Last weekend, my parents invited their close friends from college to come over for a small Super Bowl party. Although they attended a four-year university in southern California, everyone eventually migrated north to the suburbs outside of San Francisco, so they’re able to see each other multiple times throughout the year.
We started off with appetizers and snacks during the first half of the game, which Mom spread out across the dining room table. Chips and salsa, cheese and crackers, crudités and hummus, dried apple slices, M&Ms…
People tried to pace themselves and only take a little bit at a time to save room for the main course, but they never knew when to peel themselves away from the TV to grab a few more nibbles! During the exciting action of the game?… During the hilarious and super cute commercials?…
As a huge sports fan, I opted for the latter!
During the first few minutes of halftime, but before the performance, we headed back to the kitchen for the entrées. Dad had cooked steak, sausages, and pork tenderloin on the charcoal grill in the backyard, along with a quinoa salad and my special roasted Brussels sprouts inside.
Throughout the second half, people wandered over to the dessert table, which included a few store-bought cakes, these homemade truffles, these homemade chocolate graham crackers… And these Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies! They’re perfectly soft and chewy with no butter, eggs, refined flour or sugar—and just 90 calories!
And the best part of our Super Bowl party? Everyone raved about all three of my recipes and asked to bring the leftovers home with them!
To make these healthy cookies, you’ll start with white whole wheat flour. It sounds like a paradox, doesn’t it? Normally white flour and whole wheat flour are two separate things! However, white whole wheat flour is made by finely grinding a special type of white wheat, whereas regular whole wheat flour comes from a heartier variety of red wheat. This gives white whole wheat flour a lighter taste and texture, similar to all-purpose flour, which really lets the banana flavor and chewy texture shine! (Bonus: It has the same health benefits as regular whole wheat flour!)
The mashed banana plays three important roles in these cookies: fruit flavor (I’m sure you guessed that already!), natural sweetness, and an egg replacer. That’s right—these cookies contain no eggs, so the cookie dough is safe to eat raw!
To maximize your banana’s natural sweetness, pick an extra spotty one. Very brown bananas always contain more natural sweetness than pure yellow ones! Because the banana alone doesn’t provide quite enough sweetness for these cookies, you’ll also mix in coconut sugar. That’s exactly what it sounds like: an unrefined sweetener that comes from coconuts! But it does NOT actually taste like coconuts. It has a rich, caramel-like flavor, similar to brown sugar, and it pours like granulated sugar. Most grocery stores have started stocking it near the regular sugar on the baking aisle, and you can also find it online here.
Then for my favorite part… The mini chocolate chips! (I’m a huge chocoholic. That’s why I published my Healthier Chocolate Treats cookbook!) I prefer these mini chips because they melt very well and taste really rich. Plus mini chocolate chips ensure that every cookie bite contains chocolate!
Got milk? 🍪 And when you make your own, remember to snap a picture and share it on Instagram using #amyshealthybaking and tagging @amyshealthybaking IN the photo itself! (That guarantees I’ll see your picture! 😊) I’d love to see your cookies and feature them in my Sunday Spotlight series!
| Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies | | Print |
- 1 cup (120g) white whole wheat flour or gluten-free* flour (measured like this)
- ¾ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 ½ tbsp (21g) unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup (67g) mashed banana (about 1 tiny banana)
- 1 tbsp (15mL) nonfat milk, room temperature
- ⅓ cup (64g) coconut sugar
- 3 tbsp (42g) miniature chocolate chips, divided
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate bowl, stir together the butter, vanilla, mashed banana, and milk. Stir in the coconut sugar. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Fold in 2 ½ tablespoons of miniature chocolate chips. Chill the cookie dough for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F, and line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
- Drop the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheet using a spoon and a spatula. Flatten the cookie dough to the desired thickness and width. Gently press the remaining miniature chocolate chips into the tops. Bake at 350°F for 9-11 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
For a gluten-free flour substitute, I recommend the following: ¼ cup (30g) millet flour, ¼ cup (30g) tapioca flour, 3 tablespoons (21g) coconut flour, and ½ teaspoon xanthan gum. Many store-bought gluten-free flour blends will work as well, if measured like this.
Any milk may be substituted for the nonfat milk.
Light brown sugar may be substituted for the coconut sugar.
This recipe is easily doubled!
{gluten-free, vegan, clean eating, low fat, low calorie}
View Nutrition Information
You may also like Amy’s other recipes…
♡ Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Oatmeal Cookies
♡ Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Cookies
♡ Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Brownies
♡ Peanut Butter Banana Bread Brownies
♡ Strawberry Blueberry Banana Bread
♡ Strawberry Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
♡ Chocolate Drizzled Raspberry Banana Bread
♡ Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Scones
I always love recipes where I already have all of the ingredients on hand! 🙂 I definitely know what I’m going to bake this afternoon…;)
Hmmm, I’ll venture a guess… These and raspberry bark?? 😉 Good luck with your first “show” tomorrow Marina!!
These look so good!
Love how easy they are to make. x
Izzy -https://pinchofdelight.wordpress.com
Thanks Izzy!
These cookies look so perfect and I have some bananas getting spotty. There is no stopping me from making these:)
I can’t wait to hear what you think of the cookies Maria!
I used all purpose flour. I found the texture to be somewhere between a muffin and scone. Is that what its like with the white whole wheat flour ?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Erin! The texture is supposed to be chewy, like traditional cookies. The texture should be the same whether you use all-purpose or white whole wheat flour. How did you measure the flour? Did you use a kitchen scale or measuring cups? If the latter, did you scoop the flour directly from the container?
