These healthy pumpkin oatmeal cookies use a lot less sugar than my regular pumpkin oatmeal cookies and there’s no butter or oil in the dough. They have wonderful spiced pumpkin flavor and you can add chocolate chips and/or dried cranberries for even more flavor. The best part? There’s no cookie dough chilling so a batch is ready in only 25 minutes!
You are going to love these! Today’s cookies have absolutely no butter or oil in them. They are left soft from the pumpkin puree and egg. I kept them even more wholesome by loading them with oats and whole wheat flour.
What I loved the most about them is that I really didn’t use much sugar at all in the dough. Feel free to add more or reduce the amount as you please, but I found 1/2 cup of sugar was perfect for these. Update: try them with coconut sugar!
Flavorful & Healthy Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
The chocolate chips and dried cranberries work double duty: sweetening the cookies and creating mass appeal. Something about the juicy pop of sweetness from a dried (or fresh!) berry and the rich decadence of chocolate—there’s really nothing quite like this duo.
With no mixer required, the dough comes together pretty quickly. Start to finish, the cookies were ready in about 25 minutes.
The cookies pack a huge pumpkin flavor punch. Pleasantly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, they’re the epitome of fall. You could even use homemade pumpkin pie spice here! See recipe Note.
Perfecting The Recipe
Baking cookies with pumpkin is tough because more often than not, you’re going to end up with a cakey cookie..
For these healthy cookies, however, I wanted something with a bit more texture but still overloaded with pumpkin flavor. Pumpkin adds a ton of moisture to a cookie dough. There’s so much liquid in pumpkin that it’s a real challenge to find the best dry to wet/sturdy to soft ratios; sometimes too much of a good thing spells disaster. (That’s why I leave out the egg when making pumpkin snickerdoodles and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.)
I went with 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree and added in a bunch of oats to help soak it all up. The cookies turned out light, but quite dense. They have lots of “staying” power and are quite satisfying.
Success Tip: Flatten Before Baking
The cookies should be shaped exactly how you want them to bake up. In other words, flatten them out so they aren’t balls of uncooked pumpkin cookie dough inside. The absence of butter and increased amounts of oats and leavening agents don’t really allow the cookies to spread like your typical chocolate chip cookies—so make sure you flatten them out a bit before baking.
And be sure to try my other favorite healthier fall dessert of choice… pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal bars!
Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies Recipe
Ingredients You’ll Need
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl whisk together pumpkin, egg, and vanilla until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, chocolate chips, and dried cranberries. Fold together the wet and dry ingredients until just combined and do not overmix. The cookie dough will be very thick.
- Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheets and slightly flatten to the shape you want your cookie. Bake for 13-15 minutes until lightly browned. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for at least 3 minutes and transfer to a wire rack. Cookies stay fresh at room temperature for 3 days in an airtight container.
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