The year after I graduated from college, I stood in my kitchen with the recipe for these fudgy triple chocolate cookies in front of me, preparing to bake them as Christmas gifts. I pulled out my mixing bowls and the ingredients, and I started playing festive holiday music in the background on my laptop.
I sang along with the carols as I measured and whisked together the flour and cocoa powder, but when I went to melt the butter, a brilliant gift idea for someone in my family popped into my head. Without a pen or pencil handy, I repeated the thought over and over in my head so I wouldn’t forget it…
But that meant I completely lost track of what recipe step I was on, so I added the flour mixture to the melted butter before stirring in the sugar. Five seconds later, I realized that baking truly is just like math… The order of operations really matters!
Sugar dissolves in melted butter, which creates more “liquid” in your mixing bowl. When you add the flour after the sugar, there’s enough “liquid” in the bowl to incorporate all of the flour (and cocoa powder, in that particular recipe!). However, if you add the flour first… You end up with an incredibly dry and crumbly mess. And adding the sugar after doesn’t help one bit. Oops.
Although I had to start all over with that particular batch of cookies, I’ve never forgotten the order of {baking} operations I learned that day… And that comes in really handy when making one-bowl baking recipes, like these Healthy One-Bowl Chocolate Chip Cookies!
If you remember to follow the order of ingredient additions (like I always do now!), then you’ll end up with supremely soft and chewy cookies that taste just as sweet and buttery as traditional cookie recipes. Yet these healthy chocolate chip cookies contain no eggs, refined flour or refined sugar—and only 100 calories!
One bowl, minimal clean up, perfectly chewy low calorie cookies… Definitely the best kind of recipe! Life doesn’t get much better than this! 😉
HOW TO MAKE HEALTHY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Let’s go over how to make the best healthy chocolate chip cookies!
The first ingredient you’ll add to your bowl is melted butter (or melted coconut oil!). I prefer melted butter for two reasons: (a) I don’t need to remember to set out the butter to properly soften and (b) melted butter creates more soft and chewy cookies. Since that’s the way I prefer my healthy chocolate chip cookies, extremely soft and chewy, I definitely love the melted butter trick!
Tip: Stick-style vegan butter will also work!
Next you’ll add a bit of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, vanilla extract, and salt. Any milk will work! Nonfat milk, reduce fat milk, whole milk, cashew milk (another one of my favorites!), coconut milk, oat milk, rice milk… You name it. Since some of my family members are lactose-intolerant and always keep unsweetened almond milk on hand, I used that dairy free milk so they could eat these healthy chocolate chip cookies, too.
Tip: The milk actually replaces the eggs used in many traditional recipes, so these healthy chocolate chip cookies are egg free, dairy free, and vegan!
The vanilla extract is actually a semi-secret ingredient! This is because you’ll add slightly more vanilla extract to your cookie dough compared to traditional recipes. Vanilla extract enhances butter’s rich flavor, so adding a little extra makes your healthy chocolate chip cookies taste just as rich and buttery as traditional recipes!
After you’ve whisked those together, you’ll stir in coconut sugar (like this!). Coconut sugar is exactly what it sounds like: an unrefined sweetener that comes from coconuts! However, it does not actually taste like coconuts. It has a rich caramel-like flavor, similar to brown sugar, but it pours like granulated sugar. It works really well in baking recipes like these healthy chocolate chip cookies (plus cinnamon rolls and brownies too!).
Since you’ve now mixed in the coconut sugar (remember from my cookie disaster story how important that is?), it’s time to add in the white whole wheat flour (this kind!) and baking soda. By waiting until now, you’ll definitely end up with the correct cookie dough texture—and therefore supremely soft and chewy healthy chocolate chip cookies!
White whole wheat flour isn’t actually a combination of white (aka all-purpose) flour and regular whole wheat flour! It’s made by finely grinding a special type of soft white wheat (hence the name!), whereas regular whole wheat flour comes from a heartier variety of red wheat. They have the same healthy benefits, but this gives white whole wheat flour a lighter taste and texture… And that lets the soft and chewy texture of your healthy one-bowl chocolate chip cookies truly shine!
Tip: I’ve included my favorite gluten free options in the Notes section of the recipe, if you’d like to make these healthy chocolate chip cookies gluten free!
Time for the chocolate chips! You’ll mix in both dark chocolate chips (these taste delicious!) and mini chocolate chips (these are my favorite!). I love combining the two! The regular-sized dark chocolate chips add a big burst of melty chocolate, while the mini ones ensure that every bite contains a bit of chocolate. Yum!
One last thing! Chilling is mandatory for this healthy chocolate chip cookie recipe. The cookie dough should be very loose and sticky when you first mix it together. If you tried to bake it right away, you’d end up with one gigantic cookie blob on your baking sheet! Chilling stiffens the cookie dough, so it’s easier to work with and your cookies spread the proper amount.
And as soon as your timer dings…
Try not to burn your tongue when you eat one fresh from the oven! 😉 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 healthy chocolate chip cookies!