I had the same results as Erin, I used all-purpose flour too and the texture was quite cakey and scone-like. They also raised alot in the oven to become quite “poofy” (resulting in the scone/muffin resemblance). I did cut down on the sugar (because my banana was already very sweet), could it be due to that? The taste was not bad though, but my husband thought they were a little strange!
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Stef! If you cut down on the sugar, then that would definitely affect the texture of these cookies. What sweetener did you use?
Love, love love these. I have more than one cookie gremlin in my household and I’m always looking for ways to go high on flavor but low on sugar.
I happened to use almond flour because that’s what I had on hand, and they still came out great. So tasty!!
I’m so glad you and your family enjoyed the cookies Penny! That means a lot to me! 🙂
I am super excited to try this recipe!! I am counting calories though… any idea how many calories are in each cookie? Thank you so much for sharing this gem! We are all excited to try it 🙂
The full nutrition information is included beneath the recipe Christina! 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of these cookies!
So yummy! I added 1/2 cup flax, 1/2 cup hemp. For extra nutrition. I didn’t have dates so I used 1/4 cup brown sugar. Weirded me out with no eggs so I added an egg and they turned out awesome!!!
Thanks for the recipe!
I’m so glad you enjoyed these cookies Jodi! 🙂
I used 160 g of all purpose because I did not have white whole wheat flour, using the 3/4 : 1 ratio and they turned out wonderfully!! Thank you so much for the recipe!! It makes me so happy that I can enjoy coookies that have no butter and hardly any sugar (compared to other recipes). I will definitely try out other recipes on your blog.
I’m so glad you enjoyed these cookies Grace! That really means a lot to me. I can’t wait to hear what you try next! 🙂
Hey! I was just wondering if I could substitute the banana with one egg or a tablespoon of applesauce?
You can substitute an equal amount of applesauce for the mashed banana. Otherwise, try this recipe of mine that’s similar but doesn’t use banana. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of these cookies!
I made them last night! They turned out soooo delicious, I am completely crazy about them! Thanks for the recipe! I love chocolate chip cookies and these healthy ones are amazing!
I’m so glad you loved these cookies Svetlana! That means a lot to me! 🙂
Hey! So i tried making these with coconut flour. The dough came out completely crumbly/dusty. I did cool off the dough but they came out like baked crumbs 🙁
Unfortunately, coconut flour doesn’t work in these cookies. It’s about 3x as absorbent as any other flour, which is why your cookies turned out so crumbly and dry. I’d love to hear what you think if you try these cookies with one of the flour options that I’ve listed! 🙂
Most delicious cookies ever! Although I modified the recipe for more milk because it was too dry. Didn’t turn out as smooth looking as Amy’s but still good! Thanks for this great idea!💗😁
I’m so glad you enjoyed these cookies Elsa! 🙂
I made this cookies tonight and they turned out great. They are more scone like than cookie like but I liked it. I think I should have put in less sugar because the dough with the banana’s is pretty sweet (I also tend to like a less sweet dough so I enjoy the chocolate chips more). Otherwise an awesome recipe! Thank you!
I’m so glad you enjoyed these cookies Hena! If you’d like them to be chewier like regular cookies, rather than scone-like, then bake them for 2-3 fewer minutes. They’re done baking when the center still feel slightly underdone. 🙂 If you use less sugar, then you’ll need to slight increase the amount of milk to compensate for the missing volume. I hope that helps your next batch turn out even better!
Hi, mine are in the oven as we speak and I used Almond flour to experiment, but I am afraid they are looking like what the person above is saying, quite light colored and dry. Could this be because of my use of Almond flour?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Maureen! It could definitely be due to your almond flour. How did you measure it? With a kitchen scale or measuring cups? If the latter, can you describe precisely how you measured it? Also, did you measure the mashed banana with measuring cups or a kitchen scale? Did you make any other substitutions besides the almond flour? We’ll figure out what happened so your cookies turn out perfectly chewy next time! 🙂
Hi Amy,
I absolutely love the genuine, wholesome recipes you bring to the table (pun intended :P)! I have a question though in regards to using whole wheat flour as opposed to white whole wheat flour. So unfortunately I can’t seem to find white whole wheat flour in my country and buying it online is not an option for me so I tried to substitute it with whole wheat flour (particularly in your carrot cake) using the correct pour and level measurement method as recommended but I found the end result to be cake that was a little doughy, absolutely delicious but a little doughy and I might try measuring using a kitchen scale in the future but what do you recommend in this case to combat this? Using less? Letting the cake cook for longer?
I would really appreciate your help 🙂
Thanks!
I really appreciate your interest in my recipes Joumana! You should be able to substitute regular whole wheat flour for white whole wheat flour as a 1-to-1 substitution without any modifications. I’d recommend using a kitchen scale next time to ensure you’re measuring the proper amount. It’s SO easy to accidentally add too much flour, and that will make a bigger difference in the final taste and texture when working with whole wheat flour! 🙂 Kitchen scales don’t cost that much (mine was only $20!), and it’s literally the BEST “investment” I’ve ever made because I use it every single day!
Hi
This looks great! I’m looking for a chewy low sugar oat and raisin cookie, ideally featuring banana as the sugar substitute. Do you think I could substitute raisins for the choc chips and throw in a handful or two of oats without negative effect?
TIA
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Anoushka! I’d recommend using this banana oatmeal cookie recipe of mine and substituting raisins for the chocolate chips in that one. Adding oats to this recipe will make the cookies dry. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of those cookies!