A few years ago, my mom, my brother, and I traveled to Arizona the weekend before Thanksgiving to see my grandparents. We woke up early on Saturday morning to navigate through the crowded airport and catch the only nonstop Southwest flight from the Bay Area to Tucson.
After landing, we picked up a rental car and drove over an hour to my grandparents’ house in their small town. Once we had dropped off our bags in their guest bedrooms, we spent the rest of the day visiting, doing chores, and running errands for them, thoroughly enjoying every minute of quality time.
That evening after dinner, the three of us felt slightly exhausted from our long day of travel and nonstop activities in Arizona, so we collapsed on the sofa and armchairs in the living room to relax. I noticed a tub of bite-sized crunchy chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joe’s on the kitchen counter, and after checking with my family, I grabbed three little ones, put them on a napkin, and slowly nibbled on them while unwinding and talking with Mom.
Although I normally vastly prefer soft and chewy cookies over crunchy ones, I completely surprised myself by how much I loved those cookies from Trader Joe’s… And I even went back to the kitchen for a couple more that night, in addition to nibbling on them again the following evening after dinner too.
Yet when we returned home, I purposely avoided buying a tub at the Trader Joe’s in my California town… I knew I’d polish them off all by myself much too quickly!
After visiting my grandparents in December and again last weekend, I decided to try baking a batch of crunchy cookies in my own kitchen. After lots of testing and tweaking, I finally perfected this recipe for the Ultimate Healthy Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies!
They’re crisp and crunchy, not one bit soft or chewy like my other ultimate healthy chocolate chip cookie recipe, and they’re deliciously sweet with lots of rich chocolate morsels. Yet unlike the ones I ate in Arizona, these contain no eggs, refined flour or sugar and just 100 calories!
Let’s go over how to make these ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies! Because I learned a lot about the science of crunchy chocolate chip cookies while developing this recipe, I’m going to share lots of tips with you to ensure your batches turn out perfectly too!
So… Here we go!
Nerd Alert #1: Flour
To make these crunchy chocolate chip cookies healthy, you’ll skip the refined all-purpose flour and use white whole wheat flour instead. Yes, such a thing actually exists… And it’s not a combination of white (aka all-purpose) flour and whole wheat flour!
Instead, white whole wheat flour is 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 health benefits (like extra fiber!), but white whole wheat flour has a lighter taste and texture… Which lets the sweet flavor of your ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies really shine!
Nerd Alert #2: Butter
Your ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies do require butter… But only 2 tablespoons! Compared to traditional recipes with ¼ to ½ cup, that really helps keep these healthy cookies low fat and low calorie. Plus I have a secret trick (see Nerd Alert #5!) that still makes these ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies taste just as rich and buttery as traditional recipes!
After lots of testing, I found that softened butter performed better than melted butter. I generally prefer melted butter because it’s so much easier to melt butter than remember to set butter out far enough in advance to soften… And using melted butter means I don’t have to pull out (and then wash) my mixer… But the softened butter truly gave these cookies a crunchier texture.
And that’s because…
Nerd Alert #3: Sweetener
You’ll beat the softened butter with coconut sugar! This creaming method (instead of stirring, like with melted butter!) whips air into the cookie dough. Less air pockets = softer and chewier texture. More air pockets = crunchier texture. And since you’re making the ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies, creaming the butter and coconut sugar is the way to go!
Coconut sugar is exactly what it sounds like, an unrefined sweetener that comes from coconuts. However, it doesn’t actually taste like coconuts! It has a caramel-like flavor, similar to brown sugar, that makes these ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies taste deliciously rich.
Nerd Alert #4: Eggs
If you’ve read every word of my blog post so far, then you already know… This recipe requires no eggs! Eggs, especially the yolks, create a more soft and chewy texture in cookies. Therefore, by omitting the eggs, your cookies have a less soft or chewy and more crunchy texture.
Instead of eggs, you’ll add a little splash of milk to your cookie dough! Any kind will work, but since my brother is allergic to eggs and lactose-intolerant, I prefer using unsweetened cashew milk or unsweetened almond milk so he can enjoy these cookies too.
