These oatmeal raisin cookies are perfectly chewy and sweet using whole rolled oats and raisins, and as a bonus are naturally gluten-free and vegan! Made with heart-healthy almond butter instead of butter, whole grain oats, and sweetened with just a touch a maple syrup and brown sugar, these oatmeal raisin cookies will give your traditional oatmeal raisin cookies a run for their money!
I specifically remember the first time I made oatmeal raisin cookies. It wasn’t until I was in college. Growing up, we never made (or ate) oatmeal raisin cookies. Oatmeal raisin were the “other cookies” compared with classic chocolate chip cookies. My then boyfriend (now husband), Chris, had mentioned his all-time favorite cookies were oatmeal raisin. The horror! No chocolate in sight!
I was feeling a wee bit guilty we had been dating for at least a year or two and I had yet to make him his favorite cookies! I was absolutely convinced I wouldn’t like oatmeal raisin cookies and they wouldn’t even be worth eating…but I have to admit I was wrong!
If I remember correctly, I went to one of my tried and true baking blogs for a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies They were absolutely delicious and definitely a classic, go-to recipe.
However, a couple months ago I was actually craving cookies that weren’t chocolate (for once!) and decided it had been way too long since I’ve made anything of the oatmeal raisin variety. I went to work experimenting a bit in the kitchen (my happy place), and I’m so happy with how these turned out!
Ingredients
As mentioned, these cookies are naturally gluten-free using whole-grain oats and oat flour (or almond flour!) in place of all-purpose flour. I find almond butter to go so well with raisins, so I used almond butter in place of your typical butter and it worked beautifully.
I’m not a big fan of overly sweet desserts (think dark versus milk chocolate), and I found ¼ cup of brown sugar plus 2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup to be the perfect sweetness level since the raisins provide natural sweetness. I used a flax egg in this recipe, but I’m guessing you could also substitute in a real egg if you’d rather. But not going to lie…I loved how this dough didn’t have eggs because can I just say it was rather addicting to eat simply by the spoonful. ?
- 1 cup rolled/old-fashioned oats
- ½ cup oat flour or almond flour
- ½ cup almond butter
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 flax egg (1 tablespoon ground flax + 2.5 tablespoons water)*
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ baking soda
- ½ cup raisins
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, mix together oats, oat or almond flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda. In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar, flax egg
- Bake for 8-9 minutes (I used cookie dough scoop).
- Dough is delicious (and egg-free!) too.
I made these cookies after Dustin P. recommended this recipe from your website. They were easy to make and are soft and chewy! The only modification I made was not including the brown sugar. Instead, I doubled the maple syrup. That seemed to work ok and they are still sweet (mainly because of the raisins).
Yay! Thank you so much for trying the recipe and taking the time to leave a comment! I’m so happy you liked them! 🙂