Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Soft and chewy cookies flavored with creamy, rich almond butter, filled with chunks of dark chocolate, and topped with large flaky sea sat. So delicious and irresistible you won’t believe they are healthy.

Hellllooooooo December. This is my absolute favorite time of year. Christmas music before Thanksgiving is a big no no in my book, but as soon as December hits, I am full of Christmas cheer. I love drinking eggnog and peppermint mochas, driving to see all the houses lit up with Christmas lights, going ice skating in millennium park, wrapping Christmas presents to put under the tree, watching cheesy holiday Christmas specials and classic holiday movies, and attending ugly sweater Christmas parties. There is something so magical and peaceful about this time of year and I just want to soak it all up.

I especially love decking out my apartment with festive Christmas decorations. My mom too loves Christmas, which is evident by the large array of Christmas decor throughout every room of my parent’s house. But do not be mistaken; there is nothing gaudy or overdone about how my mom does Christmas. She is the queen of classy Christmas decorations. My mom has about 5 Christmas trees in the house, all of which are themed according to the room they inhabit. For example, the hearth room in my parent’s home has a woodsy feel as the large floor to ceiling windows look out to a beautiful forest that backs up to house. Naturally, the Christmas tree in that room is decorated to match, with pretty gold and warm tones, tree branch garland, forest animal ornaments, and pine cones. It is stunning.

Inspired by my mom’s approach, I also decorate my Christmas tree to match my apartment. Instead of the traditional red and green Christmas colors, I decorate my Christmas tree with different shades of blue, golds, and silver to match the colors of my apartment décor. We have high ceilings in our old Chicago brown stone, so we have a tall, full size tree. The tree is pretty and whimsical with all the sparkles from the lights and glittery gold ornaments. I love when I can finally put it up as it truly makes my apartment feel complete. As soon as it gets dark outside, I plug in the Christmas lights so it can glow and light up our space. It gives me all the Christmas feels!

Another must for me during the holiday season is baking loads of Christmas cookies. But staying true to my cooking style, I like to create delicious, healthy Christmas cookie recipes. The first recipe that I am confident will be a crowd pleaser this holiday season is my almond butter chocolate chip cookies. They are rich, gooey, soft and chewy. Plus, are made with healthy fats, heart healthy oats, and antioxidant rich dark chocolate. It’s hard to believe they are even healthy. A Christmas miracle!

Let’s get to cooking.

This is a super simple recipe. First, you mix the almond butter, coconut oil, and coconut sugar. Next, mix in the egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. If you do not have a bag of oat flour, you can make it yourself by blending old fashioned oats to a blender or food processor until it is very fine like flour. I use actual old fashioned oats as well to give the cookies some texture. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until it is well combined. Finally, fold in the dark chocolate chunks. It will be a slightly wt cookie dough batter.

Scoop out the batter in equal size portions onto a greased or lined baking sheet. To get equal sized cookies, you can use an ice cream scoop to divide the batter. If you do not have an ice cream scoop, you can also use a spoon and just do your best to scoop out the same amount of dough for each cookie. If the cookies are not perfect, that is not a problem. They will be unique, just like a snowflake. Since this is a wetter batter, the cookie dough will spread slightly and resemble the actual shape of a cookie (instead of being balls of cookie dough). These cookies are intended to be a flatter, chewier cookie. I used about 2 tablespoons of batter per cookie as I wanted monster size cookies. Just make sure to leave enough space in between each cookie so they do not spread and connect while baking.

Sprinkle a little bit of large flaky sea salt on top of each cookie. The addition of sea salt to the top of the cookie helps intensify the rich dark chocolate and almond butter flavors.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. I took my cookies out at 9 minutes, as they were golden brown on top and bottom. As a rule of thumb, I always caution on the side of taking out the cookies early as they will continue to cook once you take them out of the oven. I also prefer slightly under baked, gooey cookies.

I recommend eating these cookies while still warm, as the chocolate will still be runny and the cookie extra gooey, decadent and delicious. The cookies also pair nicely with a big glass of creamy, cold eggnog.

They are easy to make, healthy, and oh so tasty. Perfect for any cookie exchange or holiday party this season. I hope you love them as much as I do!