These egg free and dairy free honey and oat cookies are a healthier spin on a childhood favourite, with whole wheat flour and a little ginger for kick. There’s no added sugar here, just honey, and the cookies are chewy and soft.
Honey and oat cookies are a lovely treat around the holidays and I often wrap them up as gifts for friends, and these ones are made with healthy whole-food ingredients like spelt flour and coconut oil. Of course they’re not vegan because of the honey, but they are dairy-free and egg-free. A little ginger spices things up and they turn out a little reminiscent of oat florentines, just not so thin.
I feel like I’ve tested a million healthy honey and oat cookies over the past couple of years, all with disastrous results. They were either dense little rocks or spread way too much. One batch in particular literally filled the cookie sheet with one giant cookie and I had to peel it off in one great chunk. Finally, success.
This version is just the right amount of chewy with a big honey flavour. There’s so little flour in the recipe that it might seem like it won’t work, but it will! I started with dense little honey pucks and worked my way down to this amount, and it’s just right. Graham loved the hockey pucks but he likes the weirdest things.
Honey Oat Cookies Without Sugar
My mom had a cookie book when I was a kid that had this one recipe for giant oatmeal honey cookies, and it was my go-to recipe for cookie cravings. It always confused me a little that the recipe called for about 2 cups of sugar in addition to the honey, though, because it seemed like a honey cookie shouldn’t have sugar interfering.
Well, almost 20 years later, I have a proper honey and oat cookie recipe that doesn’t need any sugar (or butter!) and I think it beats the original. It’s much healthier, really simple, and there are a couple of fun wintery add-ins you can do if you feel like a more exciting oatmeal cookie.
This is the last cookie recipe for a little while – I have some healthy drinks, snacks, and mains coming your way for the new year! This post was meant to be part of a pre-Christmas cookie series (here and here), but I got a little caught up in the holiday and didn’t end up posting before Christmas – sorry! It works as a healthy new year resolution cookie, too!
Looking for more healthy cookie recipes for the holidays? Try these!
Vegan Spice Sugar Cookies
Chocolate Orange Macaroons
Vegan Lebkuchen (German Spice Cookies)
Vegan Orange Shortbread
Ultimate Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies
Flourless Chocolate Tahini Cookies
Healthy Bounty Bars
Let’s connect! If you liked this recipe, make sure to leave a comment below, I love hearing from you! Tag me on instagram @occasionallyeggs and #occasionallyeggs so I can see what you’re making, and stay in touch via facebook, pinterest, and bloglovin.
Honey and Oat Cookies
These egg free and dairy free honey and oat cookies are a healthier spin on a childhood favourite, with whole wheat flour and a little ginger for kick. There's no added sugar here, just honey, and the cookies are chewy and soft.
Ingredients
- 100 grams / 1 cup rolled oats
- 40 grams / 1/4 cup whole spelt flour*
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon extract
- 60 grams / 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted**
- 60 ml / 1/4 cup honey
- 2 tablespoons non-dairy milk
- 2 cm fresh ginger, grated (optional)***
- Optional: 1/4 cup raisins/chocolate chips and 1/4 cup sliced almonds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (you may need two sheets if yours are small).
- In a large bowl, combine the oats, flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, and vanilla powder. Add the raisins or chocolate and the sliced almonds if you're using them.
- In a smaller dish, whisk together the coconut oil, honey, milk, and ginger.
- Add the honey mixture to the dry ingredients and stir to incorporate. If it seems too thin let it sit for five minutes to thicken up a little before shaping the cookies.
- Place two tablespoons of the cookie dough onto the baking sheet and spread it out to about a 1 cm thickness with the back of a spoon. Repeat until all of the dough is used, leaving 6 cm (2 inches) between each cookie to allow for spreading.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden. Remove the pan from the oven and let the cookies cool on the pan for 10 minutes before carefully lifting them off with a spatula and letting them cool fully on a rack. Store in a sealed container for up to 3 days.
Notes
• To keep the cookies from sticking to each other when you stack them, cut squares of parchment or wax paper and place them in between each cookie.
• Use maple syrup or another favourite liquid sweetener in place of the honey to make these fully vegan.
• Please note that in the video, my oven was running hot and the cookies baked too quickly, so they spread less. Still good!
* I think this recipe would work with gluten-free flour, but I haven't tested it yet. My recommendation would be something like whole buckwheat, but I can't guarantee anything - if you try it, please let me know!
