Steel Cut Oatmeal Cookies
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These steel cut oatmeal cookies are such a delicious snack! They’re soft and crunchy at the same time, and the flavor is amazing.
Oatmeal cookies are a classic dessert that everyone seems to love. I try to incorporate whole grains into my recipes whenever possible, and oats are a natural choice for a cookie recipe.
I often use rolled oats to make oatmeal cookies, but I’ve discovered that steel cut oatmeal cookies are delicious as well. With their combination of crunchiness and chewiness, these cookies are arguably more delicious than the rolled oat version.
How to Make Steel Cut Oatmeal Cookies
Step One: Mix the dry ingredients
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Step Two: Mix the wet ingredients
Using the large bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the eggs, coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla extract.
Step Three: Combine the wet and dry ingredients
Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix to combine.
Step Four: Add the mix-ins
Once the batter is smooth, add the steel cut oats, chocolate chips, and walnuts. Stir to combine evenly.
Step Five: Bake the cookies
Use a cookie scoop or tablespoon to portion out the dough onto a cookie sheet (9 cookies per sheet). Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the cookies are set and they’re beginning to turn brown.
Steel Cut Oat Cookies Tips and Frequently Asked Questions
When making cookies with steel cut oats, you have two options. You can use traditional Irish oatmeal, or you can use the quick-cooking variety. For an easy batch of cookies, use raw “instant” or “quick-cooking” steel cut oats. These are broken down into smaller pieces than traditional Irish oats, so they give the cookies a nice texture.
If you’re using traditional steel cut oats to make these steel cut oatmeal cookies, you’ll want to cook them in a pot first, just like when you’re making oatmeal. They’re a bit too hard when baked into a cookie in their raw form, which leads to a lot of extra chewing. To use cooked oats, simply substitute one cup of cooked oatmeal for the instant raw oats listed in this recipe, and add an extra half cup of flour (or more as needed to achieve a typical cookie dough consistency).
For the chocolate chips, I like Enjoy Life allergy-friendly chocolate. These chips come in a variety of sizes. The regular size and mini chips both work well in this recipe.
Instead of chocolate chips, you can add raisins and a bit of ground cinnamon to these steel cut oat cookies for a more traditional flavor. Diced almonds can be used in place of the walnuts if desired.
Whether you make them with quick-cooking or traditional oats, these cookies have a delicious flavor and texture.
The cookie on the left was baked with pre-cooked traditional steel cut oats. On the right, the darker brown cookie was baked using raw quick-cooking steel cut oats. The textures and appearance are a bit different, but both versions taste wonderful.
Try my vegan peanut butter oatmeal cookies for another delicious dessert that everyone loves.
Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups gluten free flour or all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 large eggs
- 2/3 cup melted coconut oil
- 1 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/4 cups instant steel cut oats* (uncooked)
- 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup diced walnuts optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Using the large bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the eggs, coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture, and mix to combine. Then stir in the quick cooking oats, chocolate chips, and walnuts.
- Use a cookie scoop or tablespoon to portion out the dough onto a cookie sheet (9 cookies per sheet). Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the cookies are set and they’re beginning to turn brown.
- Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days, or freeze for later.
Notes
Approximate Nutrition Info
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Steel Cut Oats Cookies Price Breakdown
This recipe costs a total of $10.95 to make, or $.27 per cookie. Try these steel cut oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for a delicious, healthy treat.
This post was originally published in 2018, and it was updated in 2023.
Can I use regular steel oats?
I
You can, but see the note at the bottom of the recipe where it explains how to use cooked regular steel cut oats instead of the raw quick steel cut oats.
What can I use to substitute coconut oil?
Can I use regular pancake syrup?
You can use a different oil (e.g. avocado oil), or try substituting softened butter. I wouldn’t recommend pancake syrup in place of the pure maple syrup. Try regular sugar as a substitute.
Can you use chickpea flour?
I haven’t made these with chickpea flour. Please let me know if you try it!
Can you use regular flour in this recipe??
Yes, you can.
Yummers! Copied the recipe exactly except used regular flour instead of gluten-free. Only reason it’s a 4 star is because the oats were still a tad crunchy after baking, but I think that might happen regardless of the recipe. Thank you for this recipe!!
I used the quick steel oats and that worked well. What didn’t work as well was switching out dried cranberries for chocolate chips because we prefer them over the chips in oatmeal cookies. The cookies were very bland so after the first batch, I added 1 tsp cinnamon and then the cookies were very good. I will make again as I have a box of instant steel cut oats to use up (husband bought instant by mistake & I hate instant oats of all types). I also decreased the maple syrup to 1C. The batter was softer than I’m used to but the cookies baked up well. My cookies were not as brown as the photos so perhaps I should have cooked a bit longer.
