Easy 20 minute Sweet Potato Oatmeal Cookies

When a dessert is secretly healthy and you get to eat it for breakfast with your morning coffee, I call that winning.

Okay, during the quarantine, I have discovered that there are two types of people. Some folks are using their time productively, exercising, getting tons of sleep, fully hydrating. They are going to come out of this GOLDEN and glowing with their summer bodies ready. The others, my kindred spirits, are using our time productively to get really really really good at baking. Like baking a dozen cookies a day style good at baking. Am I hydrated? No, but I have rated many of the wines on my new delivery service, and that felt like something.

Anyway. I decided that if I was spending all of my time baking, some of these cookies I’d be shoveling into my face had to be ones I could hold my head high and eat at 10 in the morning shamelessly, because realistically, I was going to do that either way. Enter these babies. All the coziness of sweet potatoes, chewiness of oats, and with feel-good applesauce to replace the oil. I mean, come on, I did good right?

Substitutions

• If you don’t have sweet potatoes, you can use pumpkin puree (because I know you have that dusty old can in your baking cabinet somewhere), grated/drained fresh zucchini, or even roasted carrots in place of the sweet potatoes.

• Almond, chickpea, or other gluten free flours may be used in place of standard baking flour in a 1:1 ratio if desired.

• If you don’t have applesauce, use 1/2 stick of vegan butter in place of the 1/4 called for in this recipe.

Method

If using sweet potatoes, I leave the skin on, cut into 1” chunks, and pop into the toaster oven or conventional oven to bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. If you’re a potato peeler, you can certainly remove the skin, though did you know it has health benefits of its own? Similar to how you’d keep the red skins in a rustic mashed potato recipe, sweet potato skins are full of nutrients and fiber. Fiber helps keep your gut biome healthy, helps you feel fuller longer, controls blood sugar, and does its part in reducing bad cholesterol. I leave the skin on when making sweet potato fries, casseroles, hasselback, you name it.

When these are done roasting, add to your food processor or mash by hand with a potato masher. If preparing in your food processor, toss in your applesauce, butter, and white sugar to create a creamy base. If mixing with a standard hand mixer or stand mixer, transfer to your bowl, and add the ingredients in the same order. Next, mix in your brown sugar, flour, oats, salt, vanilla, baking soda, and spices. Feel free to omit cloves if you don’t have it, or add in a pinch of nutmeg if you like. They will taste delicious either way.

Use a cookie scoop to make evenly sized 1 1/2” inch dough balls, and add to a silicone baking pan on top of a cookie sheet. Give up the wax paper and tinfoil, girl, we’re so past that. Check out my no-waste kitchen hacks here if you’re looking to make your baking experience more eco friendly. Pop these into your preheated oven at 350° and bake for 12 minutes. Let these cool on your baking pan, as this actually finishes cooking them after they come out of the oven.

Method

These will stay good in an airtight container for 3-4 days or in the freezer for up to two weeks. You can take out of the freezer and reheat in the toaster oven or microwave. We also enjoyed them with a layer of peanut butter on top.

For more healthy dessert or breakfast ideas and recipes, Check out my Pinterest page.