Double Chocolate Chia Oat Cookies

Adapted from Julie Harrington RD

Give yourself permission to eat cookies for breakfast! (Or lunch. Or dinner.) These chewy double chocolate cookies are secretly healthy, with the goodness of peanut butter, walnuts, chickpeas and crunchy little chia seeds hiding inside. There’s also heart healthy oatmeal, oat bran and a bit of psyllium husk for added fiber, so just one little double chocolate cookie provides over 4 grams of fiber and 4 grams of protein, along with important nutrients like iron and potassium.

Since I set my goal for the year to reduce my cholesterol, I’ve been eating so freakishly healthy, tracking all my meals on my little “health” app on my phone to make sure I’m getting enough fiber (and all the nutrients) every day, watching my carbs and calories so they don’t get out of control. I’ve also been taking my fish oil, garlic and plant sterol supplements religiously and eating salmon or tuna twice a week. A couple times I caved and had to have one of my orgasm bars (aka magic bars or mashup bars) … but for the most part, I feel like everything I put in my mouth has to be contributing to my overall goal of reducing cholesterol. (Once I set a goal, I am fiercely determined to stick with it!)

BUT after a while, even though I was rewarding myself with a few dark chocolate covered almonds from Aldi every day and an occasional dark chocolate peanut butter cup (thank you, Trader Joe’s!), I started to seriously crave cookies … and chocolate. It seriously didn’t help when one of my favorite food bloggers, Taylor, from Food Faith Fitness, posted some peanut butter chickpea chocolate chip cookies the other day… I’m a total sucker for peanut butter and chocolate, so I thought I should try them. But then I remembered chia seeds and looked into their health benefits … and they are loaded with fiber (yes!) so I decided I wanted to try Taylor’s recipe, but I wanted to add chia seeds too. I went searching for a chickpea AND chia cookie.

At this point I know you might think I’m totally nuts but stay with me here … this all ends up in a very good place.

I went searching about and found Julie’s recipe for chocolate chickpea peanut butter cookies with chia seeds. I started there … but when I tried the first cookie, I was sad. Maybe my taste buds are just over-sensitive, but the taste of the chickpeas totally drowned out the peanut butter! I was sooo disappointed because I totally love peanut butter (I love chickpeas, too, but in a different kind of way, you know? They really shouldn’t steal the show from the PEANUT BUTTER!) I was distraught for a moment and thought I would have to throw away all this precious cookie dough … whatever could I do to rescue this situation?

And then, right in my moment of crisis, the answer came to me: we need something strong enough to combat the chickpea flavor … so I asked my cocoa powder friend to come to the rescue. Just two Tablespoons of my favorite dark cocoa powder totally drowned out the chickpea taste. Finally, the escape I needed … a satisfying healthy crunchewy cookie that would satisfy my cookie cravings but not totally crash my low-cholesterol diet. In fact, when I added one of these cookies + a few pumpkin seeds for dinner in my little app, my health app rewarded me with a “perfectly balanced meal” badge! LOL. Seriously, cookie + crunchy snack is a perfectly balanced meal? Well, I guess cocoa has loads of antioxidants, plus protein from the nuts and chia and just the right amount of fiber and heart-healthy fat to balance it out. It sounds crazy but it totally works!

Anyway, this is how my double chocolate chickpea chia oatmeal peanut butter cookie recipe was born … I still have a bunch of cookie dough in the fridge, awaiting my attention. I’m pacing myself … just one (or maybe two) cookies a day, for a treat. Since this recipe makes roughly 36 cookies, it’s going to take me a while to eat them all. I could share my double chocolate cookies with friends, but I kinda want to hoard them all for myself.

You can further reduce the calories and carbs by substituting another sweetener for the brown sugar. Personally, I think a little real sugar in cookies is a good thing. Stevia is fine for tea and coffee, but it just doesn’t do it for me in baked goods. I’ve tried monkfruit too, but wasn’t happy with the flavor of that either.

BTW, the adorable milk jug shot glass in these photos is a gift my daughter got me when she was on choir tour in New York … it brings me joy every time I use it!

Double Chocolate Chia Oat Cookies

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 10 minutes
• Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
• Yield: 36 1x

Print Recipe

Pin Recipe

---

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 cup rolled oats or oat bran (use gluten free if needed)
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1 15-oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 jumbo or 3 small eggs
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 2 Tablespoons psyllium husk
• 2 Tablespoons dark cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup (or more) brown sugar (or sweetener to your liking)
• About 3/4 – 1 cup dark chocolate chips

---

Instructions

1. In a mini food processor, process the oats, walnuts and chickpeas into a smooth puree.
2. In a medium large mixing bowl, mix together the puree with all the rest of the ingredients except the chocolate chips. Let sit for about 30 – 60 minutes for the chia seeds to absorb the excess moisture in the dough. It will start to look and feel more like cookie dough. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with silicon baking mat or parchment paper.
4. Shape the dough into balls a little over 1 inch in diameter (about 1 oz each), then set on the prepared mat and flatten with the palm of your hand, leaving about an inch of space between the cookies. Once the tray is full, bake for 9 – 11 minutes or until there is a bit of golden brown on top and the cookies spring back when touched lightly.
5. Repeat until all the cookies are baked … or store extra dough in the fridge and bake as desired (cold dough will need about 5 minutes more cooking time). Let cool slightly before eating, but best eaten when warm. (You can reheat cookies in the microwave for about 10 – 20 seconds.) Store cookies in an airtight container for a few days.

---

Notes

RECIPE SOURCE: http://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/

© Copyright 2019, Sumptuous Spoonfuls. All images & content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to publish any of my images, please ask first. If you want to republish this recipe as your own, please re-write the recipe in your own words or link back to this post for the recipe.

---

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1 cookie
• Calories: 105
• Fat: 4.8 g