Chickpea Cookie Dough Bites

These chickpea cookie dough bites taste similar to the real thing but are made with nutrient-dense ingredients. They’re completely safe to consume since there’s no raw flour or eggs. A sweet treat that contains fiber and heart-healthy fat as a bonus!

Alternate post title: yet another way to use a can of chickpeas!

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m so pleasantly surprised by this trend of using chickpeas to make “cookie dough”. Of course that’s in quotes because this isn’t really cookie dough, but it is similar in taste/texture.

Now hear me out: I’m as big a skeptic as anyone when it comes to incorporating beans into desserts. If I’m having dessert, I want the real thing.

But these are snack-worthy, and still taste great. I’ve been using them for a mid-afternoon or after-dinner snack. Just sweet enough, but also super satisfying because of the fiber and healthy fats.

Chickpea Cookie Dough Ingredients

Here are the seven staple ingredients you’ll need to make them:

• Chickpeas. These are the base of the recipe that makes up most of the volume. Drain and rinse really well to remove any lingering juices/flavors.
• Peanut butter. I used unsweetened natural salted (the kind that you need to stir), so be sure to adjust if you use a sweetened version.
• Oat flour. This helps bind everything together and take away the stickiness so you can handle it with your hands. To make it, just add oats to a food processor (affiliate) and pulse until it’s fine like flour.
• Maple syrup. I chose a liquid sweetener because I knew it would blend well.
• Vanilla bean paste (affiliate) aka my new favorite baking item. I picked this up on Amazon a couple of weeks ago and have been using it in all sorts of fun ways (including these vegan oatmeal cookies and a vanilla bean simple syrup).
• Sea salt to bring out the flavor (could also top with flaky salt)
• Chocolate chips. I use bittersweet because I love the flavor of dark chocolate and I wanted to keep these lower in sugar.

Do these taste like chickpeas?

No. Seriously, they don’t! They somehow manage to mimic actual cookie dough even with an entire can of chickpeas blended in. With strong flavors like nut butter, vanilla paste and maple syrup, any hint of beans gets masked and you’re left with a smooth, lightly sweet and perfectly doughy final product. Let’s be honest, it’s not Nestlé Tollhouse. But it’s delicious and does not taste like beans.

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Can I make substitutions?

As always, there are plenty of ways you can customize these to make them your own and I recommend that you do. You could even switch up the cookie flavor (snickerdoodle maybe? white chocolate macadamia?).

Swap in a different nut butter

I think cashew butter would work really well, but it can be a bit hard to find and much more expensive. You could also try a flavored almond butter and cut back on the maple syrup.

Vanilla extract works in place of the paste

If you don’t have the paste, feel free to use an equal amount of vanilla extract. I totally get that it’s not something most people keep stocked. That being said, I’m a HUGE fan of the vanilla bean paste (affiliate) (affiliate) and would highly recommend picking some up. Once you have it, you’ll want to experiment with it in everything.

Try another sweetener

I can’t speak to the results of any other sweeteners because I haven’t tested anything besides maple syrup. I’m thinking brown sugar would taste really good, but I’m not sure if you would need more stickiness to bind everything together.

Use whatever chocolate you love

Bittersweet is my favorite because I love the taste of really dark chocolate over the sweeter varieties. Semi-sweet or even milk chocolate would work just as well though.

Give these a try and let me know what you think, especially if you’re a skeptic like I was! Even better, snap a picture and tag me on Instagram to let me know how they turned out.

If you love this recipe, you might also like:

• Crunchy Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola
• Maple Tahini Oatmeal Balls
• Coconut Chia Pudding with Ginger and Cacao

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