So I gave it away in the title, but you don’t have to tell people this cookie recipe is healthy. Sure these peanut butter oatmeal cookies have whole wheat flour, high fiber oats and less sugar then your average cookie but they are still delicious and satisfying. They actually make an excellent breakfast when paired with a cup of coffee.
If you wanted to make these peanut butter oatmeal cookies even healthier you could reduce the oil further, if you want something a little more decadent use non-natural peanut butter and add chocolate chips. Feel free to omit the coconut from the recipe if your family aren’t coconut fans but I think it makes them interesting and really works with the peanut butter in the cookie.
Peanut Butter Coconut Oatmeal Cookies
(24-30 cookies)
Preheat oven to 375F. Beat together oil and peanut butter then beat in eggs, sugar and vanilla. Stir in coconut. In a separate bowl mix together oats, flour, powder, salt and soda. Stir into peanut butter mixture but do not over mix. Drop onto a baking sheet in 1 1/2 tablespoons round. Gently press to flatten and bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a cooling rack, and don't spoil your dinner.
{ 59 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh my, saving the recipe right now. I would probably use all Splenda, but I bet they're still good!
I love cookie anything! These look great.
These look perfect, just the sort of thing I was wanting. Going to make them for sure!! (It is me by the way)
They sure do look yummee. Healthy is an added bonus!!
Thee cookies look so healthy& so tasty too!
I'm always searching for good cookie recipes and this is one!
They look delicious.
Made these last night (though no coconut in the house unfortunately)and they turned out great! Very tasty.
Sarah – awesome! So glad to hear it.
I've been looking for a good healthy cookie recipe!
Hey, great site… You have got some awesome information and Il be back for sure.. Thanks
thank you so much for recipe, this is the best i’ve came across so far…they are jammed with good nutrition and it made over 20 big cookies for me, and with only around 2.5 grams of sugar a cookie (yes i did the math =]) they are a great snack!! thank you so much!!!!
cody – I am thrilled you enjoyed them! I was really pleased with how they turned out too, come back often!
i love these cookies. i didn’t have coconut at home to put into them but i did dice an apple and mix in the cookies, and there very yummy.
If I only have sweetened coconut, how much less sugar should I add to balance it out?
1day – I haven’t tried this myself but these cookies aren’t overly sweet to begin with, maybe slightly less of the brown sugar by a tablespoon or so? I wouldn’t remove that much.
I adore these cookies. I’m making them for the second time tonight.
Love these cookies! It is a nice homemade snack to have around the house for the little ones, without having to see guilty about it! Thanks for sharing!
Heather – I am so glad you enjoy them, that is exactly how I feel too.
Unfortunately I don’t have brown sugar in the house right now and I really want to make some cookies! Will white sugar taste as good?
Kat – Brown sugar will help the cookies stay moist, but if I was out of brown sugar I would definitely substitute. Let me know if you do!
These were great! I made them tonight, but of course, I had to go and change the recipe. Applesauce instead if eggs, half the oil, half a banana, and extra peanut butter and coconut. Also, just did 1 cup of turbinado. Yum! Thanks!
Jamie – i will have to try the banana thing, I love peanut butter and banana as a combination!
These were so yummy. I didn’t feel guilty about eating them and they had a nice fluffy peanutbutter taste. Will definitely make again. Thanks for the recipe!
Jen – oh so glad they were a hit! They are one of my favorites too. I need to update these pictures, as I think they could look sexier than they do.
These cookies are a hit at my house – much better than plain old peanut butter cookies – love the recipe! Thanks!
Just made these with my two year old and they are delicious. These are going in my permanent file. Thank You!
@Jen – good! I really need to make another batch, you are making me want them too.
@Holly – so glad
I love hearing that.
I found this recipe in the morning, was excited to see I had all the ingredients on hand, and promptly made em later in the afternoon. Yummy yum!! I love the combo of peanut butter and coconut. I also used coconut oil instead of canola and WOW!! That just added to to divine coconut flavor. Yes, a total coconut lover here
Thanks for this recipe. I tend to only bake with whole grain flour and am always happy to find a recipe this good!
@Shayla – Thanks Shayla so glad you enjoy it, I will have to try it with coconut oil one of these days.
This recipe is actually running in an edition of Canadian Living magazine for the 2011 Xmas season, so keep your eyes out!
little dry – or is that just my cooking… tehheee
Sorry to hear that Holly, what kind of peanut butter did you use?
