Before we start making cookies, we have to admit: cookies, especially sweet cookies, are not, in principle, a suitable food to include daily in a healthy diet, as they are usually rich in sugars and fats, sometimes unhealthy. That does not mean that we do not have options to improve them and allow ourselves a whim from time to time.

If we make our own homemade cookies we can make sure we use healthier quality ingredientsand we will have an ideal snack or complement to enjoy occasionally. This is what we propose here:

• Make more or less traditional homemade cookies but without the additives, sweeteners or especially harmful fats that cookies usually contain commercial and other confectionery products.
• Do homemade cookies with less sugar or lower glycemic index sweetenerswith healthy fats and other ingredients that help improve the composition of the recipe. We will thus have healthy cookies that we can incorporate into breakfast, mid-morning snack or snack.

Below you will find, therefore, a selection of healthy homemade cookies of different styles: with whole wheat flour or even without flour, with nuts and seeds that enrich the cookies with proteins and healthy fats, with little sugar (even if it is whole grain) or without it, without palm oil, with fresh or dried fruit… We will start with a basic recipe with which you can make your own variations and we will continue with specific homemade cookie recipes for all tastes and needs.

Basic, easy and quick homemade cookie recipe

This recipe for homemade cookies is designed so that you can make cookies quickly and intuitively. A is prepared roll-shaped doughlet it rest for a few hours in the refrigerator and then cut it to obtain cookies that bake in 15 minutes.

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Ingredients for 30 cookies:

• 200 g whole wheat flour (spelt or wheat)
• 125g butter, coconut oil or vegan butter alternative
• 80 g whole cane sugar or a sugar substitute
• 20 g cornstarch
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon citric acid
• 1 pinch of salt
• 40-60 g chopped nuts, dried fruits, spreads, jam or spices (ingredients of your choice, optional)

Easy preparation of homemade cookies step by step:

1. Cream the butter and sugar until they are foamy. Immediately mix the flour with the cornstarchbaking soda, citric acid and salt and add to the previous mixture. Knead until form a ball and separate it in two.
2. Add and integrate the optional ingredients into each half of the dough. that you have chosen (chopped nuts, dried fruits, spices…) and form two rolls, one with each mixture. The roll should have a diameter of about 5 cm and a length of about 15 centimeters. If you wanted to do snail shaped cookiesinstead of integrating the optional ingredients into the dough, first roll out half of each one into a rectangle of about 25 x 15 centimeters, add those ingredients on top (for example, jam) and then roll the rectangle.
3. Now you must stop rest the rolls for at least four hours. Put them in a container with a lid in the refrigerator and be a little patient!
4. Once the rolls are cold, cut 1cm thick slices approximately and place them, without touching each other, on a previously greased baking tray or covered with baking paper. The cookies will swell a little when baking, so leave a little space between them.
5. Bake them in the preheated oven to 180 °C, with heat above and below, between 15 and 17 minutes. If you still notice them a little soft, do not extend the cooking time: as they cool, they will become firmer.

These cookies will hold up well several weeks in an airtight jar. If you wish, you can give them as a gift by placing them in a beautiful jar with a metal screw lid.

How to make your own variations from the basic recipe

Optionally, to give them variety, you can add chopped nuts, dried fruits, spreads or spices. You can do, for example:

• Walnut and cherry cookies with 30 g of chopped walnuts, 30 g of chopped dried cherries and 2 tablespoons of beet juice.
• Apricot and amaranth cookies. Swollen amaranth is used, easy to find in health food and organic food stores. Add 60 g of chopped dried apricots rolled in 4 tablespoons of swollen amaranth to the basic recipe of homemade recipes.
• Plum snail cookies with poppy seeds. Follow the instructions for making rolled recipes by adding 4 tablespoons of poppy seeds and 4 tablespoons of plum jam.
• Chili Chocolate Cookies. Some delicious homemade cookies with a spicy touch. Simply add 40g of chopped chocolate, 20g of cocoa powder and 2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper.
• Ginger and turmeric cookies. Use 60 g of candied ginger, which is delicious in cookies, and also add 4 teaspoons of turmeric. An exquisite and very healthy combination!
• Oatmeal and apple cookies with cinnamon. A classic combination that never gets old. Try making them with 30 g of chopped apple, 30 g of rolled oats and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Homemade gluten-free cookies

If you choose the base flour well and opt for quality ingredients, your gluten-free cookies will have nothing to envy of other homemade cookies. They will also be a great alternative to commercial gluten-free cookies, not always very healthyboth for people with celiac disease and for people who tolerate gluten well or want to reduce their consumption.

