No-Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookies are the perfect on-the-go breakfast or snack! They’re quick to make, require simple everyday ingredients, and are so tasty! Add an optional drizzle of chocolate on top and you’ll be heaven with these Breakfast Cookies!
Love breakfast cookies? Us too! Try our chocolate version next — these Chocolate-Peanut Butter Breakfast Cookies, these Protein Breakfast Cookies, or these baked Healthy Breakfast Cookies.
No-Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookies
We love varying up fun breakfast options around these parts and cookies for breakfast is nothing I’ll ever turn down! No-Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookies are also a great on-the-go option, perfect for taking on a camping or back-packing trip and make a great afternoon pick-me-up snack.
I’ve tried to keep the recipe list and short and as simple as possible while relying on pantry staples — no stops at specialty stores needed.
These cookies are crunchy, chewy, sweet, and nutty. Pair the peanut butter base with a chocolate topping and it’s a match made in heaven!
No-Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookie Ingredients
- Creamy peanut butter adds flavor and nutrition, plus ensures the cookies are filling and satiating. As far as nut butter goes, I recommend using one you enjoy eating straight from the jar. We love using slow-roasted and lightly salted peanut butter with loads of flavor.
- Honey sweetens these cookies and helps hold everything together.
- Vanilla and salt enhance the flavor.
- Old-fashioned oats give the best results; steel-cut oats will be too coarse and hard, and quick oats don’t add enough texture.
- Rice Krispies® Cereal adds a fun crunch. Any crisp rice cereal works in these cookies.
- Oat flour is simply blended up oats (more on this in the “quick tip” box below).
- Chocolate is an optional ingredient you can melt some and drizzle over these breakfast cookies. We love the chocolate drizzle! Dark chocolate is going to be a more nutritious option, but semi-sweet or milk chocolate is great here too.
Quick Tip
Oat flour is just regular old-fashioned oats that have been processed in a blender until they look like flour. Nothing fancy here, so if you already have the old-fashioned oats you’ll have everything you need!
No-Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookie Tips
- Adjust quantities. Depending on the actual ingredients used, there may be some variation. If the mixture is too wet and sticky (and not gathering nicely into a ball), add a touch more oats and/or oat flour. If the mixture is too dry (and crumbling), add a bit more nut butter and/or honey.
- Play around with this recipe! I wanted to keep this recipe simple (yet tasty!) so I relied on readily accessible pantry staples. That said, it’s an easy recipe to springboard lots of variations. Some ideas: add in flaxseed, chia seeds, protein powder, hemp hearts, etc. Replace some of the oats or oat flour with some of these dry ingredients if desired.
- Add some mix-ins. If you’d rather leave off the chocolate drizzle topping, I’d recommend adding a few tablespoons of a tasty mix-in; just keep it small so it doesn’t crumble the cookies. Think miniature chocolate chips, coarsely chopped dried cranberries or dried tart cherries, coarsely chopped nuts, etc. Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of mix-ins to the mixture before shaping it into cookies.
- Use a cookie scoop! Not only does the cookie scoop make the process easier, but it also helps pack the mixture in tightly so these healthy breakfast cookies won’t crumble. I use a scoop that is 1-1/2 tablespoons (about the size of a golf ball). Once all the mixture has been separated into equal-sized balls, flattening the balls into cookies is quick and easy.
- When melting the chocolate for the chocolate drizzle topping, microwave the chocolate chips in sturdy, heat-safe bowls (not plastic or melamine). To avoid burned chocolate chips, microwave in short bursts, stirring frequently in between the bursts.
No-Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookie Storage
Store cookies in an airtight container for 4-5 days (we like to keep them in the fridge) or freeze for up to 3 months.
More easy no-bake recipes
- No-bake Energy Bites
- Granola bars with pistachios and a dark chocolate topping
- Parfait fruit, yogurt, and granola
- Chewy Granola Bars with miniature M&M’s and chocolate chips
- Trail Mix made five different ways
No-Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookies
No-Bake Healthy Breakfast Cookies are the perfect on-the-go breakfast or snack! They're quick to make, require simple everyday ingredients, and are so tasty! Add an optional drizzle of chocolate on top and you'll be heaven with these breakfast cookies!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter Note 1
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup Rice Krispies cereal
- 1/4 cup oat flour or flax seeds (blend up regular oats in the blender-- See Note 2)
- 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats (dry) (not quick or steel-cut oats)
Optional Topping &/OR add-ins:
- 3 tablespoons milk or dark chocolate chips
- Add-ins: raisins, chopped nuts, dried cranberries, mini chocolate chips (about 2 tablespoons.)
