Recipe: Vegan Oatmeal Cookies w/Agave Nectar
I can’t help but share one of my favorite recipes using agave nectar. Since we’re talking about reducing the amount of refined sugar we use, agave is a great alternative, as I mentioned in yesterday’s video.
I adapted this recipe from a friend of mine and added in some things I love like shredded coconut and dried cranberries (in my case I only use apple-sweetened cranberries that I get at the health food store, not those with refined sugar). It’s so simple that you can make the batter in minutes. In fact, Bruce loves these cookies so much that he’s become a master of making them and swears my aren’t nearly as good!
People consistently rave about these cookies and they are a healthy alternative to store bought cookies loaded with refined sugar. Even better, they’re made with a whole grain flour.
1 cup organic rolled oats
1 cup spelt, whole wheat or oat flour (spelt is my favorite)
1 cup ground almonds (I love Trader Joe’s almond meal — already ground up)
½ cup shredded coconut (optional ,but adds fantastic flavor so why not go for it!!)
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup dried cranberries (optional)
½ cup agave nectar (or pure maple syrup)
½ cup canola oil
½ tsp. vanilla
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
3. Mix the wet ingredients and stir into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon.
4. Form 1” balls and place on an oiled cookie sheet, pressing the balls down with your fingers.
5. Bake for 12 minutes or until crispy.
These cookies are simply delicious. Give the recipe a try and let me know what you think. 
Filed under: Agave Nectar, Desserts, Recipes, Sugar and Sweeteners
Wendy, I love your recipe for cookies with Agave Nectar. I haven’t used it for a while, so this was a great reminder to dig it out of my cupboards. Great website!
Hi, I tried this recipe because I don’t eat sugar. I replaced the canola oil with coconut oil. Canola oil is not really as healthy as it is advertised to be.
They turned out pretty good.
Thanks
Marie
Hello, I just made these cookies and they are soooo tasty. I just love the crunchy texture. These are my 15 month olds first cookie and he liked them too! Thanks!
Just made these this evening and they are SUPER yummy. Thanks for the recipe! My kids devoured them!
I just made these this afternoon. I am on an extremely restricted diet, but could eat everything in this recipe. (Spelt flour and rice bran oil). My family are out for the day, but boy, are they going to be happy when they get home. These are incredibly nice. Thank you for sharing such a great recipe.
I’ve been searching for a simple recipe using agave – I just recently started eliminating certain items from my diet: refined sugar, gluten and processed foods and have been having difficulty finding simple, quick recipes that satisfied, but didn’t incorporate those things I’ve eliminated. This cookie blew me away! Thank you so much for sharing!!
These were very good. I used oat flour, substituted safflower oil for the canola, used 1/2c cranberries as I didn’t have any raisins and they were yummy. Thanks for the recipe.
These were great! I added 1 1/2 tbsp of cinnamon and it really added to the flavor. Thanks a bunch!
these cookies suck
Surprisingly good. Nosh nosh.
Thank you. My brother hates “healthy” food and he loved these… so did I!
These were fantastic! I have tried MANY vegan, sugar free recipes, and these were the best by far!
I substituted rice flour for the almond flour (which usually makes them crumbly) and they were still good.
Thanks!
The cookies were messy to form, very sticky and needed to bake longer then 12min, 15 to 20. I checked my oven temp and it was 350. My third patch was perfection. They are amazing!!!!!!
Hey there. I was searching the web for oatmeal cookie recipes and came across this one. I made it immediately and they are awesome. It took about 16 minutes and made 2 dozen cookies. THe kids loved them as did hubby. THese are awesome cookies. Thanks for the recipe.
AMAZING! I didn’t have any almonds so I subbed ground flax seeds – super tasty … even my kids loved them!
I just made these cookies for my two preschoolers. I am very conscious about the amount of sugar that they eat. I substituted 1/4 of applesauce and 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed to reduce the oil amount to just 2 tablespoons! I also added cinnamon and chopped walnuts. The cookies passed my picky eaters taste test easily, and they even asked for more. I am very excited to find a recipe that provides so much nutrition and easily stores for snack time.