And in case you’re wondering, he gave these ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies his big stamp of approval!
Nerd Alert #5: Vanilla
Vanilla is a very common ingredient in traditional chocolate chip cookie recipes, but it’s actually my secret ingredient because… You’re using more! Extra vanilla extract actually enhances butter’s flavor, so using a bit more compared to classic recipes makes your ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies taste just as rich and buttery as the traditional indulgent ones!
Nerd Alert #6: Chocolate Chips
They’re definitely a requirement in chocolate chip cookies! ? I tried using a blend of dark chocolate chips and miniature chocolate chips, like in my soft and chewy version, yet I found that my taste testers didn’t enjoy the big chocolate chunks as much in this crunchy version. So I stuck with solely mini chocolate chips.
And that’s totally fine by me! It means one less ingredient to worry about… And multiple mini morsels in every bite!
However, just like in my soft and chewy recipe, I saved some of the mini chocolate chips to press into the tops of the cookie dough just before baking. I think it makes these ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies look even more irresistible, don’t you??
But wait… I’m getting ahead of myself!
Nerd Alert #7: Chilling
Chilling is mandatory! If you’ve measured your flour correctly, using this method or a kitchen scale (← that’s the one I own and love!), then your cookie dough should be sticky when you first mix it together. Chilling helps stiffen the cookie dough, and it also gives the flavors a chance to meld.
You just need 30 minutes! Long enough to check email, walk your dog, scroll through Instagram, realize seeing everyone’s food pictures on Instagram is making you hungry… Or is that just me? ?
But at least when I start feeling hungry, it’s just about time for…
Nerd Alert #8: Baking
Baking—hooray! Transfer your chilled cookie dough to your baking sheet, and flatten it to about ½” thick with a spatula. (I use these mini ones. Aren’t they cute??)
Your ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies should spread some while baking (if you’ve measured the flour correctly, just like I mentioned before!), but not excessively, so flattening the cookie dough before baking gives them a “spreading head start.” This is also the time where I press those reserved mini chocolate chips into the top of each cookie!
You’ll bake these longer than with my soft and chewy version. More time in the oven = crispier and crunchier cookies. This extra time in the oven gives them a darker tan color, and that’s good!
When you pull your tray of ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies out of the oven, gently touch the centers. They should feel firm, not soft. Even so…
Nerd Alert #9: Cooling
For the best texture, you must allow your ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies cool completely to room temperature on the baking sheet! The warmth from the metal pan continues to cook the centers all the way through (without burning your cookies, like if you baked them longer!). If you remove them from the baking sheet too early, the centers of your cookies will be slightly chewy and not 100% crunchy.
Nothing wrong with that though! They still taste delicious like that to me! ♡ But if you want an absolutely, positively crunchy cookie… Then wait. I know it feels like pure torture to sit there staring at your warm pan of ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies…
But I promise these are worth it! 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 ultimate healthy crunchy chocolate chip cookies!
| The Ultimate Healthy Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies | | Print |
- 1 cup (120g) white whole wheat flour or gluten-free* flour (measured like this)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp (28g) unsalted butter or vegan butter, softened (see Notes)
- ½ cup (96g) coconut sugar
- 2 tbsp (30mL) unsweetened cashew milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp (42g) miniature chocolate chips, divided
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and coconut sugar with an electric or stand mixer. Beat in the cashew milk and vanilla. Gradually beat in the flour mixture, mixing 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 to ½” thick 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 20-22 minutes. Cool completely to room temperature on the baking sheet.
For the gluten-free option, 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 (like this one!) will work as well, if measured like this.
It’s extremely important to measure the flour correctly, using this method or a kitchen scale. (← That’s the one I own and love!) Too much flour will make your cookies turn out dry or crumbly.
Light brown sugar may be substituted for the coconut sugar.
Any milk may be substituted for the unsweetened cashew milk.
For a vegan version, use vegan butter, like Earth Balance sticks (my favorite!) and vegan-friendly miniature chocolate chips, like Enjoy Life. I do not recommend substituting coconut oil because its melting temperature is much lower, which negatively affects the texture of these cookies.