Mine turned out well. Changes listed below. I did use the cooked steel oats and it needed more flour as you mentioned. I did dried cherries, walnuts, nutmeg and orange peel. I also added a scoop of vanilla protein powder and a scoop of collagen powder. Sneaking stuff in on kids and hubby! LOL They are cakey but have nice flavor. I may leave out baking powder next time as in the recipe. Thanks for your site. I will try other things too!!! Let’s all feed our kids better use natural sweeteners!
2.5 cups total flour (1 cup AP wheat, 1/2 cup tigernut, 1/2 cup buckwheat, + 1/2 cup AP added at end to make less runny.)
1 tsp Baking soda 1 tsp Baking powder 1 tsp salt 3 tsp nutmeg 1 tsp ground orange peel
2 eggs
1/3 cup melted coconut oil and 1/3 cup olive oil (it was what I had)
3/4 cup maple syrup (used less because my vanilla protein powder is sweet)
3/4 cup chopped dried cherries
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
I will admit I should have read through the entire recipe before beginning… that said where you write can use rolled or steel cut, at that moment it should say but you must cook steel cut!!! I added water and Cooke the mixed ingredients for 8 minutes. They were still a bit hard but the cookie flavor was good. Not a traditional cooks very cake like and soft.
Thank you for this recipe! I couldn’t figure out what to do with my steel cut oats.
I swapped sugar for maple syrup (just one cup), sunflower oil for coconut oil, and raisins for chocolate chips (that was what I had handy). The cookies are very good but needed far longer in the oven (32 cookies in all).
We have a coconut allergy so I used ghee. Cooked the steel cut oats and made as directed. They tasted terrible and in my opinion a waste of very expensive pure maple syrup, couverture chocolate, ghee and other ingredients. They came out cakey and did not flatten out like most cookies do. The came out the same shape of the scoop I used. I would have given them to my dogs except for the chocolate. No one liked them so they immediately hit the compost heap.
What a bummer. I was so looking forward to some yummy cookies!
I’m sorry to hear that your adaptation of the recipe didn’t work. They’re delicious with coconut oil.
I made a batch using steel cut oaks and grinned them into flour, but I made them oil free and egg free so I had to make several adjustments but that is because I eat plant based , but they did not disappoint . Bonus is they have a lot less fat and calories while still turning out great. I just wanted to leave a comment saying you can definitely bake with steel cut oats just grind them first.
My first attempt at using quick cook steel cut oats. Really disappointed that the oats did not seem to cook or soften, almost like eating the oats right out of the package, which is sad because otherwise the flavor is great. For the he choc chips I substituted dried cranberries and raisins and threw in a handful of candied ginger because I love ginger in all my baked items. Sorry, this recipe did not work for me.
If you grind regular steel cut oats in a food processor rather than cook them before proceeding with the recipe will this work? I would like to sub white whole wheat flour and unsalted butter for GF flour and coconut oil. Would the proportion amounts be the same? Many thanks.
Substituting white whole wheat flour and butter will work. I haven’t tried this recipe with ground oats. Grinding the oats will make them more like a flour, so I would cut back a bit on the white whole wheat flour quantity. You’ll have to take a look at the texture and adjust the amount as needed. Please let me know if you try it.
Wondering how I would adjust if I wanted to add two rope bananas? 🙂
I haven’t tried that substitution, so I’m not sure. You could try cutting out some of the coconut oil and some of the pure maple syrup. Let me know how it goes if you try it.
The cookies turned out great. I didn’t have gluten free flour nor organic maple syrup so I just used log cabin syrup and they turned out fabulous.
Hi I was wondering if I could make this recipe with white flour instead of gluten free and also if I could leave out the walnuts. Thank you!
Yes, both of those adaptations would work fine. Enjoy!
Made them exactly as instructed. Extremely sweet, but otherwise not much flavor. Also thought they would have more texture- the oats are basically not noticable
I adjusted with the following changes to the ingredients: 1c flour, 1c almond flour, 1c maple syrup, 1/2 c softened butter (less sweet & butter because of the almond flour), 1 flax egg (with 1 real egg) and dark chocolate chips. Kept everything else the same. Dough wasn’t exactly as thick as cookie dough but I went for it. Took my oven about 18 min to get them brownish and I ended up with about 36 cookies (I have a heavy scoop ?). They are a little chewy but delicious and a great way to use up some of my bulk-sized quick cooking steel cut oats!