Hey everyone, I’m loving all the responses and ideas you’ve suggested to adapt them. Andrea, I really love your idea about sustituting the ground flax and apple sauce for some of the oil. Great ideas everyone. Glad you’re enjoying them so much!
.-= Wendy,´s last blog ..Join the Clean Eating Pantry Challenge & Save Money! =-.
[...] a batch of cookies with whole grain flour and your favorite natural sweetener. They’ll satisfy a sugar craving [...]
These were great! I use G.F. oats, Sorghum Flour, and ground sunflower seed in place of the almonds. And did not add the salt. My whole family loved them. And that’s hard to do for a child that has a nut allergy, and a child that has celiac’s, and a husband on a no salt and no refined sugar diet. Thank you
‘i’m just getting started with agave so your recipe was a super find. i’m a retired high school ‘food and nutrition’ teacher so this alternative is a new challenge.
do you have a peanut butter cookie recipe as well? these are the family favorites.
thank you for your help
Hi,
Thanks so much for this recipe. My husband and I loved them, and they taste even better the next day!!
Thank you for this recipe. I just made a batch with grain-sweetened chocolate chips and unsweetened dried cherries and YUM!! They’re really easy to make, too.
These cookies turned out great. My children ate them and said they tasted great. So glad to have this delicious yet healthy cookie recipe. Thank you for sharing.
I can’t wait to try these out! Thanks for the recipe!
I made this recipe with blueberries and they came out great!
They were even better frozen!
Thanks a lot.
Rachelle.
Do the cookies have eggs??????????????
My husband and I love the taste of the cookie and they are very easy to make. They are very oily and messy. They do not look anything like the picture and end pieces break off very easily. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I have been baking cookies for over 40 years.
These cookies are phenemonal! Made them with old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick oats), whole wheat flour, maple syrup, cinnamon, and apple sauce (with very little oil needed). They have no leavener in them, so you can squeeze them all onto a tray without worrying about room for expanding. I ate the leftover batter out of the bowl and can’t stop eating the cookies! To die for.. and extremely healthy.. This recipe is a keeper!
I just made these cookies as per the recipe, but added some cinnamon, used wheat flour and added a splash of organic 1% milk. I also used slightly less agave and still found these too sweet; I will reduce next time. The texture was perfect (nothing like the photo..they didn’t flatten out as much). But I really enjoyed them. The ultimate test will be whether the boy likes them when he gets home later tonight! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Absolutely loved the cookies!!! I made them with peanut flour and it made them taste like oatmeal peanut butter & raisin cookies! FANTASTIC!
Thanks for this very delicious recipe!
I am new to using agave syrup (husband was recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes) and we loved these.
I didn’t add the cranberries, and thought they were a BIT too sweet, so will add less agave next time.
I also got some great ideas for other substitutions
.-= Mary´s last blog ..bunnies!!! =-.
These are great! My were just a bit crumbly…what could I throw it to hold them together better? (an egg? I am not vegan) Could we use less agave and a little Stevia to bring down the sugars a bit? I am not a natural baker but was really happy how these turned out and thanks so much for the recipe!
I’ve made these dozens of times, they are a huge favorite with everyone. I use 1/4 c unsweetened dry coconut, 1/4 grain sweetened chips and 1/2 tsp baking soda, and otherwise follow the recipe. I wet my hands and then roll a heaping teaspoonful of dough into little firm balls, then slightly flatten with clean damp hand. They won’t fall apart this way. My son in battling cancer, and we stay away from cane sugar and white flour, these go perfect with his diet. Thank you for the wonderful recipe.
My fiance made these, and we are hooked! He put cranberries instead of raisins, macadamia pieces, and walnut pieces (as well as the shredded coconut).
They are quite sticky/messy to shape, and our oven runs hot so our first batch burned (we ate the tops because it was SO good, smelled amazing). So the second time around, in our hands we would squeeze a portion together to make it stick and roll it out and shape it into a ball, and we kept them in the ball shape. We baked for about 9 minutes, then turned off the oven to let them bake without extreme heat and so they could rest. We took them out and tested one and it was stuck to the bottom, so we let them rest on the cookie sheet for 3 or so minutes, then with a spatula released them from their tiny, stuck base.
