Description
Banana peanut butter oatmeal snack cookies are the perfect way to use up over ripened bananas. They make a great snack, breakfast, or even a healthy dessert.
Ingredients
- 2 overly ripe bananas (the browner the better Like what you would use to make banana bread)
- 1/2 rolled oats (use certified gluten free if needed)
- 1 cup quick rolled oats (use certified gluten free if needed) – see notes
- 1/4 cup peanut butter (only ingredients should be peanuts and maybe salt)
- pinch salt (omit if your peanut butter contains salt)
- Optional: 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Optional: 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup mini semi sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Prepare: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a large baking sheet with a silpat mat or parchment paper – or lightly grease, and set aside.
- Mix wet ingredients: Peel and break up the bananas and place in a large mixing bowl. Use a fork or potato masher to mash the bananas until they are mostly mashed. Stir in the peanut butter, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla extract (if using).
- Mix in the oats: Add both types if oats and stir to combine. You may have to kind of smash the oats into the bananas until the oats are well incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Rest: allow the batter to rest for 5 minutes, this helps the oats soak up the liquid and the batter stick together better.
- Form cookies: Use a small cookie scoop (about 2 tablespoons) to scoop cookies and then use your hand or a spatula to slightly flatten the cookies. You should have 12 to 15 cookies total.
- Bake: Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Or until the cookies look dry on top and slightly browned on the bottom.
- Cool: Allow the cookies to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.
- To eat: You can either eat them once they have cooled a little – they are extra good right out of the oven – or you can allow them to cool completely and store them in an air tight container for up to 5 days.
Notes
Quick rolled oats: You can use all rolled oats in this recipe if you want. But I found the quick rolled oats helped to make the cookies more moist and tender. They also were better when leftover.
Extra ingredients: These cookies are super quick and simple to make. I like to add the cinnamon and vanilla extract in for a flavor boost, but you can easily leave them out for an even more simple cookie. Also, cinnamon helps to stabilize blood sugar levels – bonus!
Peanut butter: You can swap the peanut butter for any type of nut butter or seed butter. If you want a cookie that tastes more like banana bread I recommend using almond butter. You can’t taste the almond butter, like you can the peanut butter. Both versions are really tasty.
vegan/dairy free : To keep these cookies vegan make sure the chocolate chips are vegan/dairy free.
Recipe adapted from Clean and Delicious