** I tried this with olive oil, and found the flavour overpowering. The coconut oil helps keep the cookies from falling apart once they're cool, too.
*** You can also use 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger (just add it to the dry ingredients) instead of fresh, but the flavour will be significantly different. Use ground if you prefer a more traditional flavour, or just leave it out.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
10Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 168Total Fat: 9gSaturated Fat: 5gUnsaturated Fat: 3gSodium: 69mgCarbohydrates: 22gFiber: 2gSugar: 12gProtein: 3g
This data is provided by a calculator and is a rough estimation of the nutritional information in this recipe.
Ayngelina says
I'm not big on sweets but I LOVE crispy cookies, these seem right up my alley.
Eyecandypopper says
I understand the battle with oat cookies! haha and I love that they are dairy-free too! Nicely done, at least it was worth the effort in the end.
Mardi (eat. live. travel. write.) says
These look great – and I love the addition of fresh ginger! Happy New Year!
Justine Celina says
Yum, yum, yum! I LOVE spelt flour cookies and haven't made them any in such a long time. I just pinned this recipe to try it out in the new year. Thanks for the beautiful inspiration, Alexandra! Wishing you an incredible 2017!
Alexandra Daum says
Good to hear, Ayngelina! I don't like overly sweet desserts either.
Alexandra Daum says
Hahaha it's so frustrating sometimes eh? These ended up being a really nice holiday treat, though.
Alexandra Daum says
Thanks Mardi!
Alexandra Daum says
Thanks, Justine! You've got enough on your plate with your own recipe development! I always mean to make recipes from other bloggers but get caught up in testing 🙂
Maria Gr says
This recipe is sooooo goood!!!! Oh my God! I´m ready to eat the whole bunch of them 🙂 Thank you very much for the recipe. I hope you don´t matter, if I publish the translation of it on my blog? Of course with a link to your website ^_^
Thank you again. Now I need to go away from kitchen, maybe even from home hahaha :))
Ulka says
Hi Alexandra
I tried half the recipe and has some issues. The batter did not spread at all while baking and the resulting cookies were extremely soft and little dry.
The only difference was that I used normal whole wheat flour instead of spelt flour and canola oil instead of coconut. Are these supposed to be very soft? The cookies in your picture look crispy and lovely golden!!
Alexandra | Occasionally Eggs says
Hi Ulka, it’ll be because you used a liquid oil instead of coconut oil. If you don’t have coconut oil, I’d recommend margarine or butter or something else that’s solid at room temperature.
Ulka says
Thank you for your suggestion Alexandra! Will try with butter.
Even though soft, the cookies tasted delicious and the kitchen was filled with the most amazing aroma!! 😃
Ivy says
Hi there,
I tried these with vegetable shortening in place of coconut oil and they were delicious. The honey and cinnamon are in perfect balance. Thank you for the recipe!
Laura says
Made these switching honey for rice syrup and ground turmeric for ginger, adding a chia egg just to make sure they would stay together, almonds for the crunch and they were really nice!! Everyone appreciated them, thanks for a quick and delicious recipe
Alexandra | Occasionally Eggs says
That’s great to know they work with rice syrup, thanks Laura!
eyon says
I tried this and the cookies were hard but taste is nice. What possibly went wrong??
Alexandra | Occasionally Eggs says
If you didn’t change anything about the recipe, it might just be that your oven was running a little hot and they over-baked slightly. Small changes to the recipe to make a big difference for these cookies – if the recipe was the same then I’d suggest a slightly shorter baking time next time.
Erica Thiessen says
Mine didn’t spread in the oven!! But were simply delicious either way. I recommend flattening them before popping them in the oven before baking if you want them to be thin 🙂
Alexandra | Occasionally Eggs says
Hi Erica! The recipe says to spread the cookies to about 1cm thickness with a spoon before baking, so I suggest trying that next time – they don’t spread and turn into the thin cookies pictured otherwise. I’m glad you liked them anyway!
Vera says
What an easy recipe, thanks!
I will try once I buy the coconut oil.
Emma says
These failed miserably for me 🙁
I used plain flour instead of spelt but otherwise followed the recipe to the T so I’m not sure why?
Alexandra | Occasionally Eggs says
Hi Emma, could you explain a bit more on what went wrong?
Julia says
Thanks for the receipt I have tried and was delicious. Honey sweetness, cinnamon smell and task so yummy😋
My was not crunch as I see on the picture but I will improve.