This recipe for Vegan Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies is another one of my old vegan cookie recipes which I posted back 2008. It got some comments, sat for a while, and was re-discovered in 2023! Welcome back, little recipe. You were just ahead of your time. I recently made a small batch using ingredients I had on hand and the cookies were as good as ever.
Ingredient Notes
The recipe calls for oats which are ground into oat flour. Oat flour is far more readily available now, so you may just want to skip the grinding and use 40 to 45 grams of oat flour. Applesauce is used in place of egg, but I discovered that fresh Medjool date paste also stands in. Peanut butter and vegetable oil are the main fats and chopped peanuts help give the cookies a more interesting texture. The kind of peanut butter you use will affect the texture. I made this last batch with Smuckers natural and loved the texture, though the cookies definitely were not as sweet as when made with Jif or one of the sweetened "natural" types.
Gluten-Free Version with Brown Rice Flour
Another thing I tried with my most recent batch was using fine brown rice flour (as mentioned in the comments) in place of all-purpose. I used exactly 45 grams. If you want to make them gluten-free and happen to have a gluten-free blend rather than straight brown rice flour, that should work too. Just be sure to measure by weight, 45 grams, since the gluten-free blends vary from brand to brand.
Vegan Oatmeal-Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
½ cup oats, quick cooking or old fashioned are both okay (45 grams)
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons (45 grams) all-purpose OR brown rice flour – spooned lightly
¼ teaspoon baking soda
⅛ teaspoon salt (can use a little more if you like)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or vegan butter
¼ cup (packed) golden brown sugar (55 grams)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar (50 grams)
2 tablespoons applesauce or homemade date paste
¼ to ½ teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons natural type (Smuckers) peanut butter (Jif would be fine too)
¼ cup peanuts (salted is fine)
⅓ cup bittersweet chocolate chips or ⅓ cup chopped up good quality chocolate
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. or 350 degrees F. if baking in a toaster or an oven that runs hot.
Grind oats in processor. If you are using oat flour, you can skip this step and just weigh out 40-45 grams. Add flour, baking soda and salt and pulse to mix.
Stir oil and both sugars together in a medium bowl. It’s okay to do this with a spoon – no need to pull out the electric mixer. Beat in applesauce (or date paste), peanut butter and vanilla. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in peanuts and chocolate chips.
Using about 2 tablespoons of dough, form dough into balls and place on ungreased baking sheet. Flatten slightly. Bake until edges are golden brown, about 12-14 minutes, Cool on sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely. Cookies will firm up as they cool.
Makes about 6 to 8 cookies
Maria
I just made the cookies - and think this is one of the best one's out there - simple, tasty and vegan! I doubled the amounts since the original recipe yields a very small batch of cookies. Thanks!!
Rachael
The gluten free version I used was with brown rice flour. Amazing. Everybody loved them and they were great Christmas presents. Awesome recipe! Don't be afraid to substitute the flour, it seemed like it wasn't a biggie in the recipe since the oats are a main part. Although, if you're a celiac you would want to try and find certified gluten free oats.
Lori Delgado
These cookies are the BEST!!! I am not vegan but LOVE them. I love Trader Joe's Vegan Choc Chip Walnut cookies and Vegan Oatmeal Choc chip cookies so I was searching for a similar recipe to make. These are even better. I love your site and it is known as the Cookie Bible and GO TO site for me!!! Thanks for all your yummy recipes!!
Chris
Hello~ I just found your recipe online and tried it last night. It's great! I added raisins and actually just sort of tossed everything into a bowl and mixed it up well (kneading it by hand). It came out kind of like granola bars, but soft in the middle. Think I might try it with more peanut butter next time. Since I'm pregnant there's a lot of goodies (nuts, oats, raisins, peanut butter, oh and chocolate!) I'll definitely make this again!
Thanks for posting this. Great website 🙂
jess
i know it's most likely a bit too late to comment for this recipe but we just made it with some kids from the neighborhood and it was a hit! it gave us a great opportunity to talk about animal products, what being vegan means and the idea of ethical animal treatment. in addition, we all had a blast making cookies together! your site always gives us great ideas on how to be creative in our baking and continually helps us also teach the kids measurements and the goodness of baking from scratch. wow - your site is so good to us. thanks!
Anna
Hi Melissa!
Thanks so much for trying the recipe. About the vanilla, thanks! I accidentally deleted it when I was typing, but I used 1/4 teaspoon, but I think these would be good with anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2.
Melissa
I made these tonight and they were quite tasty. I didn't have any peanuts, but I used 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter and it seemed to work well enough.
I see that you mentioned vanilla in the instructions but not the list of ingredients. How much would you recommend? I just put in 1/4 tsp. since it seemed to be a small batch, and it tasted okay, but I was wondering what you used.
Anywho, thanks for the recipe!
Anna
Catherine, thanks so much for the compliment :).
The individual pie slices are too cute! What I'd like is a semi-circle shaped pie plate. That is, half a pie. It would be easy to cut ingredients in half and make half a pie. I guess you would also buy 3 of the individual pieces and make half a pie that way. I like how the slices are pre-formed.
Karen, if the almond butter works, let me know. I just finished making a wheat free version. They turned out great.
Karen
I wonder how they would be with almond butter? I'll have to try it that way for my vegan friend.
Catherine
Anna, I am a lurker without much time to bake, but who loves reading your site! Anyway, I saw this today and thought it seemed just like something you would like -- individual pie slice pans! Very cute!
Thanks for all the entertainment. Work would be a bleak place without you! 🙂
Lucinda
I would love to see a gluten-free version!
aTxVegn
Making them gluten free is exactly what I have in mind. I'll try to bake them this weekend.
Clumbsy Cookie
It's so nice of you to try to perfect vegan recipes even though you're not vegan yourself! The cookies look great and I'm sure they're delicious for both vegans and non-vegans alike!
VeggieGirl
Cookies made with peanut butter and oatmeal, and that are vegan, are my favorite :0)
Sue
I've thought about trying some of your recipes with a gluten free flour mix. So far I've only tried making gluten free bread. The flavor was fine, but I didn't care for the texture. I'm a little leary of of more gluten free experiments, but someone else tries it I hope they post their thoughts!
Katrina
Goodness, another good looker!