I may receive a commission if you purchase through links in this post. I am not a doctor; please consult your practitioner before changing your supplement or healthcare regimen. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Gluten-free Vegan Healthy Oatmeal Cookies are a nutritious homemade rolled oats cookie without eggs, great for snacking or desserts (or even breakfasts). This recipe makes a big batch and mixes up super fast. The cookies freeze great, and are even delicious straight from the freezer.
I make these cookies every week for packing in lunches, and the whole family loves them.
These allergy-friendly cookies are also VAD-friendly and a great source of Vitamin B1 and healthy fiber.
Affordable cookies
What else? Affordable!
Refined sugar-free, I’ve made this healthier cookie recipe with coconut sugar.
Coconut sugar is not only a healthier sweetener, it’s less expensive than other natural sweeteners like honey or maple syrup. So save money making this cookie with basic natural pantry staples.
Ingredients in Healthy Oatmeal Cookies
Gluten-free Vegan Oatmeal Cookies use common basic ingredients, and perhaps a couple of ingredients you haven’t used before:
- oats — I use rolled oats, not quick. (Quick oats are more likely to be contaminated with mold.)
- sticky rice flour — This gluten-free ingredient is a great pantry staple for egg-free baking, as it binds the ingredients together well, so the recipe is not crumbly. While sticky rice flour isn’t nutrient-dense, it does provide good carbs and energy!
- sorghum flour or rice flour — This can also be subbed for chickpea flour or blanched almond flour, you choose, making this recipe more versatile and easy to customize to your dietary or budget needs.
- coconut sugar, or preferred granulated sweetener — A real money saver, coconut sugar makes this recipe more affordable than a recipe made with honey or maple syrup.
- psyllium husk whole — This seed husk is my favorite egg-free baking ingredient. It’s a gentle form of fiber. I do recommend you choose the brand I link to in the recipe (also here), as brands vary. Be sure you choose psyllium husk whole.
- banana — One banana helps to bind this egg-free recipe and adds lovely flavor and sweetness.
- coconut oil, or butter if preferred (the recipe also works with avocado oil or olive oil)
- water
- Optional: basil seeds (what are basil seeds) or chia seeds are optional if you want the seeds’ nutrition or fiber, or use extra psyllium husk whole (see the recipe for details)
- baking powder and sea salt + optional cinnamon
Add-ins
- optional diced apples, raisins or chocolate chips — The day I photographed the recipe, I used raisins, which are classic.
No inflammatory ingredients
The best vegan gluten free cookies are free of unhealthy ingredients!
This recipe contains no: xanthan gum and other gums; it’s also free of flax and potato flours.
A word on these, to explain for those who are interested:
- Gums cause inflammation.
- Flax is estrogenic and actually dangerous for many people to eat.
- Most gluten-free flour mixes and recipes combine grains and potato-sourced flours, a combination which is hard to digest for many people. These potato flours are also usually conventional, and potatoes are important to choose organic. So in my gluten-free baked good recipes, I never use potato flours with grains, or flour mixes.
How to make Gluten-free Vegan Oatmeal Cookies
This simple cookie recipe can be whipped up in 15 minutes, but it does need a 1-hour resting time for the dough before baking. Simply:
- Place oats in large mixing bowl.
- Add wet ingredients (water, oil and banana), smash the banana, and mix together well. Let sit for one hour to soften oats.
- Add remaining dry ingredients: sticky rice flour, sorghum (or rice/almond) flour, coconut sugar, psyllium, baking powder and salt. Add any optional ingredients to one side: diced apples, raisins/chocolate/carob chips. Beat with electric beaters until well mixed. The dough will be thick.
- Scoop onto cookie sheet. Now choose if you want round chubbier cookies or flatter cookies; both are great! Optional: Flatten each mound of batter. — Wet three fingers or the back of a spoon. Press down on the cookie to your desired thickness, smoothing out the top. Bake 12 minutes for either rounded or flattened cookies.
- Allow to cool slightly, and enjoy!
Optional glaze
As you see in some of the photos, add optional Cocoa Butter Icing Glaze.
How to store cookies
Place cooled cookies in sealed storage container. Leave on the counter overnight, in the fridge if storing longer than one day, or in the freezer for long term storage.
