High-Protein Breakfast Cookies
⏱ 25 min💪 10g protein per cookie🔥 ~190 cal🍽 12 cookies
Breakfast cookies are for the mornings you eat standing up. These are built on oats, peanut butter, and Greek yogurt, so they hold together like a cookie but eat like oatmeal. Ten grams of protein each means two plus a glass of milk lands you near 30g. They are deliberately underbaked, which is the only way protein cookies stay soft past day one.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 2 scoops (60g) vanilla or peanut butter protein powder
- 1/4 cup ground flaxseed
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp fine salt
- 1/2 cup natural creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350F and line a sheet pan with parchment.
- Whisk the peanut butter, Greek yogurt, maple syrup, egg, and vanilla in a large bowl until it looks like thick frosting.
- Stir the oats, protein powder, flaxseed, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together, then add them to the wet mixture and stir until a stiff dough forms. If it crumbles, add milk one tablespoon at a time up to three.
- Fold in the chocolate chips, scoop 12 mounds onto the pan, and flatten each one to about a half inch thick with damp fingers. These do not spread on their own.
- Bake 11 to 13 minutes, until the edges are set and the centers still look slightly underdone and glossy.
- Cool on the pan 5 minutes before moving them. Store airtight at room temperature for 3 days, in the fridge for a week, or frozen for 3 months.
Tips
- Pull them when the centers look wet. Protein powder keeps drying after the pan comes out, and a cookie baked to visually done will be sandy by tomorrow.
- A whey-casein blend or plain casein makes a much softer cookie than straight whey isolate, which is the driest option you can pick for baking.
- For a nut-free version, use sunflower seed butter. The cookies may turn slightly green inside from a harmless reaction with the baking powder, and they taste fine.
FAQ
- Why are my protein cookies dry?
- Overbaking and whey isolate are the two usual causes. Cut the bake time to 11 minutes and switch to a casein blend, which holds moisture instead of squeezing it out.
- Can I make these without protein powder?
- Yes. Replace it with 1/2 cup oat flour and 2 tablespoons of nonfat dry milk powder. Protein drops to about 6g per cookie and the texture gets a little chewier.
- Do these count as a full breakfast?
- Two cookies plus a cup of milk or Greek yogurt puts you around 30g of protein, which is a real breakfast. One cookie on its own is a snack.
