Enjoy these Oatmeal Date Cookies for breakfast, snacks, and as a sweet treat! Made with nut flour and naturally sweetened with dates, maple syrup, honey, and chocolate, these healthy cookies are just as delicious as a classic oatmeal cookie.
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⭐ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
There’s nothing more disappointing than biting into an oatmeal cookie and realizing those chocolate chips were raisins. That said, there are no raisins in these delicious Oatmeal Date Cookies! Instead, they’re loaded with deliciously sweet dates and decadent dark chocolate.
Did I mention these date cookies are also healthy? You’ll use maple syrup and honey to naturally sweeten the flavor, tahini for moisture, and gluten free hazelnut flour to bind them all together. In the end, you’ll have a platter of delightfully soft, chewy, chocolatey, and date-filled oatmeal cookies that happen to be good for you!
💡 Baking with dates
Naturally sweet dates are amazing in baked goods. The best dates for baking are Deglet Noor and Medjool dates because they add a vanilla-caramel-like flavor and a rich, creamy taste and texture. I love to throw them into cookie dough and use extras in a salted caramel dried fruit date cake. You should be able to find dates near the raisins and dried fruit in your local grocery store or in Middle Eastern and Asian grocery stores.
🍴Ingredients
- Oats - For that signature oatmeal cookie chew, use rolled oats (AKA “old fashioned oats”). To make sure your cookies are 100% gluten free, be sure to use certified gluten free oats. Instant or steel cut oats won’t work here.
- Hazelnut flour - This grain free nut flour is made from whole raw hazelnuts and adds a rich, sweet flavor to baked goods. If you can’t find hazelnut flour, use almond flour instead. No all purpose flour needed!
- Tahini - Tahini is a smooth, pourable seed butter made from emulsified sesame seeds and oil. It’s used a lot in Mediterranean food and is excellent for adding moisture to baked goods without butter or milk.
- Maple syrup and honey - These natural sweeteners are the perfect choice when whipping up a batch of healthy cookies. No brown sugar needed!
- Vanilla - You should use a quality pure vanilla extract for the most decadent flavor. You could also use almond extract here.
- Dates - Because they wouldn’t be date-filled oatmeal cookies without the dates! You can roughly chop the dates or use a food processor to quicken the process.
- Chocolate - Bitter-sweet dark chocolate and super-sweet and juicy dates is the perfect combination in oatmeal cookies. Stick with dark chocolate to keep this cookie recipe dairy free, otherwise, you can go ahead and use milk chocolate or any other type of chocolate you love.
⏲️ Substitutions & Variations
Mix up the flavors with any of these sweet and savory variations:
- Nut butter - Not feeling the tahini? No worries. You can use a different smooth and creamy nut butter in its place, like almond butter, peanut butter, chocolate hazelnut butter, or cashew butter.
- Chopped nuts - To add a bit of crunch to your cookies, fold in a handful of walnuts, hazelnuts, macadamia, nuts, or almonds.
- Dried fruit - Omit half of the dates and replace them with dried fruit like cranberries, mango, apricot, pineapple, or peaches.
- This date cookie recipe has less sugar than your average cookie recipe (no white sugar or brown sugar). If you're craving sweetness, you can always roll these breakfast cookies in coconut sugar!
- Top with flaky sea salt
📖 Step by Step Instructions
Step 1: Make the cookie dough. Mix the dry ingredients - old-fashioned oats, hazelnut flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
Step 2: Mix the wet ingredients - tahini, maple syrup, honey, and vanilla next into a small, separate bowl.
Step 3: Mix well to form a thick and sticky dough.
Step 4: Finish by folding in the remaining ingredients - chopped dates and chocolate.
Step 3: Roll into cookie balls. Roll the dough into balls and place dough on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, gently pressing on the tops of each cookie and leaving at least 2 inches of space in between each.
Step 4: Bake, cool, and enjoy. Bake each cookie dough ball until the edges just begin to brown and the center is still soft. Let them cool a bit, transfer cookies on a wire rack then enjoy each chewy cookie!
👩🏻🍳 Expert Tips
- Chill the cookie dough - Chilling the dough in the fridge before rolling it into balls makes it easier to work with. It also helps deepen the flavors and improves the consistency so you always end up with thick and fudgy cookies.
- Roll with wet hands - If rolling your cookies by hand, wet your hands a bit first so the dough doesn’t stick to as much.
- Making cookie dough ahead of time - You can make the cookie dough 1 or 2 days in advance and keep these sweet treats it in the fridge until it’s time to bake.
- Freezing cookie dough - To freeze, wrap the dough tightly in a couple of layers of plastic wrap and keep it in the freezer for up to 1 month. Let it thaw in the fridge before rolling out and baking.
💭 Recipe FAQs
After making this date cookie recipe, you can store baked oatmeal date cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for 5 to 6 days. To keep them longer, freeze the cookies in an airtight container for 1 to 2 months.
These cookies are sweetened with honey, which means they aren’t vegan-friendly. You can always replace the honey with more maple syrup or another vegan sweetener (like agave syrup or date syrup) to make vegan oatmeal date cookies instead!
Yes! Just make sure to use certified gluten free rolled oats and you’re good to go.
More cookie recipes you’ll love
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Quick and Simple Oatmeal Date Cookies
Equipment
- Tablespoon or Medium Cookie Scoop
Ingredients
- 2 cups (162 g) rolled oats
- 1 cup (120 g) hazelnut flour/meal, or almond flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (240 g) tahini
- ¼ cup (80 g) maple syrup
- ¼ cup (85 g) honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (147 g) dates, pitted & roughly chopped
- ¼ cup (45 g) dark chocolate, roughly chopped
- flakey salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
- In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the rolled oats, hazelnut flour, baking soda, and salt.2 cups rolled oats, 1 cup hazelnut flour/meal, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ¾ teaspoon salt
- Add the tahini, maple syrup, honey, and vanilla into a separate bowl and whisk to combine.1 cup tahini, ¼ cup maple syrup, ¼ cup honey, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pour over the dry ingredients and mix to form a rather thick dough.
- Fold in the chopped dates and chopped dark chocolate.1 cup dates, ¼ cup dark chocolate
- Scoop the dough into balls or roll by hand. If using clean hands, get them slightly wet so that the dough doesn't stick as easily!
- Arrange cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, allowing two inches between each cookie and sprinkle with flakey sea salt. For a flatter, less tall cookie press the dough down gently before baking.flakey salt
- Bake for 10 minutes, watching for the edge to start to brown.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for 5-10 minutes before enjoying!
Caitlyn
Can you use any nut flour? Walnut or pecan, in place of the hazelnut flour?
Emily
Certainly! I've tested these with pecan flour, hazelnut flour, and almond flour. The key is to make sure that if you are making your own nut flour, the consistency is similar to the typical nut flour you would find at the grocery store - I hope that helps!
Cate
Love these cookies! They are healthy as well as delicious!
Emily
So glad to hear that you enjoyed them Cate, thanks for sharing your thoughts!!
Jackie G
Im interestedin healthy recipes. My granddaughter has to eat gluten free and I'm on a cardiac diet.