Best Sugar Free Oatmeal Cookies With Peanut Butter

Why We Love It

• Since these scrumptious cookies don't call for flour, they can be enjoyed as keto oatmeal cookies for anyone looking to reduce net carbs from their nutritional daily values. 
• No fuss baking - Only 5 ingredients and 12 minutes to bake.
• The best breakfast cookie or a healthy snack that is ready in minutes. These freeze beautifully too! 

• Bananas - These flourless cookies have no white sugar, brown sugar or any type of other refined sugar. Bananas are great for naturally adding sweetness to your baking goods. You’ll need about 2 large bananas that are overripe and mashed.
• Peanut butter - I’ve used creamy peanut butter, but you could use crunchy peanut butter instead. I prefer commercial peanut butter, as natural peanut butter can create dry cookies if you haven’t taken the time to mix the oil back into the peanut butter before combining it with the rest of the ingredients. 
• Vanilla extract - Use high-quality pure vanilla extract. And yes, it matters.
• Oats - Old-fashioned oats are preferred for these cookies, but you can use quick oats, too, when in a pinch. I like to use Bob's Red Mill or Quaker oats here. 
• Chocolate chips - You can use semi-sweet chocolate chips, dark, milk or white chocolate chips. Increase the chips to ¾ cup for extra chocolate indulgence! Raisins can be used instead of chocolate chips to make these cookies.

• I’ve rolled these cookies to the size of a walnut, but you can adjust the size for larger cookies which will then 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 hands. 
• Don’t leave these cookies out for long at room temperature, as they have bananas in them. To reduce the sticky texture, you could also chill the cookie dough before rolling it. 
• 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 peanut butter jar back into the rest of the peanut butter. If you don’t do that, the natural peanut butter will be dry and can cause crumbly cookies. This being said, not all natural peanut butters have the same consistency.
• You can add natural sugar alternatives if you want sweeter-tasting cookies, such as maple syrup, maltitol syrup, stevia, applesauce (just a bit in addition) or monk fruit. 
• These cookies will become firmer as they cool. I like to warm up the cookies in microwave or low temp warm oven, just to make them more softer.
• For more natural sweet additions consider adding finely chopped dates or pureed dates (tastes better than caramel!), raisins. 
• Flavor to sweet? If you making the batter and after tasting it the cookie dough seems too sweet add in chopped cranberries, as their tartness will balance the sweetness pretty well. Or you can also omit the chocolate chips.
• I don't recommend adding more salt as this will intensify all the flavors, including the sweetness.

• Healthy
• No wheat flour
• Easy
• Eggless
• No flour cookies
• Dairy-free
• Refined sugar-free
• They are also naturally gluten-free and mostly healthy if you use the best quality ingredients and we only need 4 here not counting the chocolate as this is optional. If you follow gluten free diet, check the oats for a GF certified labels.

• 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.