My cranberry oatmeal cookies recipe is one of my favorite cookies to bake this time of year. They are chewy, sweet and delicious and always a holiday party favorite.
If there’s ever a time to pull out your baking pans, measuring cups, and mixing bowls, the holiday season is it! This cranberry oatmeal cookies recipe baking in the oven makes the whole house smell delicious.
A Healthier Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies Recipe
Choosing to bake a healthy cranberry oatmeal cookies recipes takes a little bit to adjust if you’ve been using bleached white flour, refined white sugar, brown sugar and butter in your baking.
I used to grab those as my main cookie ingredients too. However, with just a few small switches, you can enjoy our cranberry oatmeal cookies recipe without any guilt if you want to have 2 more cookies! Or if you kids want an extra cookie.
Anytime you are baking and trying to make something both healthy and tasty there’s a very narrow margin for error.
I have a few tricks for making our cranberry oatmeal cookies recipe even healthier. I switched extra-virgin coconut oil in place of butter or other unhealthful omega-6 rich vegetable oils. Cup-for-cup whole grain gluten free flour replaces wheat flour.
What makes our Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies healthy?
There’s a few very important swaps that we want to encourage you to make and we’re also going to tell you why these swaps are so much better for you too in this cranberry oatmeal cookies recipe.
#1: A truly healthy cookie should be low in refined sugar
Sweetness should come primarily from unrefined “whole” fruits. We only use unrefined sugar such as organic coconut palm sugar. It is unrefined and actually still contains nutrients so it is not a total empty calorie. Coconut palm sugar tastes and bakes like brown sugar, so if you can’t find it you can always use a bit of brown sugar.
#2: A healthy cookie should contain no trans fats.
Our cookie recipe contains no trans fats. Which means, we don’t use margarine, vegetable oil or vegetable shortening.
#3: Cookies should not contain animal fat either.
A truly healthy cookie should contain almost zero animal fat. This can be achieved by swapping extra virgin coconut oil for butter.
If you buy a high quality extra virgin coconut oil the tropical flavor intrinsic to coconuts is completely undetectable when mixed with the other ingredients.
My favorite brand of high quality coconut oil is Barlean’s Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil.
#4: Cookies should be made with 100% whole grains and no refined flours.
The healthy cranberry oatmeal cookies in the recipe below are made with one of my favorite 1-for-1 whole grain King Arthur gluten free flour. The whole grain ingredients are: rice flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, whole grain brown rice flour. You can learn more about flours here.
#5: A healthy cookie should include a handful of healthful fats.
You can enrich your cookies by using nuts, chia seeds, nut butters and flaxseeds. In this recipe, we added in a 1/2 a cup of walnuts which gives our cranberry oatmeal cookies a delicious nutty flavor.
BONUS #1: Use rolled oats instead of instant oats.
If all you have is instant oats, go ahead and use them. But if you’re looking for a more nutrient dense cookie, we suggest trying rolled oats instead.
BONUS #2: Swap your chocolate chips for dairy free chocolate chips.
We love Enjoy Life brand because they make delicious dairy free chocolate chips. But you can also use raw cacao nibs or raw cacao powder for your chocolate flavor.
I
Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies Recipe
Our Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies Recipe makes sweet, moist and chewy cookies. Gluten free, dairy free and refined sugar free too!
- Yield: 24 Cookies 1x
Ingredients
- 1 cup coconut oil, such as Barlean’s
- 1 1/2 cups coconut palm sugar
- 2 pastured eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cup 1-for-1 gluten free flour
- 1/2 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup finely chopped raw walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or use our favorite stoneware baking pan.
- In a large bowl, add the coconut oil (or butter) and coconut palm sugar and beat for 2-3 minutes with a hand mixer or stand mixer.
- Next, add the 2 eggs and vanilla and beat for another 2-3 minutes.
- To the large batter bowl, add the flour, salt, baking soda, spices and oats and stir with a wood spoon (do not use the mixer).