I just made these and the batter was really ‘dry’. I couldn’t scoop them onto the cookie sheet, but rather had to hand form them. They are in the oven, so we’ll see how they turn out. Crossing my fingers they are still ok and not too crumbly.
Did they work out? It is a dry-ish cookie batter. (sorry for the delay I’ve been traveling)
Wow thank you so much I have been looking for this recipe for years I did not have the canola oil I used the local vegetable oil instead and with selfraising flour, I extremely enjoyed them, I wil try the next with whole wheat flour, thank you once again …
any vegetable oil should work! Glad you enjoyed them.
mmm.. these were delicious!!! my mum loved them, and she absolutely HATES peanut butter. with a passion! she won’t go near the stuff (usually) but these looked so good she couldn’t resist. my brother loved them too and he won’t go near anything remotely healthy. so I think it’s fair to say these were a big hit (:
Love to hear it aleisha
If u use coconut oil instead of canola and splenda or coconut sugar instead of sugar and brown sugar it actually would make it a health food.
Good tip!
If you reduce the oil, what do you suggest as a substitute for the moisture? Applesauce? Almond Milk? ???
I would try applesauce, but I haven’t tested that either.
Just what I need to use up the oats in my cupboard… Just took them out of the oven and they are delicious, thanks
Awesome, thanks for reporting back!
Subbed coconut oil for the canola and added ground flax – they’re in the oven now! Can’t wait to try them!!!
Excellent, hopefully they are excellent, I could use one right now.
Why are you using canola oil? That makes the whole recipe unhealthy. But other than that that is delicious. I want to make it right now.
Feel free to substitute another fat
“Oats”? Steel cut oatmeal? Rolled oats? Quick-cooking? I’m not sure what to use and would love to know so I can make these tomorrow! Also would using whole wheat pastry flour makes these even fluffier, I wonder?
I have actually used whole oats and quick oats for this recipe. Never steel cut
I would love to hear how they turned out with WW Pastry flour! I am a big fan of that stuff!
Thanks Katerina. Will let you know!
Used rolled oats, organic Coconut oil, chunky “natural” peanut butter, and WW pastry flour. Once they were in the oven, I realized I’d totally forgotten to add the coconut!
They took a bit longer to brown, closer to 16 minutes in a convection oven at 350 (with two cookie sheets , each on its own rack). And I ended up with 32 cookies using 1 1/2 rounded tbsp each. They are wonderful! Bet they’ll be even better with the coconut next time. Or banana or apple, as others have commented. Definitely will make these often.
I followed the recipe exactly but these turned out horribly dry! Flavor was good. I even added a mixture of one more egg, about 1/4 more oil, and a bit more peanut butter to the dough to try and help but they still came out super dry.
I did not make but one batch and saved the rest of the dough in a big zip-loc, hoping to find a way to fix it. Any ideas?
@Sherri I am sorry to hear that they turned out so dry, but I have to wonder why you added more egg, oil and peanut butter to the dough? It is a dry batter but has always baked up fine for me. I have even had my husband recipe test it successfully.
I suggest not modifying the recipe before baking next time and trusting it.
Hi again; I added the extra egg/oil/peanut butter just trying to get them to stay formed for baking. When I tried dropping onto the baking sheet I was just getting a pile of ingredients, in other words they weren’t holding together at all as “dough” in any way so that’s why I tried that.
Hmm, then my only other thoughts are that either your flour was very dense (or measured too generously?) or your peanut butter not very wet? This batter is definitely on the dry side, and requires some elbow grease to come together but it has always held together for me and baked up fine. Better luck next time!
Hmm, I found my dough to be extremely dry like Sherri above. It was so dry that the chocolate chips that I added just fell out of the batter and the dough hardly stayed together on the cookie sheet. I am wondering if, as you suggested above, the peanut butter I used was far too dry. It’s the kind that is all natural (no oil added – just peanuts!) and is rather dry. I would bet swapping peanut butters (using a “natural” one with oil) might help with the dryness! Just a thought.
Sorry to hear it was so dry, they are a VERY dry batter, but they do cook up fine, that said I have never added chocolate chips.
I just made these. They are pretty good. I did change the recipe a bit. I didn’t have quite enough peanut butter so I added a banana. I also used half oil and half applesauce and about a 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp cinnamon. And I added about 1 cup of chocolate chips.
I just baked a batch following the directions except using chunky peanut butter and adding one cup of butterscotch chips. They held together beautifully, but seemed a bit greasy handling. They look perfect out of the oven, now for the taste test, the best part! next time I will try replacing oil with mashed banana and applesauce as noted in the other posts.
Thank you for this recipe!