Healthy Pumpkin Cookies - Chocolate Covered Katie

Soft, chewy, and delicious, these healthy pumpkin cookies are packed with cinnamon, oats, and chocolate chips. Just try to stop at one… they’re so good, it’s impossible!

Easy Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

The best healthy pumpkin cookies

With hearty oatmeal and sweet cinnamon goodness, these wholesome pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are the perfect way to recharge.

The addition of pumpkin not only lowers the fat and calorie content, it also gives an irresistible Fall flavor twist to traditional chocolate chip cookies.

These healthy pumpkin cookies can be completely dairy free, egg free, vegan, gluten free, refined sugar free, and oil free.

Also try these Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal

Pumpkin

Vanilla

Cinnamon

Chocolate Chips

With pumpkin, oatmeal, and chocolate all stuffed into one epic cookie, how could it not be love at first bite?

Healthy pumpkin cookie ingredients

The pumpkin: This can be canned pumpkin puree or fresh roasted pumpkin. It is also okay to substitute an equal amount of canned or cooked sweet potato puree.

The oatmeal: Quick oats or rolled oats work, as do quinoa flakes or spelt flakes. I do not recommend trying to substitute steel cut oats here.

Chocolate chips: Use your favorite regular size or mini chocolate chips. I like dark chocolate chips, but semi sweet or even white chocolate chips are fine.

Vanilla extract: Be sure to buy pure vanilla extract, not imitation or vanilla flavor. If you prefer to use vanilla bean paste, this is fine.

The fat source: Almond butter or cashew butter are my personal preferences for these healthy cookies. Regular butter (including plant based brands) also works.

Oat flour: Most regular grocery stores and health food stores should carry packaged oat flour. Or make your own by pulsing oats in a blender until they turn to flour.

The sweetener: I like raw cane sugar or coconut sugar. Date sugar, white sugar, or brown sugar work as well. Use granulated erythritol for sugar free pumpkin cookies.

How to make vegan pumpkin oatmeal cookies

If you’ll be baking the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, and stir well.

Soften the nut butter until it is easily stirrable, then add all remaining ingredients to the mixing bowl and stir to form a cookie dough batter.

Shape the cookie dough into balls with your hands or a cookie scoop. For no bake pumpkin cookies, simply refrigerate until firm. Or continue reading for baked cookies.

Place on a baking tray and flatten into cookie shapes by pressing down with a spoon. Bake on the oven’s center rack for ten minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool an additional ten minutes before handling, during which time the cookies will firm up.

Store leftover pumpkin cookies in a covered container in the refrigerator due to the perishable ingredients.

Alternative options include making the cookie dough the night before or freezing cookie dough balls for a rainy day.

Above, watch the healthy pumpkin cookie recipe video

I’ve made these pumpkin oatmeal cookies at least a dozen times now. Most recently, I brought a double batch to a Halloween party.

Every year, I get very into Halloween baking, dreaming up creative costumes… and of course eating Halloween candy (always chocolate candy for me).

Costumes over previous years have included a sand witch, a Katie bug, Cookie Monster’s girlfriend, the bride of Frankenstein, a 5’3 giraffe, and a monster chef.

Or there was the time I found a five dollar tiger headband at Party City two days before Halloween and brainstormed tiger puns. My favorites were Tiger Woodstock (tiger ears with a hippie costume) and Jungle Gym (tiger ears plus gym clothes). In the end, I went with the jungle gym. The best part was getting to wear sneakers all night.

Last year’s holiday costume was even easier: buy a cat headband at Target, dress all in black, carry a camera, and repeat everything others say. Photocopy Cat.

Last year, I also made Pumpkin Dip and Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars.

Baked or no bake cookies

This year, after discovering that the one can of Libby’s pumpkin I’d placed in my kitchen cabinet had somehow multiplied into six cans, I decided to use some of that pumpkin up by turning my chocolate no bake cookie recipe into no bake pumpkin cookies instead.

My initial plan had been to bake the pumpkin cookies. But obviously I had to taste the dough as I went along, and it turns out these pumpkin cookies are just as good unbaked. So if you live in a warm climate or simply don’t feel like turning on your oven, feel free to skip the cooking step!

The healthy pumpkin cookies were a big hit at the party, and I’ve since made them three more times for myself.

Yay – now only four cans of pumpkin to use up!

Probably should go buy some more canned pumpkin…

3/4 cup quick oats (for grain-free, try these Keto Cookies)
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup sugar, unrefined or erythritol if desired
3-5 tbsp mini chocolate chips
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice, or additional cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup canned pumpkin, or mashed sweet potato
1/3 cup almond butter, or regular butter spread
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

*The cookies can be baked or no-bake – it’s your choice!If baking, preheat oven to 350 F. Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients (soften nut butter to a stir-able consistency first if needed), and stir to form a batter. (Watch the step-by-step video above if you’re a visual person like I am.) Form balls, then place on a cookie tray and flatten a little. Either refrigerate until firm, or bake 10 minutes, then let cool an additional 10 minutes, during which time they will firm up. You could also make up the dough balls ahead of time and freeze them for a rainy day!View Nutrition Facts