I’m partnering with Stevia In The Raw® to bring you today’s recipe! Their stevia products are really easy to use and perfect for baking!
Every year, my family makes my great-grandma’s cranberry salad the night before Thanksgiving to give it enough time to set and let the flavors meld. As part of the tradition, everybody has to participate in part of the process.
As we sat in Grandma’s living room, each person called out what they wanted to do. Grandma offered to dice pecans, Mom claimed chopping cranberries, my brother volunteered to zest oranges, and Dad decided to work on the gelatin part.
At that point, I looked around at everyone else. “What should I do?” I asked.
“You can be the captain and oversee everyone else!” Grandma proclaimed.
I guess I have a reputation for being in the kitchen and helping others follow recipes… ?
Over the next hour, Mom called me over to check the size of her chopped cranberries, I showed my brother the best way to zest citrus fruit (systematic strips, not random blotches!), and tossed Dad the gelatin packets when he lost track of them.
The next day, after it spent 19 hours in the refrigerator, Grandma pulled out the cranberry salad. She ran a knife around the outside of the mold, inverted the mold onto a serving platter, and gave it a good hard shake. Then…
By some miracle, the entire cranberry salad slid right out in one beautifully shaped circular piece! Normally it falls apart in big chunks and we have to dig it out of the mold, but not this year. It stood upright in all of its impressive glory for our Thanksgiving feast!
Later, when Dad mentioned we ended up with lots of leftover cranberries and oranges, I immediately bagged them up and brought them home because…
I had already planned on baking these Healthy Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Cookies! They’re soft and chewy with lots of festive holiday flavors from the sweet oranges and bright pops of fresh cranberries. Yet they’re much healthier than my family’s traditional cranberry salad because they contain no refined flour or sugar, and they’re just 65 calories!
So… I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you reached for a second cookie like me!
Let’s go over how to make these healthy cranberry orange oatmeal cookies!
You’ll start with a combination of instant oats and whole wheat flour. When I make oatmeal cookies, I always want them to taste like oatmeal cookies, not “cookies that happens to have a few oats in them,” so I add more oats than flour.
It’s really important to use instant oats, not traditional old-fashioned rolled oats (and definitely not steel cut oats!). This is because instant oats are smaller and thinner than old-fashioned oats, so they soften faster and give your healthy cranberry orange oatmeal cookies the perfect chewy texture.
Tip: Instant oats are also called “quick cooking” or “one minute” oats. They usually come in large canisters right next to the old-fashioned oats at the grocery store!
Just remember, in order for your cookies to turn out perfectly soft and chewy (not cakey or dry!), it’s extremely important that you measure the oats and flour correctly, using this method or a kitchen scale. Too much of either ingredient will dry our your cookie dough and make your cookies taste cakey or bready. This is especially true of the oats because they act like little sponges and soak up lots of moisture from your cookie dough. I promise these healthy cranberry orange oatmeal cookies are worth the extra 10 seconds of properly measuring!
Once you’ve measured your oats and flour, you’ll whisk in lots of orange zest and a bit of cinnamon. I love all of my oatmeal cookies to have a comforting taste, and that pinch of cinnamon does just that! As for the orange zest, it actually provides the majority of the citrus flavor because that orange taste is much more concentrated in the peel than in the juice. So don’t skip it!
But yes, you’ll still add some freshly squeezed orange juice to your cookie dough! It provides both flavor and natural sweetness. Then the rest of the sweetness in these healthy cranberry orange oatmeal cookies comes from…
Stevia In The Raw® Bakers Bag! Stevia In The Raw® Bakers Bag is a zero-calorie sweetener that contains an extract from the stevia plant, and Stevia In The Raw® Bakers Bag sweetens cup-for-cup like regular sugar. It’s so easy and handy to use in baking recipes to reduce calories (you save up to 700 calories for every cup of sugar you replace!) without sacrificing flavor.
Time for the second fruit component: the fresh cranberries! To quickly and easily dice them into little pieces, I actually pulse them in my food processor a few times. This trick doesn’t work for all fruit, but the cranberries are hardy enough to survive the sharp food processor blades without turning into a purée!
Before baking, you must chill your cookie dough! It’ll be a little soft and sticky when you first mix it up from the orange juice, but chilling stiffens the dough. Just 20 minutes is all it needs!
And then you’ll be ready to drop it onto your baking sheets! These healthy cranberry orange oatmeal cookies don’t actually spread while baking, so you must flatten the cookie dough before placing it in the oven. I use a mini spatula to do this!
But just a few minutes later…
It’s time to enjoy your freshly baked soft and chewy oatmeal cookies! 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 cranberry orange oatmeal cookies!
| Healthy Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Cookies | | Print |
- 1 cup (100g) instant oats (gluten-free if necessary and measured like this)
- ¾ cup (90g) whole wheat or gluten-free* flour (measured like this)
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp (8g) orange zest (about 1 extra large)
- 2 tbsp (28g) coconut oil or unsalted butter, melted
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup (12g) Stevia In The Raw® Bakers Bag
- ½ cup (120mL) freshly squeezed orange juice (about 1 extra large)
- ¾ cup (75g) fresh whole cranberries, diced
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Whisk in the orange zest. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted coconut oil, egg, and vanilla. Stir in the Stevia In The Raw® and orange juice. Add in the oat mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Fold in the cranberries. Chill the cookie dough for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F, and line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
- Using a spoon and spatula, drop the cookie dough into 15 rounded scoops onto the prepared sheet. Flatten to the desired thickness and width using a spatula. Bake at 325°F for 9-11 minutes. Cool on the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
For the gluten-free flour, I recommend the following: ½ cup (60g) millet flour, 2 tablespoons (15g) tapioca flour, 2 tablespoons (15g) brown rice flour, and ½ teaspoon xanthan gum. Most store-bought gluten-free flour blends (like this one!) will also work, if measured like this.