Instructions
- COMBINE: In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter, honey, vanilla, and salt. Microwave for 20-30 seconds and stir until thoroughly combined. In that same bowl, add in the Rice Krispie cereal, flaxseed (or oat flour), and old-fashioned oats. Stir together until completely combined. It may be tricky to stir at first; keep working at it until it comes together. If it seems to be too wet, add a touch more oat flour and if it happens to be too dry, add a touch more peanut butter and/or honey.
- OPTIONAL ADD-INS: Add in 2 tablespoons of optional add-ins if desired (make sure if you add anything in here, it is finely diced up first)
- FORM BALLS: Using a cookie scoop that is 1-1/2 tablespoons (about the size of a golf ball), tightly scoop out and compress the mixture. Release the cookie onto a parchment paper-lined sheet pan. Repeat with all the mixture. Once you've got tight balls of the mixture, take one ball at a time and gently flatten the ball in your hands to create a cookie shape. Repeat with the remaining balls.
- OPTIONAL CHOCOLATE DRIZZLE: If desired, melt 3 tablespoons of chocolate chips in the microwave until smooth and melted. I microwave in bursts of 10 seconds, stirring in between each burst for 10 seconds until chocolate is melted. Use a spatula to scrape the melted chocolate in a small plastic bag and cut a small hole in the tip of the bag. Drizzle the chocolate across the cookies and let the chocolate harden.
- STORAGE: Store cookies in an airtight container for 4-5 days (I keep mine in the fridge) or freeze for up to 3 months
Video
Recipe Notes
Note 1: Peanut butter: I recommend a tasty peanut butter you enjoy eating straight from the jar. We love using slow-roasted and lightly salted peanut butter with loads of flavor.
Note 2: Oat flour: Oat flour is just regular old-fashioned oats that have been processed in a blender until they look like flour. Nothing fancy here, add some old-fashioned oats into a blender or food processor and pulse until it is fine like flour. Measure AFTER blending and not before
Nutrition information does not include the chocolate drizzle or any add-ins. Obviously, if you use these ingredients, the nutrition information will change.
Nutrition
Serving: 1serving | Calories: 176kcal | Carbohydrates: 24g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 161mg | Potassium: 144mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 715IU | Vitamin C: 7mg | Calcium: 14mg | Iron: 4mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This is the bomb diggity. Kids will love it and adults may partake and not feel as guilty!!
Yay! Glad to hear it! Thanks so much for the comment Aaron!
These are amazing! My kids think they’re a treat, and for constipated toddlers and preschoolers they work miracles. I didn’t even add the topper of chocolate just mixed chocolate chips in the warmed mix.
Haha, I am so happy to hear you guys are enjoying this! I’ll have to remember that tip for my kids when they’re struggling haha. Thanks for your comment! 🙂
I have made this recipe for 5 years now! We have had to adapt it for my youngest son with multiple food allergies, so now we use almond butter instead of peanut butter and have to add about a half cup extra so it will form into balls. We also use half honey half blackstrap molasses to up our iron intake. The whole family still loves it!
Yay!! Love hearing that 🙂 So glad they’ve been a hit and you’ve been able to adapt them through the years! Thanks Becky!
No bake breakfast cookies recipe question – whole flaxseed or ground flaxseed?
Thx
Ground!
I used almond butter as we don’t like the strong taste of peanut butter and aware that you haven’t tried this. Even still I found the mixture too dry to even form, I add more honey to microwave mix for taste and added more vanilla extract for taste. I do have suspicions that you cup sizes are different to australian cup sizes and not just going by your recipe either. Got to wait until family come home to try yet all seems good, I would add less either oats or rice puffs. Thanks for the idea and recipe
Almond butter is a bit more dry than peanut butter so that is probably the culprit for a drier mixture 🙂
This is my favourite. So easy and very yummy.
So happy to hear that! Thank you 🙂
I have made these a few times now. My boys love them. I have one with an egg allergy and it is so hard to find breakfast foods he can eat that are healthy. I left out one tablespoon of the honey and they are still sweet. Thanks so much for this recipe. It’s a family favorite.
Hi Shelly! Thanks so much for the comment, it makes my day to hear it’s a family favorite and that you’ve been enjoying the recipe! Thanks so much for taking the time!