Healthy Apple Pie Oatmeal Cookies Recipe for a Soft and Chewy Treat

Healthy Apple Pie Oatmeal Cookies

My grandmother moved from Ohio to California when I was nine years old, and all at once she lived ten minutes away instead of a long plane ride away.

Before that, we saw her once or twice a year, and she always arrived with something wrapped in foil, usually zucchini bread or banana bread. I figured that once she was close by, those homemade goodies would appear every single week.

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My mother gently set me straight. Feeding our family was not Grandma’s job, she explained, though Grandma still turned up with a treat now and then.

The treat I waited for was her apple pie. Hers was always double crusted, with a flaky top and bottom crust that baked to an even golden color with no dark or burned spots, hiding soft fruit inside.

Grandma generally used tart Granny Smith apples, the traditional choice from the way she was raised, and she coated them generously in cinnamon and sugar. Then she baked the pie until the slices were very tender and nearly falling apart.

She usually brought a pie on the 4th of July and again around my father’s birthday in September. If I asked nicely, sometimes one showed up near my own birthday too.

So when January arrived and I wanted to get back on a healthy track after the holidays, I bought a big bag of apples. Every time I reached for a crisp apple to snack on, though, I thought about pie instead.

I did not have the patience for crusts or for hours of baking and cooling. That is how these healthy apple pie oatmeal cookies came to be.

They are soft and chewy, chock full of sweet fruit and cinnamon, and they deliver the flavor of Grandma’s pie in a fraction of the time. No rolling pin, no chilling pie dough, no waiting for a whole pie to cool. One bowl, one spoon, and a baking sheet lined with parchment are all the equipment you need.

Cookie lovers, I know you are out there. Three cookie recipes landed among last year’s Readers’ Favorite Recipes, which tells me plenty. So here is my clean eating cookie recipe for Healthy January. And let me say this plainly: eating well should never be about deprivation. It should taste like something you actually want to eat.

The flavor of apple pie, the ease of a drop cookie, and no refined sugar in the bowl.

KEY INGREDIENTS TO MAKE HEALTHY APPLE PIE OATMEAL COOKIES

These healthy apple oatmeal cookies start with whole wheat flour and plenty of instant oats. The combination keeps the cookies tender rather than heavy, and the oats do most of the work of making them chewy. Here is what goes into the bowl.

Instant oats are also called quick cooking oats or one minute oats. Look for them in large canisters near the old fashioned oats in the baking aisle, and buy the plain ones rather than the flavored packets meant for breakfast.

If you need gluten free cookies, the recipe’s Notes section lists the top flour recommendations, and certified gluten free instant oats work well here.

I like my oatmeal cookies heavy on the oats, so this recipe uses more oats than flour. Instant oats are smaller and thinner than old fashioned rolled oats, so they soften faster and give you a better chewy texture. That difference is worth paying attention to when you are standing in the grocery aisle.

For sweetness, agave takes the place of refined granulated sugar, though honey and pure maple syrup work equally well. One warning before you shop: skip sugar free maple syrup.

It is often water based, it makes oatmeal cookies bready and cakey instead of chewy, and it keeps them from spreading properly during baking. More sweetener options appear in the recipe’s Notes and on the Oatmeal Cookie FAQ Page.

The flavor stars here are apples and cinnamon. I reach for red Fuji apples because they are naturally sweet, full of flavor, and usually easy to find at the grocery store. For the cinnamon, Saigon cinnamon is my strong recommendation.

It is sweeter and richer than regular cinnamon, and a bit stronger too, so it stands up to the oats and the apple.

HOW TO MAKE HEALTHY APPLE PIE OATMEAL COOKIES

This is where the cookies are won or lost. The dough itself comes together in minutes, but a few small habits make the difference between soft and chewy and dry and cakey.

First, measure the flour and oats correctly. Use the spoon and level method or a kitchen scale, because too much of either, especially the oats, dries out the dough and gives you bready or cakey cookies instead of soft and chewy ones.

Oats absorb moisture like little sponges, so a heavy hand with the measuring cup really shows up in the finished cookie.

Second, dice the apples finely, into pieces about an eighth of an inch. The cookies bake quickly, so larger or thicker chunks stay crisp and crunchy instead of softening into the dough. Leave the skin on or peel the apples, whichever you prefer.

1. Whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted coconut oil or unsalted butter, the egg, and the vanilla. Stir in the agave.
3. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring just until incorporated. Fold in the diced apple.
4. Chill the dough for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
6. Drop the dough into 15 rounded scoops onto the prepared sheet using a spoon and a spatula, and flatten each scoop slightly.
7. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 11 to 14 minutes. Cool on the pan for 10 minutes before turning the cookies out onto a wire rack.

Chilling is not optional. Because the sweetener is liquid, the dough needs those 30 minutes in the refrigerator to stiffen. Properly measured dough should look almost like thick muffin batter when it goes into the bowl, and after chilling it holds its shape.

Skip the chill and you will pull thin, flat discs out of the oven instead of soft, rounded cookies.

Now for the baking trick that matters most: do not overbake. Pull the cookies out when the centers still feel a little soft and underdone.

Let them rest on the warm baking sheet for 10 minutes, because the leftover heat finishes the centers and gives you the softest, chewiest oatmeal cookies.

If you wait until the centers feel firm before taking them out, you have already overbaked them, and they will turn out cakey, bready, or dry. Taking them out a minute or two earlier is almost always the better call.

If the centers look slightly underdone when you pull the pan from the oven, you did it right.

This recipe makes 15 cookies. Stored in an airtight container, they stay soft and chewy for up to one week, which means a batch on Sunday can carry you through the week.

The recipe’s Notes section also covers substitutions for oats, flour, and sweetener, plus gluten free, nut free, and dairy free versions for anyone at your table with different needs.

I like these best about an hour after they come out of the oven, when they are fully cooled but still tender in the middle, with a mug of hot tea on a cold January afternoon.

They also hold up beautifully in a lunchbox or a cookie jar on the counter. If you are anything like me, you will find yourself dicing an extra apple just to have a reason to bake another batch.

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Healthy Apple Pie Oatmeal Cookies

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Healthy Apple Pie Oatmeal Cookies My grandmother moved from Ohio to California when I was nine years old, and all at once she lived ten minutes away instead of a long plane ride away. Before that, we saw her once or twice a year, and she always arrived with something wrapped in foil, usually zucchini bread or banana bread.

• Total Time: 0 min
• Yield: 15 cookies 1x

Ingredients

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1 cup (100g) instant oats, gluten-free if necessary and measured like this
¾ cup (90g) whole wheat flour, or gluten-free flour, measured like this
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
⅛ tsp salt
2 tbsp (28g) coconut oil or unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup (120mL) agave
1 cup (125g) finely diced red apple, about 1 medium

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Instructions

1-Whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder,: Whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the coconut oil or butter, egg, and vanilla. Stir in the agave. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated. Fold in the apple. Chill for 30 minutes.
2-Preheat the oven to 325°F, and line: Preheat the oven to 325°F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
3-Drop the cookie dough into 15 rounded: Drop the cookie dough into 15 rounded scoops onto the prepared sheet using a spoon and spatula, and flatten slightly. Bake at 325°F for 11-14 minutes. Cool on the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

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• Prep Time: 0 min
• Cook Time: 0 min
• Method: bake