- To the bowl, add cranberries and walnuts. Stir until well combined.
- For large cookies, use a large scoop with approximately 3 tablespoons. If you want smaller cookies, you can use a small scoop just keep an eye on the oven! Flatten the cookies slightly with the back of a wet spoon.
- Bake the cookies for 13 to 15 minutes, until they are golden brown and almost firm to the touch. Cool on the baking sheet on a wire rack for about 5 minutes, then remove the cookies from the baking sheet and continue to let them cool on a rack.
Notes
These cookies will keep for about 5 days if kept in a covered container in the fridge. They can also be made ahead and frozen for up to a month.
Jackie says
I see an earlier post inquiring about the possibility of providing the nutritional information for these cookies. I would really like this information as well. I eat very few of these types of items; but, I do like to indulge occasionally. The Nutritional breakdown would be great! Thanks. Jackie
Aimee Harris Niedosik says
Jackie, We wrote an entire article on why we don’t provide nutrition labels on our recipes… you can learn more here: https://cleancuisine.com/clean-cuisine-why-no-nutrition-stats/
shelly says
HI Im about to make these. Do the chia seeds replace the traditional egg or are they for added health benefit? What if I still added the egg or is it completely un-necessary? Thanks 🙂
Ivy Larson says
Hi Shelly! I added the chia seeds for health benefits. I still eat eggs though! (I just make sure they are pasture-raised) however, in this particular recipe I don’t think the added eggs would benefit the overall taste/ texture. If you really want to add the eggs though I would just add a wee bit more oats too to firm the texture up a bit. Hope this helps? And I hope you like them! Please let me know 😉
Danielle says
Can you provide the nutritional information for these cookies?
Juls says
Came out great, I can’t stop eating them. If u bake them for about 5 minutes longer you will have a crisp to the cookie. Yummmmm!!
Ivy Larson says
Ooooh! So good to know about the extra baking time–making note to self for next time 😉
Cherryl says
These cookies are great! I subbed dried tart cherries (cut in half) and added some mini-chocolate chips – measured so that the cherries, chips and nuts equalled 1 1/2 C. If I give them to my 11-15 age grandchildren when they are not sugar saturated from some holiday, they clean up a batch of cookies before I draw two breaths ! Thanks, Ivy!
★★★★★
Ivy Larson says
Yaay!! So so happy you liked them Cherryl =) And thank you for taking the time to let me know! I love your idea of substituting the tart cherries (and cutting them in half was such a good idea) Wishing you and your family a very happy and healthy holiday season. –ivy
Michelle Thompson says
Thanks for the great recipe! I made these and subbed 1/4 cup pumpkin for the banana…turned out great!
Carolina says
I’m always sketchy about recipes I find online. Especially ones that don’t have many reviews but I decided to take a chance and I’m glad I did!!! This recipe turned out great!!! I didn’t have any walnuts or Chia seeds and I just left them out and decided to use normal flour instead (because I don’t have any other kind of flour) and the cookies came out great anyway! Very happy with this one, thank you :).
★★★★★
Aimee Harris Niedosik says
Carolina, Thank you so much… we love that you found hope in our recipes!!
Jennifer says
What is the conversion for substituting coconut oil for butter?
Thank you,
Jennifer
Ivy Larson says
Hi Jennifer,
You can substitute coconut oil for butter 1 to 1 (in otherwords instead of 1 cup butter just use 1 cup coconut oil)
Jillea says
It would be great to have a one click link to a printable recipe without all the other info on a given page. Thanks.
Ivy Larson says
Hi Jilea,
I’m trying to work on this with my web person. Thank you so much for the suggestion!
Shari says
Hi Ivy,
Do you think applesauce can be sub’d for the banana?
Ivy Larson says
Hi Shari,
I haven’t tried with with applesauce so I’m not 100% sure if it would work, but I don’t think it would be nearly as good because applesauce is not as creamy as banana. But, if you try it please let me know!