The Original Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites Recipe (aka Chickpea Cookies)
Chickpea cookies with no flour, no oil, no white sugar. These are just full of chickpeas. And they’re my very favorite healthy cookie so far!* I don’t know if they really classify as cookies so I’ll go with cookie dough bites.
And as a bonus, they’re grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan. Just in case that matters to anyone out there! And if you’re worried about the chickpeas, don’t be. I don’t like chickpeas and won’t eat them but that didn’t prevent me from inhaling these.
* 2017 update: this post is 5 years old and I have a new favorite. :D You HAVE to try these paleo chocolate chip cookies if you haven’t already! There’s also a vegan option. And for hot summer days, these no-bake oatmeal cookies (naturally gluten-free + vegan) are my favorite!
- Nutrient-Rich Ingredients: Packed with protein and fiber from chickpeas and natural peanut butter, these bites are as nourishing as they are delicious.
- Naturally Sweetened: Maple syrup or honey provides a subtle sweetness, eliminating the need for refined sugars.
- Diet-Friendly: These bites are gluten-free, dairy-free, and grain-free, making them suitable for various dietary needs.
- Kid-Approved: Their cookie-dough-like texture and chocolatey goodness make them a hit with both kids and adults.
One thing I’ve learned since starting this blog is that people really love closeups of melted stuff. So there you go. :)
These aren’t the most beautiful cookie dough bites, but fresh out of the oven, with all that gooey chocolate, I bet you can’t tell that these are made with chickpeas. Or are grain-free. But cold? Yuck. These need to be warm!
You can either freeze the balls and pop a few in the oven whenever it’s on, or simply put them in the microwave until they’re warm and gooey again.
By the way, if you’re a peanut butter lover like I am, you have to try these healthy peanut butter balls. They’re also gluten-free and vegan!
Ingredients Notes
These are just notes on select ingredients. Please scroll below for the full recipe!
- Chickpeas: Also known as garbanzo beans, chickpeas provide the creamy base for these bites. Use canned chickpeas for convenience, and make sure to rinse and drain them well to remove any briny flavor.
Chickpea flour won’t work. I don’t think plain hummus will either. I haven’t tried anything other than chickpeas, but others have used butter beans, navy beans, red kidney beans, great northern beans, and lentils with success.
I generally don’t like goodies made with those types of beans, but I love these cookies made with chickpeas. Please use chickpeas unless you have an allergy! - Peanut Butter: This should be the kind with only peanuts and salt. No added fat or sugar. Be careful because there are some “natural” brands out there that aren’t really natural.
I find that this peanut butter is usually expensive, so I make my own. Here’s how to make peanut butter! All you need is peanuts and a food processor (which you already have to pull out for this chickpea cookie recipe!).
Other nut or seed butters also work great. I use sunflower seed butter for a nut-free version. - Maple Syrup or Honey: make sure to use maple syrup for the vegan version. For a totally sugar free version, some commenters have used 30 drops of Stevia and cacao nibs with success.
- These need the chocolate. Don’t go making them without the chocolate and then tell me that they weren’t sweet or gooey enough! These would be incredibly boring without the chocolate.
- And for some weird reason, these cookie dough bites do not taste yummy in dough form. Baking them somehow brings out the sweetness and peanut butter flavor. Or maybe it’s just all that melted chocolate.
- Doing this in a blender won’t work and might kill the blender. Making these in a Blendtec blender or something equally powerful might work but I haven’t tried it.
- Adding random stuff like eggs… probably won’t work either. ;) Experimenting is great but I think this is a bad recipe to experiment with.
- Do not double the recipe! It might be too much for your machine and could damage it.
- Vegan Peanut Butter Fudge: A creamy, caramel-like fudge made with just four ingredients. It’s vegan, gluten-free, and comes together in minutes.
- Peanut Butter Apple Crumble: A delightful twist on a classic dessert, combining tender apples with a peanut butter oat topping. It’s gluten-free and vegan.
- Peanut Butter Protein Balls: Perfect for on-the-go snacking, these no-bake bites are packed with protein and flavor, and they’re easy to customize.
- Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies: Soft, chewy, and flourless, these cookies are a simple yet satisfying treat that’s naturally gluten-free.
- Healthy Peanut Butter Ice Cream: A rich and creamy no-churn ice cream that’s both vegan and paleo-friendly, offering a guilt-free indulgence.