This recipe is easily doubled!
If you prefer cookies that are crunchy on the outside and slightly chewy in the center, bake the cookies for 15-18 minutes instead.
For more information, please see the Nerd Alerts #1-9 in the blog post above.
{gluten-free, clean eating, low fat, vegan option}
View Nutrition Information + Weight Watchers Points
You may also like Amy’s other recipes…
♡ The Ultimate Healthy Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
♡ The Ultimate Healthy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
♡ The Ultimate Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies
♡ The Ultimate Healthy Sugar Cookies
♡ The Ultimate Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
♡ The Ultimate Healthy White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
♡ …and the rest of Amy’s healthy cookie recipes!
I think this recipe looks great, I wish you’d provide the nutritional information along with it. I’m trying to find some low carb cookie recipes and almost every recipe I look at out on the web doesn’t include this information.
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Charles! The full nutrition information is actually included already; it’s directly beneath the recipe. I know it can be easy to miss! 🙂 I’d love to hear what you think if you try these cookies!
Im glad you now have a crunchy cookie that I love more than soft this will be a great plain cookie without the chocolate chips that I can play around with and convert into my favourite New Zealand biscuits eg Hokey Pokey and gingernut biscuits here in NZ we call cookies biscuits where I think your term for biscuits is our scone, I grind my own flour so maybe if I sift out the bran it will be more like your white whole wheat flour?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Debra! I believe we already covered whether your homemade flour will work in a comment on my Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Muffins in November. The same answer still applies here! 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of these cookies! (Or biscuits, using your NZ term! 😉 )
I just made these cookies and I really like it ?
My dough was drier though and because of that I didn’t refrigerate it. I used regular all wheat flour and brown sugar instead. Plus about 1/4 cup of chocolate chunks. Yummy!!
Thank you!
I’m really glad you enjoyed these cookies Lorena! Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know! 🙂
I baked these today and they turned out quite dry and crumbly even after cooling down.
I followed all your quick tips and measured out everything meticulously.
Also，my cookies barely expanded after baking. They stayed roughly the same size before and after baking.
Are these two things correlated?
I have remaining cookie dough in the fridge to bake another day. Is there anything i can do to make the end result more moist?
Thanks
Inuri
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Inuri! These cookies are meant to be crunchy, not soft and chewy. If you’d prefer the soft and chewy version (aka cookies that are more moist!), then follow this recipe of mine instead! 🙂
Hi, will reducing the amount of sugar rukn the crunchiness? We prefer less sweet. The recipe looks awesome otherwise, was thinking of adding some orange zest, might be interesting. Thanks!
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Sam! If you reduce the amount of sugar, then your cookie dough will turn out crumbly. The sugar is actually required for sweetness and texture! If you reduce it (and do nothing else to the recipe), then all of the flour mixture won’t incorporate. However, we can probably increase the amount of milk to compensate so your cookies still turn out crunchy and delicious! By how much would you like to reduce the sugar? (And I love your idea of adding orange zest — I can’t wait to hear how that turns out! 🙂 )
Thanks for your reply! I’ll try to experiment a bit then, most home made cookies turn out chewy, so I was looking for a crunchy cookie. Fingers crossed!
It’s my pleasure Sam! I can’t wait to hear how your cookies turn out! 🙂
Hi Amy.Would this recipe still work if i used oat flour and reduced the sugar to 1/4 cup?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Renae! Yes, oat flour will work. However, reducing the sugar will not. The sugar isn’t just there for sweetness — it’s also there for texture! If you cut the sugar in half, then the cookie dough would be much too dry, and all of the flour wouldn’t get incorporated. I’d love to hear what you think if you try these cookies!
Hi Amy,
We tried it tonight and sadly, the dough turned out very dry and crumbly which made it very hard to spoon and flatten them. After we baked them, they didn’t expand. They were crunchy but also were hard:(
I tried 2 recipes from you site but none turned out successful so far.
Thank you!