Instant oats are also known as quick-cooking or minute oats. They come in large canisters, just like old-fashioned oats. They are not the ones in the small flavored packets of oatmeal. To make your own, add the same amount of old-fashioned rolled oats to a food processor, and pulse 10-12 times or until the oats are about ¼ to ⅛ of their original size.
Don’t skip the orange zest! It actually provides the majority of the orange flavor.
For a shortcut, I pulse my cranberries a few times in a food processor to chop them. For best results, they should be no larger than ¼ of their original size.
Do not overbake these cookies! They’ll turn out cakey or dry if you do. They should still feel a little soft and underdone in the centers when you remove them from the oven. They’ll continue to cook all the way through while you let them cool on the warm baking sheet.
For answers to all other questions regarding substitutions and tips, see my Oatmeal Cookie FAQ Page.
{gluten-free, clean eating, low fat, lower sugar}
View Nutrition Information + Weight Watchers Points
This post was sponsored by Stevia In The Raw®. As always, all text, opinions, photographs, and recipe are my own.
You may also like Amy’s other recipes…
♡ Healthy Cranberry Orange Pound Cake
♡ Healthy Cranberry Orange Cupcakes
♡ Healthy Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Muffins
♡ Healthy Cranberry Orange Scones
♡ Healthy Dark Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
These are amazing! I had a very large cara cara orange on hand so I used all of the juice and zest from that. I also use chocolate chips instead of dried cranberries and it was awesome! Chocolate and orange go so well together! Loved them!
Hi_Amy!
Those_were_so_good_and_with_a_natural_freshness_of_pure_orange!!
I_sprinkled_them_with_chocolate_chips_as_I_didn’t_have_any_cranberries….
Next_day_tossed_one_cookie_in_some_melted_chocolate,then_refrigerated_it_and_my_little_niece_loved_it!
What_an_easy_way_to_get_kids_into_healthy_eating!!
By_the_way,_as_I_was_too_exhausted_to_bake_last_night_I_kept_the_batter_in_the_fridge
to_bake_the_next_morning.
But_then_I_thought_why_wait_and_not_try_a_spoonful_of_the_batter_as_pancake_for_now?
And_it_was_so_rewarding!
Then_next_morning_I_baked_them_in_the_oven_as_planned!
Your_recipes_turn_us_amateurs_into_notable_cooks!!_Suddenly_I_can_provide_healthy_cakes_for_my_mum!!
To_be_repeated!!!👍🧁🍬🍪❤❤❤
Yet again, your incredibly sweet comment made my entire day, Marcia!! I’m SO grateful for you taking the time to share your thoughts and say such kind things. You’re a true gem!! ♡♡♡
I’m thrilled that your niece loved these cookies, and using chocolate chips along with dipping them in melted chocolate sounds like such a fun twist! It’s great to know your pancake experiment turned out so well too. I love hearing about those creative recipe modifications, so thank you for sharing that with me as well! 🙂
I don’t understand! Why sometimes you ask in the recipes to use LIQUID VANILLA STEVIA for baking and other times you ask us to use the powder raw stevia. Isn’t it the same? If it’s not what’s the difference?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipes, Cecilia! Liquid stevia and powdered stevia have similarities — but they’re definitely not the same. They both contain stevia, but since pure stevia’s sweetness is SO incredibly concentrated (¼ teaspoon of pure stevia is about the sweetness equivalent of 1 cup of sugar!), different brands develop their products to have a less concentrated sweetness to make it easier to measure and use in baking recipes. Many stevia brands, products, and forms of those products have different sweetness levels, so they’re not always a 1-for-1 substitute for one another. For the best results, I always recommend using the same exact product that I do for the given recipe. I always try to link to it in the Ingredients list! (My links are the pink colored text. I know it can be easy to miss that detail!)
For this specific recipe, Stevia In The Raw asked if I’d create a winter holiday-themed recipe using their specific Bakers Bag product. That’s why it uses their granular product. 🙂
I have a cup of leftover homemade cranberry sauce, and am wondering if I can use it in this recipe somehow! It’s a chunky sauce with cranberries, orange zest, and sweetener. What do you think?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe, Susan! I’m a little worried that your homemade cranberry sauce would add a bit too much liquid to this cookie dough, which would throw off the consistency and texture of both the raw dough and the fully baked cookies. However, it might be fun to use in this cranberry thumbprint cookies recipe! I have a feeling it’d work much better in those thumbprint cookies. 🙂
If you end up making either recipe, I’d love to hear what you think of the cookies!
Thank you, Amy!
I ended up making a version of your Healthy Strawberry Crumble Bars, substituting the cranberry sauce for the strawberries, and they turned out delicious! The thumbprint cookies would’ve been great too, I’m sure, but since I had almost 2 cups of thick cranberry sauce, it would have meant making a huge number of cookies to use it all up 🙂
Next year when I make cranberry sauce, I plan to make a half recipe since I always have a bunch leftover, and I’ll save the other half of the bag for these cookies. Can’t wait to try them, and thanks again for the great content!
What a brilliant idea, Susan!! The crumble bars sounds like an even better use of your cranberry sauce. I’ll have to try that myself sometime; we usually end up with lots of leftover cranberry sauce after the holidays too. I bet my family wouldn’t mind eating it in that form for dessert! 😉 I’m so glad they turned out well and you enjoyed them!