Healthy Chocolate Cookies (No Flour or Oil!)

healthy chocolate cookies baked on a pan.

Healthy Chocolate Cookies (No Flour or Oil!)

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: date cookies, healthy chocolate cookies

Prep Time: 15

Cook Time: 10

Total Time: 25

Servings:

Calories: 100kcal

Author: Megan Gilmore

Are you ready for your kitchen to smell like brownies? I've been testing these healthy chocolate cookies for weeks to make sure they have a rich chocolate flavor, without using flour or refined sugar. I do prefer them with some chocolate chips added in (for a double-chocolate flavor), but the cookie dough itself is 100% fruit-sweetened. Once you taste these, don't be surprised if they're requested every week!

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Ingredients

1 ½ cups pecan halves
8 ounces Medjool dates , pitted (~1 cup packed)
⅓ cup raw cacao powder (see notes)
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup dark chocolate chips (optional; see notes)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with an “S” blade, process the dates and pecans together until a crumbly mixture forms. Then, add the cacao powder, ground flax, salt, baking powder, vanilla extract, and 3 tablespoons of water.
Secure the lid and process again until the mixture sticks together. The dough may look sticky and damp, but that's okay! Add the chocolate chips, if using, and pulse briefly to mix them into the dough.
Use a tablespoon or cookie scoop to drop the dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Then use wet hands to gently flatten the cookie dough. These cookies won't spread much, so be sure to shape the cookies the way you'd like them to look when they're done baking. (Using wet hands to flatten the dough will prevent sticking!) Bake at 350ºF for 10 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies start to look dry and your house smells like brownies.
Let the cookies cool on the pan for at least 20 minutes. If you'd like to make the cookies look prettier, press a few extra chocolate chips on top of them while the cookies are still hot from the oven. Once they are cool and firm enough to handle, you can enjoy them!

Notes

Nutrition information is for 1 of 23 cookies. This is automatically calculated using an online ingredient database, so it's just an estimate not a guarantee.

Cacao Powder Note: I always keep raw cacao powder in my pantry, which tastes a little more bitter than regular cocoa powder. I think you can use them interchangeably for this recipe, but if you don't want the cookies to taste too much like "dark chocolate," you can also use a little less cacao powder for a sweeter flavor.

Chocolate Chip Note: I originally published this recipe with dark chocolate chunks, which are quite large, but when I re-tested them (with new photos) I used mini chocolate chips to help them distribute more evenly. If you're using mini chocolate chips, I'd start with just 1/4 cup. You can press a few extra on top to make them even more chocolatey.

Nutrition