Gluten-free Healthy Breakfast Cookies made with peanut butter and old-fashioned oats. There is no flour, no butter, and no oil in these cookies which can be ready in about 20 minutes!
Cookies you can eat for breakfast!
Besides this Egg Skillet (or this Egg Wrap), I tend to love sweet instead of savory breakfasts. Gimme all the crepes, pancakes, or bread pudding and I’ll be happy as a clam (with a blissful sugar coma).
So naturally, if there is an excuse to eat cookies for breakfast, you know I’m all over that! And while these cookies do have a bit of sugar in them, they’re mainly made with good ingredients — honey, peanut butter, an egg, and old-fashioned oats. I mean, depending on how much sugar you add to your bowl of oatmeal, it may even have more sugar than these cookies 🙂 Or is that just me?…
Quick Tip
These Healthy Breakfast cookies are certainly not limited to breakfast; they make a great snack or afternoon pick-me-up.
Breakfast Cookies tips
Breakfast Cookies tips- Use a one-tablespoon measuring spoon to measure equal balls of dough so cookies bake evenly.
- Slightly flatten the dough balls: These cookies don’t spread much when baking so roll the dough balls wider instead of taller.
- Make sure to use creamy–not crunchy–peanut butter for best results. I recommend using a peanut butter that you love. If you like a spoonful of the peanut butter plain, you’ll love it in these healthy breakfast cookies.
- Do not over-bake: These cookies don’t take a whole lot of baking time and will go from perfectly cooked to burned quickly. These cookies continue to firm up after being baked as they sit and cool. You’ll know the cookies are done if they don’t look gooey, wet, or shiny on top at the end of the bake time.
Breakfast Cookies Variation ideas
- The chocolate and peanut butter chips do make these more of a dessert, so to make them healthier, try dark chocolate chips. Dark chocolate has lots of healthy fats and antioxidants among other benefits.
- Instead of adding chocolate chips, try raisins, dried cranberries, dried tart cherries, or nuts instead.
- Add a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt flakes to the tops of these cookies if you’re craving a salty-sweet treat.
More healthy baked goods:
- Healthy Pumpkin Cookies no refined sugar, no flour, butter, or oil
- Healthy Banana Muffins naturally sweetened
- No Bake Granola Bars with a chocolate drizzle
- Healthy No Bake Cookies with dark chocolate
- Healthy Applesauce Muffins made with Greek yogurt
Healthy Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter*
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 4 tablespoons light brown sugar lightly packed
- 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons old-fashioned oats
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup peanut butter chips + chocolate chips Nestle has this combo
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a medium-sized bowl stir together the peanut butter, honey, and brown sugar. Do NOT warm up the peanut butter or the honey.
- Add in the oats, salt, baking soda, and vanilla extract. Stir well.
- In a separate bowl lightly beat the egg and then add it to the mixture.
- Stir in desired add-ins (I used a peanut butter and chocolate chip mixture), but you can use dark chocolate chips, raisins, craisins, peanuts, etc. to make these even healthier and more breakfast worthy.
- The mixture will be thick and hard to stir. Continue stirring until combined and then use a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon to measure balls of dough. Press and squeeze the dough tightly together into a ball and then flatten the ball to form a disc.
- Place the cookie dough discs onto a cookie sheet and bake for 6-8 minutes.
- Watch the cookies closely and remove when the bottom barely starts to brown even if they don't look completely done (they cook more as they cool). I burned a few cookies by not watching them - they look underdone and 30-60 seconds later they are burned! (TIP: I also found cooking smaller batches - like 6 on a tray worked the best)
- Remove and allow to cool completely.
Video
Recipe Notes
Gluten-free: For a gluten-free version, make sure oats are certified gluten free.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
These are AMAZING! Thank you for sharing. I used all natural PB and maple syrup in place of brown sugar (only by I didn’t have any) and they are chewy delicious perfection!
So happy you enjoyed them!! Thank you for the comment 🙂
Hi there! Just tried the recipe this morning and these were a big hit! My husband started a new workout regime but has a HUGE sweet tooth, so he loved this substitute for regular cookies! Can’t wait to try it with different variations of add-in next time!
Wahoo!! Thrilled these were a big hit! 🙂
Will definitely be trying these! Any idea how they’d do in the freezer? 🙂
I think they’d do just fine being frozen 🙂
any idea how many carbs…daughter has diabetes 1 but we are no insulin to carbs just 24 hr slow release and almost off that…she does really well with 1 inch peanut butter balls. about 11 carbs per ball. Any idea how many carbs in these cookies?
So sorry Sue, I don’t know the carbs on this recipe. I’d recommend an online counter to get that information.
Do you think using raw honey would change the outcome of the cookies at all?
I haven’t tried raw honey in these, but I don’t see why the outcome would be changed at all!
I made these and they turned out better than I expected! An absolute hit. Thanks
I’m so happy these were a hit! Thanks for the comment Bridgett 🙂
Has anyone made this recipe using oat bran? Any thoughts ?
Wanted to let your readers know that I made these last night with Sunbutter in lieu of the peanut butter and maple syrup in lieu of the brown sugar since we have a mixed bag of allergies in our house. I also used 65% dark chocolate chips. My daughter who loves anything with chocolate, not shockingly – loved these. My baby, who I can’t get to eat anything at all, scarfed down two. My son wouldn’t try them because of the soft texture when I took them out. But the rest of us loved them and the swaps worked out beautifully.
Only caveat is that the sunbutter turns a greenish color after they cool. My daughter will think I tried to sneak spinach in so I’ll have to convince her I didn’t! Lol:) Thanks for a great recipe!
So great to hear these were a hit! And thanks so much for sharing about substituting Sunbutter and maple syrup — I had no idea sunbutter would change the color — how crazy! 🙂
Amazing! Added chia and flax seeds and dark chocolate chips instead of peanut butter chips. All the kids and adults loved them. Thanks so much for sharing ?
I’m so thrilled to hear these were a hit! 🙂 And I love your additions 🙂 Thanks for the comment Jill!
These cookies are AMAZING! I wanted a healthy cookie that could be a breakfast substitute for the family – adults & toddler – to be had on the go…and these were IT. Everyone loved it and had happy seconds. I had only crunchy peanut butter in the pantry and they gave the cookies a lovely texture. Thank you for this – another batch in the oven now 🙂
I’m so thrilled to hear these were a huge hit!! Thank you Hazel! 🙂