Chickpea Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups (205 grams) canned chickpeas well-rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel1
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 10 tablespons (160 grams) natural peanut butter SunButter Natural or almond butter, room temperature
- 1/4 cup (80 grams) honey or maple syrup or agave for vegan
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/2 cup (90 grams) chocolate chips use vegan and dairy-free chocolate chips, if needed
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F / 175°C. Combine all the ingredients, except for the chocolate chips, in a food processor and process until very smooth. Make sure to scrape the sides and the top to get the little chunks of chickpeas and process again until they’re combined.
- Put in the chocolate chips and stir it if you can, or pulse it once or twice. The mixture will be very thick and sticky.
- With wet hands, form into 1 1/2" balls. Place onto a Silpat or a piece of parchment paper. If you want them to look more like normal cookies, press down slightly on the balls. They don't do much rising.
- Bake for about 10 minutes. The dough balls will still be very soft when you take them out of the oven. They will not set like normal cookies.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature (or in the fridge) for up to 1 week.
Notes
- My can of chickpeas was 400 grams, 240 grams without the water, and I used all but a few tablespoons of the chickpeas.
- Don’t even try with regular peanut butter! They’ll come out oily. You MUST use natural peanut butter.
- If you need grain-free baking powder, you can use 1 part cream of tartar + 1 part baking soda + 2 parts arrowroot.
Can you use plain hummus instead of grinding the chickpeas?
I’m thinking that won’t work unless the hummus has nothing in it except chickpeas. And even then, I’m not too confident that it’d work.
Made these last week without the honey. They were edible but not fantastic. Today, determined to love these cookies, I noticed there WAS a sweetening ingredient and followed the recipe, line by line: SUCCESS! They are fabulous and will now be in our regular rotation of cookies. Thank you Erin :)
Forgot to mention I used crunchy peanut butter since I like cookies with crunch- so good!
Nice! I don’t normally like cookies with crunch but here it sounds good. :)
Hahaha. Yup, the sweetener is pretty important if you want them to taste good! ;) I’m surprised that you tried them again after not liking them the first time. Good for you! :)
My husband and I cannot have legumes..Do you know if substituting canned chickpeas with canned pumpkin would work? Or would we need to add something like coconut flour or tapioca flour to firm the cookies up?
I’ve never tried substituting chickpeas with pumpkin so I’m afraid I don’t know what you’d have to add in and how much to firm the cookies up. Sorry about that. If you do try, please let us know how they came out!
Do you think you could use organic Almond butter instead of peanut butter??
Yup. It’s listed in the ingredient list.
Thanks for this great recipe! I’ve pinned it to my Gluten-Free Recipe board on Pinterest with full credit and of course the link back here to the recipe. Yummmmm!
Thanks for pinning and happy that you liked the cookies. :)
I just wanted to drop a note – I’ve seen a lot of people passing your recipe and photo around on Facebook without any credit or link back to your site here, and with the watermark cropped out of your photo. It seems as though some “Like Farmers” on Facebook are using it without any regard to your work putting this yummy looking recipe together.
Thank you SO much for that link! I contacted that woman and she’s removed the instructions and instead added a link to this post. A lot of readers send me these links with 50,000 shares… even 300,000 shares… but when I search for them myself, I find someone with 2 shares or 9 shares. I’m not finding these huge “Like Farmers” on FB. So if you by chance come across another one with a ton of shares, please let me know! I would really, really appreciate it. :) Again, thank you so much!
No problem – happy to help! Sometimes I know it’s an honest mistake by people who just don’t “know better”, and in that case it’s great when we can maybe help them understand why it’s best to just link and not copy and paste :) And in the case of the actual Like Farmers, hopefully shut them down too. BTW, I’ve started up a Facebook group for food bloggers to network and help each other out on this topic – the link is in my website url if you are interested.
But some of those people are just plain nasty and mean. :( Thanks for adding the link to the group! I’ll check it out tomorrow. :)
I CAN’T WAIT TO MAKE THESE!!!! Today :)
I hope you LOVE them! :D
These are great. I’ve made them twice. The first time with home made peanut butter. The 2nd time home made Chocolate peanut butter’ so I left out the cho chip. Tasted great! will be sharing!
Oh man. I have homemade chocolate peanut butter in the fridge and never thought to use it here! You’re genius! Thank you for the idea and the feedback. :)
What can be a substitute for peanut butter?
In the ingredients list, I list SunButter Natural or almond butter.
question. how long do you bake them there is no time on it.
Step 3 says to bake for 10 minutes.
