New Recipe: Almond Butter Banana Oatmeal Protein Cookies

When I’m bored or avoiding housework I like to peruse Pinterest. Everyone does right?

Lately, I’ve really started to miss baking. I haven’t really made anything interesting because there is no one to eat them. Obviously I don’t want a ton of sweet treats sitting on the counters, and Blake sure as hell doesn’t need to eat a whole batch of anything, so I’ve just haven’t made anything. Poor KitchenAid mixer is getting dusty!

I’ve seen this recipe for Peanut Butter Breakfast cookie before and always passed it over, but today I deiced to take a look at the recipe. It’s actually not bad! There is no sugar, no flour, and no butter! Wow! Sounds way too good to be true!

I decided to try it out. Of course, in true Erin fashion with some adjustments. Seriously, I can’t follow recipe to save my life, even when I try I mess something up!

Now this isn’t your typically cookie. I already mentioned there is no sugar, flour, butter or even oil, so don’t expect you a so-sweet-it-hurts-your-teeth type of cookie. It get its sweetness from the banana and the applesauce.

Almond Butter Banana Oatmeal Protein Cookies
Adapted from Watching What I Eat

1 mashed banana
1/3 cup almond butter
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I used Designer Whey French Vanilla)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 and 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup chopped pecans
Optional: chocolate chips about 1/4 cup (I opted out to keep the sugar low.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In large bowl smash banana until really smashed up! You don’t want any big chunks. Then add everything else to the bowl and mix really well. You know how recipes say to mix the wet and dry ingredients separate and then combine….I never do that. Not purposely either, I just forget that they are supposed to be separate.

After you mix all the ingredients, let the dough sit for about 10 minutes. This is so the oats can absorb some of the wetness from the applesauce and banana.

If you want to make sure you get the calorie and portion size uniform in each cookie you need to measure the dough to get the same amount each time. I used a medium size ice cream scoop, two scoops per cookie. Put them on the cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or spay with nonstick spray. Flatten them out a little, they don’t spread. If you want a really crunchy cookie flatten them a lot.

Bake for 15-25 minutes. Depends on your preference, if you want them more chewy or more crunchy. I found 18-22 minutes to be about perfect with crunchy edges but chewy center.

Stats per cookie (recipe yields 10): 141 calories, 7.8 g fat, 14.8 g carbs, 4 g sugar, 5 g protein

These babies are good! They taste like almond butter banana bread, even just one banana packs a powerful punch! I was a little worried about the protein powder but you can’t taste it at all, not even a hint. I really want to emphasize they are not what you expect in a cookie, they are delicious but nothing like a regular peanut butter oatmeal cookie. And so versatile, you could use any type of nut butter and any type of nut or leave em out.

These will work in my Insanity Elite Nutrition Program for meal two there is a nutrition bar option. It says to pick one around 200 calories, less than 25 g of sugar, and at least 10 g of protein. So if I have two of these it will be just about right. A little over in the calories is ok because with 5 meals per day it easily balances outs.

Let me know if you try these!