I have recently found myself with a great deal of steel-cut oats. As in, a Costco size bag of steel cut oats. I live alone, with my dog, sooo I have a lot of oatmeal to eat. Don’t get me wrong, I really like steel cut oats, especially if I have enough foresight to make them overnight so they are waiting for me in the morning.
I just so happened to make myself a big batch of oatmeal this morning, but realized I wouldn’t be able to finish it all in a reasonable time period. Thus began the saga of the oatmeal coconut cookies I’m about to share with you.
I would say these cookies are healthy, but they have quite a bit of butter and sugar in them. They are gluten free though, almost vegan (that pesky butter), and full of fiber and protein. I’ve also read that cooking oatmeal (and other grains) makes them easier to digest – this makes sense because we do usually cook our grains. By using cooked oatmeal, the recipe doesn’t call for any liquid, and holds together without regular flour – win! Because of the sugar/butter one-two-punch I hesitate to call them breakfast cookies, but I won’t tell if you eat them for breakfast.
I will admit, they don’t look like the most beautiful things in the world, but they taste like a Hawaiian island. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to bake them, so I did both – a no-bake and a bake version. Because there is no egg in there, I figured this was a safe bet.
These bad boys are completely customizable – I had almonds and chia seeds on hand, so used them to buff up the nutrition factor, but you could throw in chocolate chips, dried fruits, other nuts, you name it!
Ingredients:
6 Tablespoons butter, melted.
1 Cup brown sugar.
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract.
1/2 Cup coconut oil.
1.5 Cups cooked steel cut oats.
1 Cup coconut flour.
1 Teaspoon baking soda.
1/4 Cup chopped almonds.
1 Tablespoon chia seeds.
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a stand mixer, combine the butter, brown sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy. (You totally do not need to use a stand mixer, but I love my stand mixer so use it at every opportunity. You can also mix by hand, or use one of those nifty hand-held mixers.)
3. Add the coconut oil and oatmeal and continue mixing.
4. Add in the coconut flour, a bit at time, while mixing the wet ingredients.
5. Add the baking soda. Keep on mixing.
6. Add the almonds and chia seeds, or any other treats you desire.
7. Now you must decide if you want hot or cold cookies. I did both. Either way, use a heaping spoonful of dough to either form balls and put in the fridge, or form balls that you smooch down a bit to space out on a cookie sheet.
8. If baking, bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes. I found these cookies had a longer bake time than most traditional chocolate chip recipes, they still come out really moist and crumbly.
Enjoy! Let us know in the comments below you’re favorite thing to add to oatmeal cookies.
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