By choosing healthy ingredients, you can make delicious homemade gluten-free cookies without getting too complicated:

• Double chocolate buckwheat cookies. They are made with buckwheat and olive or coconut oil and taste a lot like chocolate!
• Stuffed quinoa and almond cookies. They are filled with strawberry jam, berries or another, and if it can be homemade, even better.
• Brown rice cookies. With brown rice flour, which provides more fiber and minerals than refined flour, you can make crunchy gluten-free cookies with chocolate chips.
• Gingerbread and spice cookies. They are made with a millet base and, in addition to ginger, they incorporate cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and vanilla.

See the step by step of these recipes for homemade gluten-free cookies here.

Homemade oatmeal cookies

Oats are ideal for making healthy cookies of all tastes. If accompanied by quality ingredients, it also allows you to make cookies of much better nutritional quality than those usually found in the supermarket.

• Oatmeal and apple cookies. Cookies that are biscuity on the inside and crispy on the outside made with whole wheat flour and walnuts, in addition to apple and oats.
• Oatmeal and banana cookies. They are made with both whole and crushed oat flakes and very ripe bananas. Very simple but delicious.
• Oatmeal and chocolate cookies with coconut. In this recipe for homemade cookies, oats are combined with spelled or brown rice flour. The coconut is grated on the outside, so if you don’t like it or want to replace it with another coating, no problem.
• Salty shortbread style oatmeal cookies. Scottish-style cookies ideal for a healthy snack. You can eat them as is or with ingredients such as avocado, cheese or jam.
• Oatmeal and orange cookies with chocolate chips. A winning combination in whole grain cookies that also contain raisins to give even more flavor and texture.
• Sugar-free oatmeal and nut cookies. With a crunchy touch and sweetened with dates.
• Oatmeal cookies with jam. With oats, almonds and the jam you like the most, totally vegan!
• Gluten-free oatmeal cookie style cookies. Some cookies made with chickpea flour that you can make with certified gluten-free oats without wanting them completely gluten-free.

See the step by step of these recipes for homemade oatmeal cookies here.

Homemade cookies without butter

We have many alternatives to butter when making homemade and healthy cookies, such as avocado, olive oil or nut butters. If we also take care of the rest of the ingredients, we can make delicious cookies that have nothing to envy of the more conventional ones.

• Butterless pumpkin and almond cookies. Some cookies made with whole wheat flour and almond flour to which the pumpkin puree gives a natural sweetness and an incredible texture. They do not contain eggs.
• Chocolate and orange butterless cookies. In these cookies, made with oat flour, the butter is replaced with avocado. Again without eggs and with the personality of a winning combination, that of chocolate and orange.
• Butterless Tahini and Honey Cookies. These homemade cookies, naturally gluten-free, are especially rich in protein.
• Cookies without lemon and olive oil butter. They can be made with whole wheat flour or rice flour. The lemon flavor is amazing.

See the step by step of these recipes for homemade cookies without butter here.

Homemade salty cookies

Crackers and other salty cookies that you can find on the market do not always have quality ingredients. By making your crackers at home you ensure that make them with few but good ingredientsand you can also customize them to your liking.

In addition to the salty shortbread oatmeal cookies that we mentioned above when talking about homemade oatmeal cookies, you can prepare a wide variety of salty cookies with other types of flour or simply with seeds. For example, they can be made delicious crackers with chickpea flour, garlic and herbs.

Flourless cookies

If what you want is to avoid wheat flour or other cereals, you can prepare cookies with only crushed nuts (or nut flours) or other alternatives.

The almond flourfor example, can give you a lot of play. Combining it with banana, nuts, butter or oil and a little cinnamon, you will have some banana protein cookies that are prepared in a jiffy. Or without the banana and with chocolate chips you will get some almond cookies with chocolate Also very easy to do.

With simply coconut, egg, lemon and erythritol You can also prepare some flourless coconut and lemon cookies that are very light and have a low glycemic index.

Homemade Christmas Cookies

You can make very original easy and vegetarian Christmas cookies, avoiding excess sugar and butter. Here are some proposals for healthy Christmas cookies:

• Gingerbread and oatmeal cookies
• Gluten-free gingerbread Christmas cookies, with millet flour and whole cane sugar.
• Chocolate Christmas Cookies
• Gluten-free Christmas almond cookies
• Christmas cookies with «Linzer» style jam
• Christmas cookies in the shape of snowballs, Made with spelled flour and birch sugar.
• Vegan Christmas Cookies Recipe with three variations: simple,…