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.
I’m trying to decide whether to make your Healthy Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies or Healthier Flourless Monster Cookies. I notice the Oatmeal do not call for coconut oil or as much oatmeal. Do you think either would help hold them together? Thanks!
These healthy oatmeal breakfast cookies are definitely the more popular one on my site 🙂 I think they hold together great without coconut oil!
Made these just as written and they were a huge party hit. Lots of requests for your recipe!
So happy to hear that!! Thanks so much for the comment Rachel 🙂
Have made these twice so far in the past two weeks. First time I had a mental blip while measuring the chocolate chips and actually doubled the amount of chocolate + butterscotch chips to 1 cup total instead of 1/2. Also had only dark brown sugar to use.
They still came out delicious if not a little more crumbly.
Today I made them again and split the batch. One with 1/4 cup chocolate/butterscotch blend and the other 1/4 dark chocolate chips and then topped the latter with sea salt.
Definitely must smush these flat on the cookie tray as they don’t flatten much and must let these cool before trying to eat!
At almost 175 calories a cookie (by my calculations), I’m not sure they are worth two normal chocolate chip cookies, but wife and kids liked these a lot, I might try one batch with only additional honey (no unrefined sugars) to see how they come out.
Question- is the recipe 1/2 cup total chips or a half cup each PB and chocolate. I made with 1/2 cup total and mine are delicious but there are no chips showing like in your picture. Thanks !
Hi Darlene; if desired you can add a few extra chips (or reserve a few from the total) to add to the tops of the cookies after they’ve been baked! It’s 1/2 cup total.
I could see this being a really good recipe for someone who was gluten-free or couldn’t have butter, but after trying it I think I’d rather just make regular oatmeal cookies and reduce the sugar/sub in whole wheat flour. It’s not necessarily “healthy” – just lacks flour. I put the ingredients in a nutrition calculator and did not see any major, healthy differences between this and a more conventional cookie. It just has a health halo because it doesn’t have wheat flour. That said, it was tasty and if I didn’t have the option of eating wheat flour, I’d make these again.
Thanks for your feedback Dee 🙂
Making these for the second time this week. I made them vegan, substituting maple syrup for honey, and 3 tablespoons of roasted sweet potato purée for the eggs. I also used extra dark chocolate chips. OMG- they are delicious. I am neither vegan nor gluten-free, but wanted to make some for a friend who is. She loved them, and now bringing them to a cookie exchange in California where lots of people are gluten free, dairy free, vegan, etc. Thank you for this recipe. I never comment on blog recipes, but wanted to let others know this works for vegans with tweaks, and it’s AMAZING!! I can’t believe it’s healthy, and so quick to make! This recipe is a keeper.
LOVE hearing this!! Thanks for the comment and review Robin 🙂
Can I use quick oats instead of rolled?
Unfortunately not for these cookies!
I made these cookies this morning for my 3 sons under 4. I thought the sugar content was a little high so I used natural peanut butter and didn’t add the brown sugar at all. I replaced the chocolate chips with chopped dates. They were perfect. Just sweet enough for breakfast.
So happy to hear that!! Love that you used dates 🙂 Thanks for the comment Kristen!
I made these last week and loved them. I didn’t follow the tips so they were crumbly. Trying them again now with natural peanut butter and will follow your tips to avoid crumble. Any other great recipes of yours i should try?
Thank you for the recipe, these are divine! I made them with natural peanut butter and as I do not have cookie scoop, I just used my hands. They are not crumbly yet and when eaten few mintes after being out of the oven (I could not resist), they were amazingly chewy. Thank you, these are really delicious! 🙂
Are you serious here? I think I’ve died and gone to heaven!!