Vegan Peanut Butter Chia Cookies

I’m a little bit obsessed with peanut butter and will seek out any excuse to eat it. I love pairing it with apples, bananas, jam, chocolate, and about a hundred other foods.

But, in the last year or so, I developed another obsession: Chia seeds.

I could gush about this tiny embryonic plant all day long. There’s a ridiculous amount of nutrition in these little guys. I put it in everything, including my yogurt, oatmeal, and smoothies. Show me a breakfast that’s better without chia, and I’ll show you a meal that I threw some chia in anyway.

So it was only a matter of time before I combined my two obsessions into one glorious, everyday treat. That’s how these delicious cookies came to be.

Why I Love This Recipe

My favorite thing about this recipe - other than the fact that it pairs chia with peanut butter - is that it’s a cinch to make. I can whip up a batch of these on my lunch break and have fresh warm cookies in 20 minutes flat.

They’re also pretty nutritious as far as baked goods go. You can even get away with eating these for breakfast, especially if you use a sugar substitute as a sweetener.

And they taste amazing. The cookies stay soft and chewy, but the chia seeds give it a nice crunch. Although the recipe makes 12, I often bake a double batch because otherwise, they don’t last too long!

Lastly, these cookies are vegan-friendly. Although I don't follow a vegan diet, I make an effort to limit my consumption of animal products. I also love experimenting with vegetarian and vegan recipes because they often wield superfood ingredients that you don't typically find in regular recipes.

The Ingredients

All you need to make these cookies a reality is a large bowl, a spatula, a strong stirring arm, and these five ingredients:

Peanut Butter

Peanut butter is naturally vegan, although some brands include sugars that may or may not be processed with bone char. However, if you stick with peanut butters that don't contain added sugar, you can be confident it is vegan.

Although often associated with desserts and other decadent treats, peanut butter on its own is relatively healthy; just two tablespoons contain 7 grams of protein. P.B. is also rich in phosphorous, zinc, and vitamin B-6.

Chia Seeds

The chia seeds act as the binding agent in this recipe. To prepare the chia, all you need to do is mix 1 tbsp of seeds with 3 tbsp of water, then let it sit for a few minutes. You’ll know it’s ready when you go to stir it, and it’s turned into a thick gel.

Not only does chia effectively replace eggs in this recipe, but it adds a blast of fiber, protein, magnesium, and omega-3 fatty acids, all of which give these cookies an impressive nutrition boost.

Vanilla Extract

Vanilla extract comes from the vanilla root, so it's naturally vegan-friendly. Even the artificial kind is usually made from wood pulp waste, which sounds unappetizing until you learn that it used to be made with the excretions from a beaver’s bum.

At any rate, while I recommend you use pure vanilla extract, whatever kind you have in your pantry will likely be vegan.

If you’re not sure (or you're too weirded out by your fresh knowledge of wood pulp and beaver butts), you can easily leave this out, and the cookies will still taste good. But I find the vanilla adds a little extra burst of flavor.

Almond Flour

Almond flour is a fantastic substitute for regular white flour. It still packs a wallop as far as calories go, but it’s crammed with nutrients. A ¼ cup of almond flour contains 2 grams of fiber, 8 grams of protein, and 40% of your daily Vitamin E.

Meanwhile, white flour contains a lot of empty carbs and little else.

To get the largest yield of cookies with this recipe, pack the almond flour down as much as possible when measuring it out.

Brown Sugar (or Sugar Substitute)

As we learned in our overview of peanut butter, not all sugars are considered strictly vegan because of the bone char that's used to process it.

The good news is, you can easily avoid buying non-vegan sugar simply by buying organic since bone char is never used in USDA-certified organic sugar.

For the tastiest results, I like to use brown sugar for this recipe. However, if you want to keep the sugar content low, you can swap out the sugar with an erythritol-based sweetener. If you go with erythritol, add a couple of extra tablespoons for optimal sweetness.

Recipe: Vegan Peanut Butter Chia Cookies

Yield: 12 Cookies

Prep time: 5 minutes

Bake time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

• ¾ cups peanut butter
• 1 tbsp of chia
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp almond flour, packed
• ¼ cup of brown sugar, packed

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, mix 1 tbsp of chia with 3 tbsp of water. Let sit for 5 minutes or until the seeds turn into a thick gel.
3. Toss all of the ingredients in a large bowl and start stirring with a spatula until everything is well combined. You may need to mix for a few minutes to get all the almond flour chunks smoothed out.
4. Using a spoon, scoop balls of dough onto the pan, roughly 1 tbsp per cookie. The batter will be a bit sticky - do not try to flatten them with a fork. The cookies will flatten out naturally in the oven.
5. Bake for 15 minutes. They will be very soft when you first take them out but will firm up a bit as they cool.
6. Let cool for 10 minutes before moving them from the pan.
7. Eat the cookies and rejoice!

Nutritional Info (Per Cookie - 22 grams)

Calories: 120

Net Carbs: 6.7 g

Protein: 3.4 g

Fat: 8.8 g

Fiber: 1.4 g

Sugar: 5.6 g

Author’s Note

I hope you enjoy this easy vegan treat! Please consider sending a small tip - every little bit helps me create even more content!

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