sugar, and was making these to add to my kids lunches. Just want to make sure I am getting it right from what the recipe was previously. Thanks! (btw these and everything else are delicious!)
I am making these! So question, no flour of any kind? Not even oats? Just want to make sure. Thanks!
Awesome!! I hope you love them Rachael!! And yes no flour of any kind 🙂
am a weight watcher and wonder how many cookies can you have a breakfast. Thank You MaryAnn
I am a weight watcher and wonder how many cookies you can have at breakfast. Thank you MaryAnn HGooglearloff
Hi Mary! Each cookie is 3.5 WW points.
Has anyone figured out the nutritional info for these cookies?
Just made these and they are DELICIOUS!! I would never have guessed that they are flour-free
Yay!! So happy you liked them! Thanks for taking the time to leave a review 🙂
Just made these with my two grand girls ! They loved baking them and eating them was even better. Absolutely delicious !! Trying the strawberry pancake cups next.
Yes, thanks for reminding me to publish the winner on the code! Tim Stark was the winner. Thanks so much for participating 🙂
Oh so glad to hear that! Thanks for the comment Jacki 🙂 And I hope you love the pancake cups 🙂
YUM! These look delicious!! Thanks for sharing the recipe. Hopped over from Inside BluCrew.
Cookies for breakfast is my kind of meal, especially double chocolate! Pinning and making soon:)