Best Sugar-Free Oatmeal Cookies With Peanut Butter (5 Ingredients!)

This sugar-free oatmeal cookie recipe is sweet from the mashed bananas and chocolate chips and has a soft and chewy texture.

The sugar intake has been reduced in these classic oatmeal cookies, highlighting the natural flavor of the bananas. Only 5 ingredients!

If you love more chocolate chip cookies try our family's favorite oatmeal banana cookies, decadent Italian ricotta cookies, and double chocolate M&Ms cookies next.

Rita's Notes

These Italian cookies are not a type of sugarless cookies in which you add maple syrup, honey, applesauce, or artificial sweetener to compensate for the sweetness.

On the contrary, these healthy flourless, sugar-free oatmeal cookies are made with natural ingredients.

We add bananas for a naturally sweet flavor, along with dark chocolate chips, which are optional here or can be substituted with naturally sweet raisins (make sure the dried raisins are without added sugar!).

For the healthier and basic cookies, you’ll only need 4 ingredients. 

If you like raisins, try our moist banana bread (with raisins) and oatmeal raisin cookies next time. 

• Bananas - these flourless cookies do not contain white sugar, brown sugar, or refined sugar. Bananas are great for naturally adding sweetness to baking goods. You’ll need about 2 large, overripe, mashed bananas. Banana + black spots = sweet cookies!
• Peanut butter - I’ve used creamy peanut butter, but you could use crunchy peanut butter instead. Go for a good-quality natural peanut butter with just salt and peanuts. Check the ingredient labels, and use unsweetened and unsalted peanut butter for a healthier option.
• Vanilla extract - use high-quality pure vanilla extract. And yes, it matters.
• Oats - old-fashioned oats are nutritious and preferred for these cookies, but you can use quick oats, too, when in a pinch (the texture will be different). I like to use Bob's Red Mill or Quaker Oats here, as well as gluten-free or regular oats.
• Chocolate chips - you can use dark, unsweetened, or diabetes-friendly chocolate chips, dark, milk, or white chocolate chips (these are with sugar). Increase the chips to ¾ cups for extra chocolate indulgence! Unsweetened raisins or cacao nibs can be used instead of chocolate chips.

How To Make Sugarless Oatmeal Cookies

How to make sugar-free oatmeal cookies from scratch:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

1. Step 1: Add mashed bananas, peanut butter, vanilla, and oats to a large bowl. Mix well with an electric, stand, or food processor on low speed until combined.

2. Fold in chocolate chips.

• I’ve rolled these cookies to the size of a walnut, but you can adjust the size for larger cookies, which will require an extra minute to bake. 
• Use a cookie scoop to create uniform-sized cookies.
• I wet my hands before rolling the cookie dough, which helps to prevent the dough from sticking to my hands. 
• Don’t leave these cookies out for long at room temperature, as they contain bananas (It's best to refrigerate them!). You could also chill the cookie dough before rolling it to reduce the sticky texture. 
• For a more healthy oatmeal cookie, leave the chocolate chips out.
• You can easily double the ingredients to make an extra batch of oatmeal cookies and store them in the freezer to enjoy whenever you like.
• If you use natural peanut butter in this recipe, mix any oil that has settled at the top of the jar into the rest of the peanut butter. If you don’t, the butter will be dry, which can cause crumbly cookies. This being said, not all-natural peanut butter has the same consistency.
• If you want sweeter-tasting cookies, you can add natural sugar alternatives, such as maple syrup, date paste, maltitol syrup, stevia, applesauce (just a bit in addition), or monk fruit. 
• These cookies will become firmer as they cool. I like to warm them in the microwave or low-temperature oven to make them softer.
• For more natural sweeteners, consider adding finely chopped dates or pureed dates (they taste better than caramel!) or raisins. 
• Is the flavor too sweet? If you are making the batter and the cookie dough seems too sweet after tasting it, add chopped cranberries, as their tartness will balance the sweetness pretty well. You can also omit the chocolate chips or add them only to half a batch of the cookies.
• I don't recommend adding more salt as this will intensify all the flavors and sweetness.

Are Sugar-Free Oatmeal Cookies Good For You?

These delicious oatmeal cookies are suitable for many diets and people with food intolerances.

These cookies are:

Freezing and Storing Instructions

• Store in an airtight container refrigerated for up to 5 days. Let the cookies come to room temperature before eating.
• To Freeze. You can also freeze these for up to 3 months. Defrost in the fridge overnight and let it come to room temperature. 

• Swap the vanilla extract to the almond extract for some delicious nutty flavor.
• Shredded coconut or coconut flakes will add tons of new flavors.
• Turn these cookies into oatmeal raisin cookies by adding about ½ cup of raisins.
• Lemon, lime, or orange zest is a classic flavor enhancer for any cookie. And great for a fresh aroma.
• Mix-Ins - Swap the chocolate chips for more naturally sweet ingredients such as raisins or dried fruit. Dried cranberries will work too. Chopped nuts such as hazelnuts, sliced almonds or almond flakes, peanuts, walnuts or pecans will work best here.
• Banana puree can be substituted with pumpkin puree or sweet potato. In the end, this is what gives the cookies their naturally sweet taste.
• To make the cookies more flavorful add a pinch of salt to the cookie dough.
• Peanut butter can be substituted to chocolate peanut butter or almond butter.
• Make these cookies a complete nutrient powerhouse by adding a mix of nuts and seeds - flaxseeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), and sunflower seeds. Goji berries are one of my favorites to add to cookies too.
• Use oat flour - for smoother cookies, grind those rolled oats into a fine powder with a spice/coffee bean grinder or use a food processor. 
• Make it vegan-friendly - use dairy-free chocolate chips to make vegan oatmeal cookies.
• If you feel you need more sweetness or bananas are not ripe enough (lots of sweet flavors come from bananas), then you can add liquid sweeteners: honey, maple syrup, or agave syrup. You only need a little, and you can easily taste the cookie dough as all the ingredients are edible in their raw and unbaked form.

Easy Baking Recipes

Craving more healthy baking recipes? Try my peanut butter blossoms, cottage cheese cookies and carrot cake muffins.

Take a look at our Baking archives to find even more tasty treats.