Cookies keep well in the fridge for up to 3 days, and in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Healthy Oatmeal Cookies (Gluten-free, Vegan)
Equipment
- electric beaters or similar
- large "half sheet" baking pan or 2 cookie sheets
Ingredients
- 2-¾ cups rolled oats (260 grams)
- ¾ cup water room temp or warm, not cold
- ¾ cup coconut oil (168 grams) melted and cooled, or butter
- 1 banana slightly over-ripe
- 1-⅓ cups coconut sugar (266 grams), or other granulated sweetener of choice
- ¾ cup sticky white rice flour <-- A great ingredient for egg-free and vegan baking.
- ½ cup sorghum flour , chickpea flour, rice flour or almond flour (you choose, according to preference)
- 6 Tablespoons psyllium husk whole (<-- This brand is best. 22 grams) OR 4 Tablespoons if you'd like to use the basil or chia seeds listed below.
- Optional: 2 Tablespoons basil seeds or chia seeds, 20 grams
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- Optional add-ins: 1-¼ cups apples peeled and diced, or raisins, carob chips or chocolate chips
- Optional: 1 teaspoon cinnamon Omit for VAD
As you see in some of the photos, add optional Cocoa Butter Icing Glaze.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Place oats in large mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients (water, oil and banana), smash the banana, and mix all well. Let sit for one hour to soften oats.
- Add remaining dry ingredients: sticky rice flour, sorghum (or chickpea/rice/almond) flour, coconut sugar, psyllium, baking powder and salt. Add any optional ingredients to one side: diced apples, raisins/chocolate/carob chips. Beat with electric beaters until well mixed (without over-mixing). The dough will be thick.
- Scoop 2-ounce portions onto cookie sheet. Choose if you want round chubbier cookies or flatter cookies; both are great! Optional: flatten each mound of batter. -- Wet three fingers or the back of a spoon. Press down on the cookie to your desired thickness, smoothing out the top. Bake 12 minutes for either rounded or flattened cookies. Allow to cool slightly, and enjoy!
- Store in favorite sealed container, including wide-mouth jar option, separated by small sheets of parchment. Leave out on counter one day, or refrigerate or freeze leftovers. Fridge for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.
- As you see in some of the photos, add optional Cocoa Butter Icing Glaze.
Nutrition
You can Pin Healthy Oatmeal Cookies here:
Anna says
Megan, This recipe looks wonderful! I don’t have any chickpea flour on hand, so I’m curious what flours you are subbing with. I might try oat, sorghum, cassava or maybe I’ll make a nut or seed flour.
Thanks, again for the recipe!
Megan says
Hi Anna, I need to do a little more experimenting, which I might get to tomorrow. I tried oat so far, but the cookies were too crumbly, so you may want to wait until I figure it out. Otherwise, cassava would be a great option because it’s got that stretch that will combat the crumb issue. 🙂 (Update, other readers, see below for alternative to using chickpea flour.)
Anna says
Megan,
What do you think about collagen as a sub for the chickpea flour?
Megan says
Hi Anna, interesting thought. Collagen tends to add a great je ne sais quoi cakiness to bread products, so it may help/work here, but I’m not sure. The main issue is to prevent the cookie from being crumbly while also creating the right crumb.
Anna says
Thank you for all your thoughts, Megan! I’ll let you know how it goes and what I try.
Megan says
Great, Anna! I did have a chance to try a new version, and we loved it! Here’s what I did:
1 cup rice flour –> 1 cup oat flour (So, I subbed oat flour for the rice flour.)
1/3 cup chickpea flour –> 1/3 cup oat flour (subbed)
1/4 cup psyllium husk powder (4 Tablespoons)
1/4 cup collagen (Added this.)
1 Tablespoon gelatin (Added this.)
(And then I omitted the basil/chia seeds.) So this is a fully VAD version. The texture was chewy, with lovely very crispy edges. No crumbs.
CS says
Hi Megan,
You’ve recommended a specific Oat Flour blend in the past.
Do you still recommend it or would you suggest some other brand here?
It lists xanthan gum as an ingredient.
Thanks!
Megan says
Hi CS, no, I haven’t ever recommended an oat flour blend. I make my recipes with individual flours only. 🙂 (No xanthan gum, just organic oat flour.)
CS says
Apologies. Not sure where I got that rec then.
I made these with just blendered rolled oats for the oat flour and they turned out well.
Though I used butter and they definitley melted into a larger area than I had anticipated. 🙂
Megan says
No problem. 🙂 Yes, butter is famous for that lol. I’m glad they mostly turned out well for you.
Heidi says
If you didn’t want to do the collagen, what could you sub for that?