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp (28g) unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted
- 3 tbsp (45mL) unsweetened vanilla almond milk, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ cup (96g) coconut sugar
- 1 cup (120g) white whole wheat flour or gluten-free* flour (measured like this)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2 tbsp (28g) dark chocolate chips
- 1 tbsp (14g) miniature chocolate chips (divided)
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the butter, milk, vanilla, and salt. Stir in the coconut sugar. Add the flour mixture, and sprinkle the baking soda evenly over the flour (to prevent clumps). Stir in the flour and baking soda just until incorporated. Fold in the dark chocolate chips and ½ tablespoon 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. Slightly flatten using a spatula. (The cookies should spread some if there isn’t too much flour in the dough!) Gently press the remaining miniature chocolate chips into the tops. Bake at 350°F for 9-12 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Notes
View Nutrition Information + Weight Watchers Points
You may also like Amy’s other recipes…
♡ Healthy One-Bowl Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (egg free & dairy free too!)
♡ Healthy One-Bowl Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies (egg free & dairy free too!)
♡ Healthy One-Bowl Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies (egg free & dairy free too!)
♡ Healthy One-Bowl Chocolate Chip Almond Butter Cookie Bars (egg free & dairy free too!)
♡ Healthy One-Bowl Fudgy Chocolate Chip Brownies (egg free & dairy free too!)
♡ Healthy Practically Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (egg free & dairy free too!)
♡ Healthy One-Bowl Fudgy Chocolate Chunk Brownies
♡ Healthy One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes
♡ …and the rest of Amy’s healthy cookie recipes and healthy one-bowl recipes!
I tried this recipe and it turned out really good. Thanks for the recipe.
I tried this, and it was great! Most buttery cookies I’ve ever had, despite only having 2 tbsp…. am I dreaming! Yum! Ate like…. 3 in a sitting. Addictive and low calorie… thanks for sharing!
Can I use only honey instead of the coconut sugar?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe, Lola! Unfortunately, that doesn’t quite work. Honey adds too much liquid to the cookie dough, so it’d have the consistency of muffin batter instead of cookie dough. The cookies wouldn’t hold their shape, and they’d likely end up with a cakey or bready texture too.
However, I’ve used honey in this chocolate chip cookie recipe! Maybe that recipe would be a slightly better fit for you? 🙂
If you end up making either recipe, I’d love to hear what you think of your chocolate chip cookies!
I love your recipes for baked goods since they are so scientifically calculated. I’m just trying to figure out why my chocolate chip cookies came out hard. I weighed the flour, etc. and used all the same ingredients that you used!??
You’re so kind, Lenore! We truly appreciate your interest in our recipes. That sounds disappointing and not like how these cookies should turn out, so we’d love to help figure out what happened. In order to do so, we have some questions for you!
Did you make any substitutions or modifications to the recipe, including those listed in the Notes section?
Did you use a kitchen scale to measure ALL of the ingredients — or only the ones given in grams?
Did you use the full amount of butter and milk?
Which flour option did you use — white whole wheat flour or the gluten-free blend (using millet, tapioca, and coconut flours!) provided in the Notes section?
Did you use coconut sugar? The full amount?
What was the texture of your cookie dough like before AND after chilling?
How long did you chill your cookie dough?
How long did you bake your cookies?
How much did they spread while baking?
By “hard,” do you mean crunchy and dense, like biscotti? Or something else?
I know I just asked a LOT of questions, but we’ll have a much better idea of the culprit once we know your answers to all of them! 🙂
i weighed the flour, but not the palm sugar, using grams
used the full amount of butter and milk.
texture was a little thick; maybe i needed more liquid
chilled dough 30 minutes
substituted walnuts for raisins
baked ~13 minutes
they did not spread much.
yes, crunchy like a biscotti almost
Thanks so much for this information, Lenore! I seem to be missing the answers to a few questions. They’re all important and help us narrow down the potential culprits, so we really appreciate you taking the time to answer each one! 🙂
If you only weighed the flour, how did you measure the other ingredients?
Which flour option did you use — white whole wheat flour or the gluten-free blend (using millet, tapioca, and coconut flours!) provided in the Notes section?
Did you use the full amount of coconut sugar? (And how did you measure it?)
Was the texture a little thick before OR after chilling?
Our recipe doesn’t call for walnuts or raisins. It calls for chocolate chips! Did you happen to mistype the details about that substitution, by any chance? Or is there a chance that you were following a different recipe instead? I just want to double check so we can provide the best possible advice! 😉
Once we know your answers to these questions, we’ll have a much better idea of what happened with your cookies!
measured full amount of sugar + butter with measuring cup/spoon
bob’s red mill 1:1 GF flour
thicker after chilling
i used choc chips + ⅓ cup walnuts
Thanks for sharing this, Lenore! We’re nearly there — just a couple of follow-up questions! 🙂
When you weighed the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour (the blend that comes in a light blue bag — not red or tan, correct?), did you use 120g or 148g? The former is the measurement in our recipe’s Ingredients list, while the latter is what BRM says is the weight of 1 cup of their Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour.