I really appreciate your interest in my recipes Candy! That sounds really disappointing and not like how these cookies are supposed to turn out at all. I’d love to help you solve those issues! 🙂 How are you measuring the flour? Are you using a kitchen scale or measuring cups? If the latter, can you describe in detail how you used them? Also, did you make any modifications to the recipe, including those listed in the Notes section? Once I have all of that information, we should have a better idea of what happened and how to fix it!
Hi Amy.Would this recipe work as a cookie cake if i doubled or tripled the recipe and baked it in a cake pan?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Lara! I think if you doubled the recipe and used a 9″-round pan, that should work. However, I’m not sure whether the crunchy texture will be the same when baking it as a cake. The center may not turn out as crunchy with the cookie cake as compared to the individual cookies. I’d still love to hear how your cookie cake turns out if you try that though! 🙂
Hi Amy.I Made this into a cookie cake but I kept the batch size the same so I didn’t waste ingredients if all went wrong! It Didn’t! The edges were crispy and the middle was soft and chewy.Totally delish! I was wondering though,what would happen if I used half brown sugar and half white sugar? I’ve heard using white sugar makes cookies more crunchy.Oh I forgot to mention I used a gluten free flour blend and actually just a 1/4 cup brown sugar for the cookie cake.Thanks Amy 🙂
I’m so glad it turned out well Lara! Thanks for letting me know! 🙂 I think it’d definitely be worth trying with half brown and half white sugar. I’d love to hear how that goes if you do!
Hi Lara! How long did you bake your cookie cake for? Would like to make one for a birthday. Thanks!
Hey 🙂 I made theese the other day and overall liked the final result, the only thing is that they were maybe just a liiiittle bit too hard to chew. Do you know what could be the reason for that, and how to fix it? Also, I was wondering if I could substitute 1/2 of the amount of coconut sugar for some other granulated sweetener, such as xylitol? Using only coconut sugar gives cookies a bit too much of that caramel flavour for my liking… And one more thing, I really like rum flavoured choc chip cookies, so would the recipe still work the same if I add 1 – 2 tbsp of rum, or it changes something?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Maja! If the cookies were too hard to chew, then the best thing to do would be to bake them for less time. Try removing them from the oven about 5 minutes earlier next time! I haven’t baked with rum, but I think it should be okay to replace an equal amount of milk with rum (for example, 1 tablespoon of rum for 1 tablespoon of milk). I haven’t baked much with xylitol either, so I’m not sure how that substitution would turn out. Some granular sugar alcohols behave differently than sugar, especially in how easily they dissolve or absorb liquid, which can greatly affect the texture of cookie dough. However, if you’re okay with regular granulated or brown sugar, those would definitely work in place of the coconut sugar!
I’d love to hear how your next batch of cookies turn out if you try any of these modifications! 🙂
Thanks for helping! I followed your advices and new batch turned out fantastic, just the way I wanted! 🙂
Wonderful!! That makes me so happy to hear! 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to let me know, Maja!
Hi Amy,
Thank you so much for this recipe, can’t wait to try it!
A couple of questions:
1. The protein content isn’t great at only 1.4g/cookie. Is there any way to turn this into a crunchy protein cookies or just make crunchy protein regardless of this recipe?
2. Are you familiar with ghee? Do you think it could be used in such a recipe?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these.
Thanks!
Razvan
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Razvan! Yes, I think ghee could be used in this recipe (or just about any of my recipes that call for butter!). Unfortunately, increasing the protein isn’t quite as simple. This is because all protein powders behave differently in baking recipes. (See my Protein Powder FAQ page here for more information!) I do have a few protein cookie recipes here, if you’re interested. They’re all soft and chewy though — not crunchy! Either way, I’d love to hear what you think if you decide to try this recipe or any of my protein cookie recipes! 🙂
These are soo crunchy and I shamelessly ate two (and a half) in the morning! The recipe is so easy and the cookies turn out perfect!
I was a little skeptical pulling out the mixer (cause your recipe usually requires no mixer), but knowing Amy, I know you wouldn’t ask that unless we have to! It’s sooo great!
You’re just the sweetest Charlotte!! It truly means the world to me that you’d trust my recipes so much! ♡ I’m really glad you loved these cookies. I’m so honored that you’d call these cookies perfect — thank you SO much for taking the time to let me know! 🙂