They turned out SO GOOD!!! I’m getting non-vegan people into them
Planting those seeds!
Thanks
I didn’t have ground almond flour, so I subtituted walnuts (makes for a bit more fattening cookie but lots of omega-3). So yummy!!! They tasted a bit like a shortbread cookie. I also used coconut oil in place of the canola oil. I am vegan but from time to time I like a bit of chocolate and some Green and Black have very minute traces of dairy. I chopped up the ginger chocolate and added the bits in with coconut. These cookies were bite size and one was very satisfying. Enjoy!!!
Love these cookies.
I am doing a cookie swap @ our local gym and would love to know the nutritional facts on these cookies
They remind me of my mama’s oatmeal cookies, only healthy makes them even better.
If you could let me know the facts.
Thanks
[...] well, I have to admit: I also ate one of the oatmeal vegan cookies that I made yesterday. It turns out they are a perfect high-fiber, not-too-sweet “breakfast [...]
This was the best recipe I found online to try for holiday cookie giving to my friends with diabetes. After reading the comments about how it was too sweet to some, I cut back on the agave nectar. I also added several spices, unlike the recipe – cinnamon, allspice, ground nutmeg, and ground cloves – as well as a couple shakes of wheat germ. I didn’t have dried berries on hand, so I just omitted them, though I did include the coconut. The dough is one of the crumbliest I’ve ever worked with, but the cookies are really good, even though they are also pretty crumbly. Next time I think I will use applesauce instead of oil (I did not have any plain applesauce on hand), and increase the amount of applesauce to compensate somewhat for the crumbliness. Since almond meal tends to also make a crumbly dough/cookie, I am considering slightly reducing the amount of almond meal and adding that amount of extra wheat flour (I’m thinking maybe 3/4 c almond meal and 1 1/4 c wheat flour to start).
The dough was so crumbly that I made the first tray in balls (not flattened) instead of flat cookies. I tried flattening the second tray but found that the baked cookies hold together better when balled instead, and have the look and kinda the taste of macaroons, though they are not quite as airy in texture as macaroons. If my next batch is as crumbly, I think I might make them all in balls.
[...] Recipe adapted from http://www.healthy-endeavors.com [...]
Great recipe. I see some like to use coconut oil, but it has was too much saturated fat to be healthy in my opinion and my doctor’s opinion.
This recipe is great, though I don’t have any canola oil, I used light olive oil and they turned out great! I think these would be great with coconut sugar as well.
Wendy!
My wife and I live in Poland and because of the limited resources where we live, we had to make some of the ingredients from scratch ( flour, ground nuts). But the taste and look of these cookies has blown our minds!! thank you so much for the Healthy and tasty treat!!!! Ajit and carrie
[...] care. Even if you aren’t the world’s best chef, cookies are pretty easy (or try these vegan agave nectar cookies for something with less sugar) and are always good for brightening up someone’s day. If you [...]
LOVE this recipe and so does my family! I added pumpkin pie spice and used graham flour.
Made these cos my sister who is diabetic was visiting. She loved them as did my other sister who is not diabetic!!! They have both taken the recipe home with them. Thank you. I use Agave extensively anyway, but was just looking for something quick and easy to give them with a cup of tea. Very good indeed.
I havent made this yet but I was wondering if you could omit the almonds?
YUM. These were super easy to make and took no time at all! I used sultanas and goji berries instead of raisins, and used grapeseed oil instead of canola. You can pretty much use whatever dried fruit you want and these cookies would still be awesome. Thanks!
Hi Wendy, your recipe has become a fave-rave!. I was looking for an oatmeal cookie recipe that was gluten-free and worked with either agave or brown rice syrup, and voila–there it was at the top of the Google search! And as wonderful as these cookies are, this is not just a cookie recipe…it makes fantastic granola bars! I use a mix of nuts ground course in the food processor…and can vary the sweetener from agave to honey to brown rice syrup to maple syrup, depending on what else goes in. I also use carob chips, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, raisins and currents, at various times. Tonight’s batch will feature: Coconut, carob chips, ground walnuts, and a mix of brown rice and maple syrup. Oh yeah, and cinnamon. Gotta have the cinnamon. Cardamon is fun as well. Planning on making them as “pumpkin spice” later in the month for Healthy Halloween-y Treats. With pecans! Thank You a Gazillion Times over for sharing this wonderful, super-fun-to-make-and-play-with recipe!