When you whisked together the melted butter and milk in Step 1, did the butter remain a liquid? (Some people have accidentally used cold milk, which makes the melted butter re-solidify into small particles — so I wanted to double check!)
Before chilling, the cookie dough should have the consistency of stiff muffin batter. After chilling, the cookie dough should be thicker but still tacky, where it would stick to your hands if you tried touching it (because it’s still wetter than many traditional chocolate chip cookie dough recipes!). Was that the consistency of your cookie dough before and after chilling?
If not, can you elaborate on the consistency of yours before and after chilling?
Did you check the cookies after 9 minutes and 12 minutes of baking time, like our recipe instructs?
If so, what was the indication that you used to decide to bake them longer?
Again, we really appreciate your patience and replies, Lenore!
120gm GF flour
butter was liquid + milk was warm
cookies looked too pale, so cooked them ~14 minutes
only used ⅛ tsp salt, not ¼ tsp
Thank you for sharing this information, along with everything you previously included, Lenore! Like Stacey asked in her last comment, it’d be really helpful to know the consistency of your cookie dough before and after chilling. That would help us pinpoint if there were any additional issues.
The main one is that the cookies were baked too long. As the recipe instructs, the cookies should be baked for 9-12 minutes. (I rarely bake them for more than 9 minutes!) They’re finished baking when the centers still feel a little soft and underdone. The heat of the warm baking sheet continues to cook the centers all the way through while the cookies rest for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.
If you left them in the oven until the centers felt firm, that actually results in overbaking the cookies. Like I mentioned, the heat from the warm baking sheet will still continue to cook the cookies — so if the centers are fully set when you remove them from the oven, that residual heat turns your cookies hard and crunchy.
Because your cookies didn’t spread much, and since you said you only chilled the dough for 30 minutes, it also sounds like the ratio of wet and dry ingredients was off. To make sure that isn’t the case, I highly recommend using a kitchen scale to measure the coconut sugar and butter, not just the flour. Both of these ingredients contribute to the liquid volume in this recipe. If there wasn’t quite enough of either (which can often happen when using measuring cups/spoons instead of a scale!), that would make your cookie dough too dry, which would also contribute to the hard texture of your cookies.
So to summarize… I recommend baking the cookies for no longer than 12 minutes (preferably closer to 9 or 10!) and using a kitchen scale to measure all ingredients with amounts given in grams. That should ensure your cookies turn out softer and chewier, as intended! 🙂
thank you.
Can you develop a healthy chocolate chip cookie with a sweetener that doesn’t spike blood sugar? Like–Inulin, Stevia, Monk Fruit, Erythritol, or Xylitol? Inulin would be the most awesome bc It’s also a pre-biotic. :). I personally am good with eggs and whatever low-no-fat milk. Prefer to keep butter/fats low. My ideal cookie is chewy on the inside but crunchy on the outside. I know you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes… :). I would be totally thrilled with a cookie that had (say) half the sugar-spiking sweeteners and butter/fats, if it were still chewy with a light crunch. For reference, my fav unhealthy cookie is Sally’s Baking Addiction Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies–maybe some of her techniques might transfer. I’d happily test for you 🙂
We really appreciate your interest in our cookies, Sharon! We do have a Honey Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that would fit your “half the sugar-spiking sweeteners” requirement. It doesn’t have any crunch, but it’s chewy with half the sugar content!
If you’d like to use Lakanto’s classic monk fruit sweetener to make this one-bowl chocolate chip cookies recipe (or another similar brand of monk fruit sweetener that’s a combination of erythritol + monk fruit and a cup-for-cup equivalent for granulated sugar), that’s also possible. You’ll need ½ cup (96g) of the monk fruit sweetener + an additional 2-3 tablespoons of milk to replace the coconut sugar. (The extra milk is required to achieve the correct cookie dough consistency because monk fruit and erythritol absorb and dissolve differently in liquids compared to coconut sugar and cane-based sugars!)
I’d love to hear your thoughts if you decide to try either recipe, Sharon! 🙂
Thank you! I’m excited to try the Erythritol/MonkFruit + Milk substitution!
I’m happy to help, Sharon! I am excited to hear how it works for you! 😉
I’m craving a delicious vegan chocolate chip cookie and I think I may have found what I’m looking for. But I have to ask, can I add walnuts to this recipe?
I hope these cookies cure your craving, Tammie! Yes, I think it should be fine if you add ¼ cup of walnut pieces! I don’t know that I’d add too much more… Because too large of a mix-ins to cookie dough ratio can prevent your cookies from holding together. (Does that make sense?) To ensure your cookies bake evenly, I’d also recommend cutting the walnuts to be no larger than the size of the chocolate chips. We’d love to hear what you think if you decide to try this recipe! 🙂