Healthy Vegan Breakfast Cookies

Cookies for breakfast. Yes.

I like to wake up and have a warm lemon drink or a smoothie and along with that I also like to have some sort of substance that isn’t just liquid.  Working early in the morning on weekdays I also don’t have time to prepare much and breakfast needs to be food I can eat on the go so cereal and pancakes were out. I came across some breakfast vegan cookies at a restaurant nearby and thought to myself instead of wondering how much sugar was in them or justifying spending $3.10 on a cookie every morning, I decided that I would try and make my own.  I have found the perfect amount of each ingredient to transform them into the perfect healthy breakfast cookie.

These cookies are soft, chewy, moist and delicious and are so easy to make only requiring one bowl to make them in. When I eat them I feel like I should feel guilty but then I remember that literally every single ingredient in these cookies are pure, whole foods offering a variety of nutrients. I usually make a batch of these cookies every Sunday and take one on-the-go in the morning before I leave to go to work.  Its prettttyyyy hard to only eat one a day…..they don’t always make it to the end of the week but I’m not complaining.

These cookies pair perfectly with a warm lemon drink, hot tea, or a smoothie. They aren’t just a breakfast cookie either, they are also good before or after a work-out or when your craving something sweet but want to stay healthy.

Ingredients:

Makes 10-12 cookies

• 3/4 cup almond butter
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup apple butter*
• 1 banana
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pink salt
• 2 cups quick oats
• 1/3 cup dried cranberries**
• 1/3 cup raisins**
• 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds**
• 1/4 cup dried unsweetened coconut**
• 1/4 cup flaxseeds**
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips**

What to do:

1. preheat oven to 325F
2. in a bowl combine the almond butter, maple syrup, apple butter, banana, cinnamon and pink salt and mix with a hand held mixer (if you don’t have a mixer mash the banana with a fork and use your arm muscles to mix it all together well)
3. add the oats and mix with a spatula/spoon
4. slowly add to the mixture each topping (dried cranberries, raisins, pumpkin seeds, coconut, flaxseeds and chocolate chips) and mix until everything is combined
5. wet your hands slightly (the cookie batter will be very sticky) and use your hands to form a 1/4 cup of the cookie batter into a ball and flatter it with your hands to form the shape of a cookie (the cookies will not rise or change shape in the oven, what they look like going in is what they’ll look like coming out)
6. place the cookies on a lined baking sheet and cook for 15-17 minutes
7. let the cookies cool and they will stay good for a week at room temperature

Tips:

*apple butter is actually one of the key ingredients as to why these cookies are soft, chewy and moist. Apple butter is denser then applesauce and usually has spices in it. These cookies rely on a good quality apple butter so don’t skimp on this ingredient! I got my apple butter at a local apple orchard.

**the dried cranberries, raisins, pumpkin seeds, coconut, flaxseeds and chocolate chips can be interchangeable with any other dried fruit, nuts and seeds.  Please feel free to change the amounts around, add other toppings or remove any you don’t like.

DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?

If you try this recipe I would love to see it and share it! Tag me on IG @thegreenerer, using the hashtag #thegreenerer