I just tried these cookies and the agave just does not go far enough in sweetening. To me they tasted sugar free, making even the raisins taste less sweet than normal with all the grains/flours called for. Had to sprinkle them with powdered sugar after they came out of oven just so that they could be edible. they were not crispy either. The only substituion I made was to use a half cup of raisins and no cranberries. The recipe is already so sticky I don’t know about adding more agave. Didn’t work for me.
Love these cookies I add a banana smashed apple sauce. These were a huge hit on Christmas and saved me from the dreaded fudge and processes sugar.
My family loved these cookies. They were very easy to make. I used coconut oil instead of canola oil. I also added Salba to my mixture. The only downside are the calories of the cookies, they’re quite high
I used an online calculator to get the calories and they came out to approx 160 calories per cookie…. Still love them though, thanks for this recipe!
Thanks for the recipe. Just made them and I had substituted 1 cup of walnuts for the ground almonds and only cooked them for about 8 to 10 minutes. I made them bigger, too. Turned out okay and tasted good. Will shoot for the real recipe next time.
I love these! I’ve made them twice in the past week and am about to make them again. Thanks from a vegan with a sweet tooth!
[...] • Vegan Oatmeal Cookies with Agave Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. [...]
[...] one of my favorite agave nectar-based fruit and oatmeal cookie recipes. Give it a try and let us know how it goes in the comments! This entry was posted in Foodie [...]
First time baking with agave nectar. Used ww flour, added 1 egg, added some walnuts, used coconut oil, all cranberries. They are wonderful.
Pleasantly surprised!!! These cookies are so good! I’m new to using agave nectar and cooking super healthy, but I wanted to try it. I didn’t have raisins and coconut, so I made some substitutions. I actually substituted coconut oil for the canola oil (b/c I heard it’s healthier), and I could taste a slight yummy coconut taste. I oiled the pan with the coconut oil. I added 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, and they were great! Yummy cookies!
[...] one of my favorite agave nectar-based fruit and oatmeal cookie recipes. Give it a try and let us know how it goes in the comments! Share this:TwitterFacebookLike [...]
I used this recipe as a foundation and substituted my own ingredients as well. I used coconut oil instead of canola oil, and omitted the raisins, shredded coconut, almonds, and cranberries. Instead i added peanut butter. turned out decent
I replaced the ground almonds with ground flax, about 1/2 cup. My first batch came out better that I anticipated (thanks to the coconut!) and my second batch I added 2 tablespoons Chia seeds- YUM!!
These cookies are great!
I needed to add a little more spelt flower and I subbed the cran/raisins for mega dark chocolate, and they turned out perfect!
Thanks!
These cookies are great. I loved them so much I could hardly stop eating them! They turned absolutly perfect!!
Thanks!!
These were honestly kind of bland. I followed exactly as stated but did not use the shredded coconut but I subbed coconut oil for canola oil and only used raisins so maybe I need to do something different? I used spelt flour. The cookies were just not that sweet and sort of cardboardish. Any ideas?
Made these several times now. Absolutely scrumptious.
I made these and served to many friends and coworkers. Loved them this way:
-yes, added unsweetened shredded coconut
- added copius amount of vanilla extract
- added a couple of shakes of cinnamon (but didn’t taste too much)
- used coconut oil instead of canola oil
They are 180 calories each this way if you yield 20 cookies. They are a little scone-like, a cake-ie cookie.
2 other tips:
- nuke the raising in a bowl with some water first, then drain, then add wet raisins to this recipe. So much better than hard, dry raisins
- I added the cup of rolled oats to the mixing bowl first, then half of the raisin water and a splash of vanilla extract. This infuses the oatmeal with vanilla flavor, but also helps them not to get to dry and not to have an “uncooked” flavor and texture in the cookie.
Enjoy! Buono Apetito!
Awesome!!!
Made without almond meal, but was still awesome!