My friend posted a link to this on FB and I just cooked a batch. Wowsa, seriously Yummo! I even liked the raw dough taste. The thing I changed was I made my own chocolate with some raw cacao powder, agave and cacao butter and coconut butter. let it cool and stirred it through the mix. I also added a little cinnamon and all spice. Had almond butter so used that – this is some kinda dream come true. a healthy cookie that is melt in the mouth devine – thank you so much
Your own chocolate?! That’s pretty impressive. I’ve got to try that one day. :) Really interesting and nice changes you made here. It sounds kind of autumnal. Lovely! :) Thanks so much for your feedback and I’m happy to hear that you liked the cookies!
I want to try these so bad, but I will have to use carob drops instead of chocolate drops. I did not see any posts from anyone who used carob drops instead. Do you think this will work??? I may have to just try it and let you know how they come out. (I am allergic to chocolate – tragic, I know!)
Hi Karlene! Here’s someone’s comment from June 18: “I made these with homemade almond butter, carob chips and used agave instead of honey. It was fabulous! I have to make myself quit eating them. I put in freezer and take them out when needed to cook. I keep taking them out of the freezer! Thanks for this recipe.” So at least we know carob chips work. Good luck! Hope you’ll like the cookies. :)
I made them without chocolate and tried the dough before baking. Neither were boring or lacking in taste. Thanks for the recipe, it’s something I feel happy to give my son for snack, loaded with good stuff and he begs for more. Next time, chocolate chips. I just couldn’t get the ones I use and my husband hates chocolate so I omitted. Hubby didn’t care for cookie anyway so chocolate next time.
Well. This is kind of weird to say but I’m happy your husband didn’t like them! These are SO much better with chocolate and I think you and your son will enjoy these even more with the chocolate. ;) I’m happy to hear that you enjoyed them, though! Thanks for the feedback. :)
To this recipe I added 2 teaspoons of ground flaxseed and use Dominican vanilla they were fabulous!!
Good job on making the cookies healthier with some flaxseed! I’ve never tried Dominican vanilla but it sounds wonderful. :) Thanks for the feedback and for the rating! So happy that you liked them. :)
These are AMAZING! They are now our family’s go to recipe for ccc’s. And everyone we’ve made them for love them too! Thanks for posting! LOVE LOVE LOVE healthy, non healthy tasting treats like these!
Thanks so much, Rita! I’m thrilled that you enjoyed them and that they have even taken the place of regular ccc’s for you. That’s awesome! Thanks a bunch for the feedback and your rating. Much appreciated! :)
How many calories per cookie depends on how many cookies. When I made it there were 14 cookies and that’s 144 calories apiece. Your mileage may vary. Also I made it with regular pb because I didn’t see the note until I was done. They turned out fine for me, extra gooey like I like. Great recipe!
I’m happy that the cookies came out with regular peanut butter! :) The only people who said that these were oily also said that they used regular peanut butter, so I added that note. Good to know that it works with some brands. :) And thanks for the calorie info and your feedback!
I made these last night and enjoyed them warm. I followed the recipe exactly, except for forgetting the pinch of salt and making 13 cookies instead of 14. I had to cook them for almost double the time before they sufficiently cooked. Any ideas why that might be?
Well, they never become cookie like. They’re more doughy, which is why perhaps you thought you should bake them longer. Or were they still doughy after you finished baking them? I’m happy you enjoyed them! I wish I had a more definite answer for you.
These were delicious! I was skeptical at first…..but my kids BEGGED me for more (and they both HATE beans)!! Wonderful recipe! Thank you for sharing!
That’s great to hear, Rachel! I’m so happy that your bean-hating kids enjoyed the cookies. And hey, who wouldn’t be skeptical of these? ;) Thanks for so much for feedback!
JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I LOVED THESE COOKIES SO MUCH I HAD TO MAKE A RECIPE REVIEW ON THEM A-SNAPPLE!
SO CHECK ‘ER OUT HERE: http://veganvoodoo.tumblr.com/post/55489114774#notes
:D
Again, thanks so much for this amazing creation! You rock!
Thanks again, Becca! Love your style. :D
HOLY. EFFING. EFF.
You did it. You made the BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe IN THE WORLD.
THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Now I can sleep with a full belly and a full heart.
Bahaha. This is the best comment ever! Thank you. :) I went and checked out your review but can’t leave a comment because I don’t have Tumblr (or maybe it’s not even possible… I’m clueless with Tumblr) Anyway, awesome review! So happy that you liked them and hey, 10:45 is never too late for cookies. :D Thanks again and thanks for the rating, too! Oh and your rename is definitely better. :)