Megan says
Sorry, collagen affects the texture, so there isn’t a sub for it.
Heidi says
Ok. I thought collagen wasn’t allowed on the VAD diet. Maybe I am wrong. That’s why I was wanting to substitute.
Megan says
Hi Heidi, I understand. Sometimes when you meet with Dr. Smith, you learn things from him in person that you don’t hear him discuss publicly, and that’s because he publishes the broader protocols he prefers and espouses, but when he works with clients one on one, he understands nuances not only of patients but of foods and is happy to consider that sometimes benefits of one ingredient outweigh drawbacks. This is the case with collagen. It’s okay to use if it agrees with you or you find it helpful. He just doesn’t consider it a super food or want people loading up on it, as they often do in other health circles.
Heidi says
That makes sense. Thank you for the great explanation!
Megan says
Happy to help! 🙂
Anna says
Megan,
I made these egg free cookies today with the adjustments you suggested here in the comments. My guys loved them! They are a wonderful cookie, and just how you described. Thank you so much for this recipe!
Megan says
I’m so glad to hear it, Anna! Thanks for coming back to share! 🙂
Dorothy says
I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but wondered what you think of sprouted rolled oats. Does it actually reduce lectins and make it more digestible?
Megan says
Hi Dorothy, good question, and I had the same one. My doctor pointed out that sprouted grains have more vitamin A (specifically lutein in oats), C and E, none of which are good on a detox diet. And you know, I’m sure by now, that I believe more vitamin A is never a good thing. He also believes that sprouting starts other plant defense mechanisms, increasing certain anti-nutrients. Other sources say lectins go down with sprouting, but I’ve found, and LYL shares, that soaking is a good way to go. So instead of buying sprouted oats, just soak oats in clean water for 20 minutes before eating. As LYL has proved, almost everyone is getting better with this way of eating, whereas a decade of Weston A Price style sprouting did not yield long term health benefits. I hope that helps! Personally, I’ve found soaked oats to be super gentle to digest.
Dorothy says
That’s interesting; I ordered a five pound bag of sprouted oats, but will probably switch to regular oats after that’s gone. You probably link to the brand of eats you use. I learned that one of the popular brands of organic oats tested fairly high for lead.
We take vitamin C in the form of acerola cherry. Do you know if it’s high in vitamin A?
What is LYL, please?
Megan says
I had to do the same thing at one point, use up my sprouted oats! 😉 I now buy mine from Azure Standard to get the best price. It’s a bulk company. Vitamin C is generally not recommended by Dr. Smith because it causes toxins to be stored in the liver. If you’re not doing a detox and you don’t have a toxic (filled up) liver, then that’s fine. But most of us are better off detoxing our livers as we get older, and so supplements that cause more storage aren’t helpful in that process. Cherries are not included on the Low A diet because of their aldehydes which slow down detox. LYL stands for Love Your Liver, which is Dr. Smith’s private DIY group for support, for those doing the low vitamin A diet. 🙂
Dorothy says
I’ve heard of ordering from Azure, thanks.
Are we able to get enough vitamin C from foods without supplementing? I’ve heard that animals create their own, at least some of them. And high doses, liposomal, and IV vitamin C are sometimes used for treatment of disease. I’m glad to know about the cherries not being the best, though I ordered a lot of it.
Megan says
I used to be concerned about Vitamin C as well. But when we take it, it slows down detox. In the long run, according to Dr. Smith, it helps to defer detox; it delays dealing with a sickness by sending toxins to the liver. Eventually, we all have to answer for our livers. So it’s better to clean out the liver and skip Vitamin C. We do indeed get all we need from a simple nourishing diet. I love to think about what God provided the wanderers in Egypt for 40 years: meat and bread! That’s actually all we need: protein and fiber to make sure we’re detoxing our waste. So we don’t need to eat fruit or other sources of Vitamin C. Jesus chose the same foods when he fed the thousands on multiple occasions: protein and bread. 🙂 (For me, this means meat, oats and beans as my primary foods. For someone else, it could look a little different, but either way, we don’t need to supplement with Vitamin C at all.)
Dorothy says
Amazing, thank you for expounding on that!
Megan says
My pleasure! 🙂
Dorothy says
I’m still leaning toward the sprouted oats we’ve been getting, because they’ve been tested for heavy metals and don’t have high levels of lead or others. I don’t know if any of the regular organic oats have been tested.
Megan says
Good points, Dorothy! Great to go with your intuition! And if they agree with you, that’s also a great sign. 🙂