Description
Healthy Gingerbread Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies are soft, chewy, and lightly spiced with traditional gingerbread flavors. Made with wholesome ingredients like instant oats, whole wheat flour, and molasses, these cookies are a nutritious and delicious way to start your day. They are easy to prepare, baked to perfection, and ideal for a grab-and-go breakfast or snack that isn’t overly sweet.
Ingredients
Scale
Dry Ingredients
- 1 cup (100g) instant oats (gluten-free if necessary)
- ¾ cup (90g) whole wheat flour or gluten-free flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
- ⅛ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
- 1 ½ tbsp (21g) unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted and cooled slightly
- 1 large egg white (room temperature)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup (60mL) molasses (room temperature)
- 5 tbsp (75mL) nonfat milk (room temperature)
Instructions
- Mix Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, whole wheat or gluten-free flour, baking powder, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt until evenly combined.
- Combine Wet Ingredients: In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter or coconut oil, egg white, and vanilla extract until thoroughly combined.
- Add Molasses and Milk: Stir the molasses into the wet mixture, then add the milk and stir until everything is incorporated evenly.
- Combine Wet and Dry Mixtures: Add the dry oat mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring gently until just incorporated to form the cookie dough.
- Chill Dough: Cover and chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to help it firm up and develop flavor.
- Preheat Oven: Preheat your oven to 325°F and line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper for easy clean-up.
- Shape Cookies: Using a spoon and spatula, drop the cookie dough into 15 rounded scoops on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten each scoop to about ⅜-inch thick using a spatula.
- Bake: Bake the cookies at 325°F for 10 minutes or until the centers feel slightly soft and underdone but the edges are set.
- Cool Cookies: Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely, allowing residual heat to finish the cooking.
Notes
- Measure oats and flour accurately using a kitchen scale to avoid dry or cakey cookies.
- These cookies are intentionally not very sweet; to sweeten, substitute some milk with pure maple syrup, honey, or agave and reduce milk accordingly.
- For a spicier gingerbread flavor, increase ground ginger by ¼ to 1 teaspoon.
- Cookies do not spread during baking and look similar before and after baking.
- Do not over-bake; cookies should be slightly soft when removed from the oven.
- Use instant oats (or quick-cooking oats); to make your own, pulse old-fashioned oats in a food processor until smaller.
- Whole wheat flour alternatives include white whole wheat, pastry flour, all-purpose flour, or oat flour (measure carefully).
- You can substitute 1 large whole egg for 1 egg white by reducing milk by ½ tablespoon.
- Molasses is key for authentic gingerbread flavor; avoid blackstrap molasses as it is too bitter.
- Dairy-free option: use coconut oil and dairy-free milk.
- Gluten-free option: use certified gluten-free oats and flour or a gluten-free flour blend.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for a couple of days, refrigerated up to a week, or freeze after fully cooled.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 90 kcal
- Sugar: 4 g
- Sodium: 70 mg
- Fat: 2.5 g
- Saturated Fat: 1 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 1.3 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 15 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 2 g
- Cholesterol: 5 mg
