Healthy Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies (gluten-free, dairy-free option) (2024)

Thick, fluffy and soft, these Healthy Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies are a quick and simple treat! They’re made primarily with instant oats and almond butter, a touch of cinnamon, and sweetened lightly with maple syrup and dark chocolate chips.

Who always needs more recipes for healthier cookies?!

This girl does!

We love love love cookies in our house, whether its a gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookie or a breakfast cookie. Either way, I think my family could eat cookies every day.

But, we do try and eat healthier in our house… even with all the baked goods that are constantly around.

So I took one of my all-time favorite cookie recipes (gluten-free Monster Cookies) and turned them into these Healthy Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies.

These cookies are made primarily with instant oats (NO FLOUR!) and almond butter, less butter, and lightly sweetened with maple syrup and dark chocolate chips.

They’re thick and fluffy, soft oatmeal cookies at their core. Fresh out of the oven they have the consistency of a classic soft oatmeal cookie. As the days go on, the cookies get softer and softer, in the best way. They just get better and better!

If you’re looking for a treat that’s a little healthier and isn’t loaded with sugar, give these cookies a try!

Let’s chat all things almond butter and other ingredients for these cookies.

First, I recommend that you use a natural almond butter, that only has almonds and salt as the ingredients. A more drippy, oily almond butter is what you’re looking for.

If you have the wrong type of almond butter the texture of these cookies may not turn out correctly. After baking, these cookies should spread some but still be thick and fluffy.

If you aren’t sure whether you have the right almond butter or not, after you make your batter you can bake only ONE cookie and see how it turns out.

If it doesn’t spread enough, you can try pressing your cookies down with a fork and flattening them prior to baking. You may need to add 1-2 more tablespoons of melted butter/coconut oil to your batter if that still isn’t enough. This will help give your batter the extra oil that it was lacking if your almond butter was too thick and dry.

The second most important ingredient in these cookies are the oats. Be sure to use quick-cooking/instant oats, rather than rolled oats. If you only have rolled oats, you can throw them in a blender or food processor and very lightly pulse them till they are more of a fine texture. The cookies hold together better with instant oats.

Lastly, these cookies are sweetened with maple syrup, but you could use honey instead if you prefer.

To make these Healthy Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies gluten-free, be sure to use certified gluten free instant oats.

To make these cookies dairy-free, use coconut oil (or a dairy-free butter stick) and dairy-free chocolate chips.

Other Cookie ideas…

If you don’t like chocolate chips, or want these to be even less sweet, you could omit them entirely. You could even replace the dark chocolate chips with chopped up nuts or dried fruit if you’d like! I think dried cranberries would be delicious in these (or raisins, but I’m not a raisin fan…).

Or, to make these more sweet, you can use milk chocolate chips or cinnamon chips! Or a combination of the two. Yum!

I hope you all love these Healthy Almond Butter Cookies as much as my family does. They’re soft, fluffy, filled with almond butter flavor, a hint of cinnamon and chocolate chips. Plus they’re easily made gluten-free and dairy-free too!

After you make these cookies, let me know what you think! Leave a comment and rating, below, or find me on Instagram and tag me in your cookie picture. I’d love to see them!

If you need a few more gluten-free cookie recipes before you go, be sure to check out my Soft Banana Oatmeal Cookies, Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies, Carrot Cake Oatmeal Cookies, and Almond Flour Shortbread Cookies.