Banana oat cookies

Two ingredients, fifteen minutes and done. The easiest snack on the whole site.

20 min
Total time: 20 min
Hands-on: 12 cookies
Servings: 95 cal
Per serving: Easy
Difficulty: Oven
Method

Photo: Thomson200 · CC0

Ingredients

12 cookies

Nutrition facts

per cookie

95cal

Protein: 3 g12 %
Carbs: 17 g69 %
Fat: 2 g18 %
Fiber: 2 g
Sugarstotal, including the natural sugars in fruit and dairy: 6 g

Approximate values, calculated from food composition tables. They vary with the brands and cuts you use.

Step by step

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Banana oat cookies

Two ingredients, fifteen minutes and done. The easiest snack on the whole site.

1Step 1 of 4

Mash the bananas

Peel them and mash them with a fork in a bowl until you have a purée with a few small lumps. No blender needed.

Tip: If the bananas aren't very ripe, the cookies will be bland. They're literally the only sugar in the recipe.

2Step 2 of 4

Add the oats

Add the oats, cinnamon, salt and chocolate chips if using. Mix until there are no loose oats and let it rest for 5 minutes so the oats absorb the moisture.

05:005 min · Add the oats

3Step 3 of 4

Shape the cookies

Drop spoonfuls onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and flatten them a little with the back of the spoon. They don't spread in the oven, so the shape you give them is the shape they'll have.

4Step 4 of 4

15 minutes at 350 °F (180 °C)

Bake for 15 minutes at 350 °F (180 °C), until the edges start to turn golden. They come out soft: as they cool they firm up.

15:0015 min · 15 minutes at 350 °F (180 °C)

About this recipe

Two ingredients. There's no shorter recipe or one that's harder to mess up, which makes it perfect to make with kids: mashing and dropping little mounds is all the work there is.

The banana acts as both binder and sweetener, so you don't need eggs, sugar, flour or butter.

These aren't crunchy packaged cookies: they're soft and tender, more like a freshly baked cookie. Knowing that, there's no disappointment.

Tips for getting it right

Old-fashioned oats give more texture; quick oats make them more compact and more like a real cookie.
A tablespoon of peanut butter in the dough makes them much better and more filling.
For longer-lasting crispness, bake 5 extra minutes at 300 °F (150 °C) at the end.

Variations

Oatmeal raisin walnut

A handful of each. They become classic oatmeal cookies, but with no sugar.

Higher protein

Replace 30 g of oats with 30 g of unflavored or vanilla protein powder and add two tablespoons of milk.

Storage

4 days in an airtight container. They freeze well once baked.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Do they really work with just two ingredients?

Yes. Banana does the job of the egg (binding the dough) and the sugar (sweetening) at once, and the oats provide the structure. The other ingredients on the list are optional.

Are banana oat cookies crunchy?

No, they're soft and tender, like a freshly baked cookie. If you want them drier, leave them 5 more minutes at a low temperature at the end.

Are they good for kids' breakfast?

Absolutely: no added sugar, fiber from the oats, and kids can help make them, which is the best way to make sure they eat them.

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