Raise your hand if carrot cake is your favorite cake of all time, or as I like to call it the Oprah of cakes. You know, classy and sophisticated, but also something everyone loves.
These chewy carrot cake cookies were first made by yours truly back in 2014 aka the year I became obsessed with turning my favorite cakes and breads into healthy little bite-sized cookie versions. Since Easter and Mother’s Day are right around the corner, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to share these glorious baby cakes aka healthy carrot cake cookies again.
I actually made these cookies three different times before deciding on this version. I tried one with brown butter, another with maple syrup instead of brown sugar and the last with more oats and a cream cheese glaze. I actually really loved all of the versions (especially the browned butter one!). However, I wanted these to be a great cookie nutrition-wise, be dairy free and also super tasty.
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What makes these carrot cake cookies healthier?
These wonderful carrot cake cookies are made with nutritious ingredients that make them extra nourishing and satisfying. These cookies are:
- Filled with whole grains: the base is made from whole wheat flour and oatmeal, which adds a boost of filling whole grains.
- Dairy free: they get moisture from shredded carrots and a bit of coconut oil instead of butter.
- Veggie-packed: they pack a pretty great nutritional punch with a full cup of shredded carrot!
Ingredients in healthy carrot cake cookies
One of the reasons I love these beautiful cookies is because they’re packed with nutritious ingredients and topped with a light cinnamon glaze. They taste just like a slice of carrot cake. And dare I say that you could even enjoy them for breakfast?! YES YOU CAN. Here’s what you’ll need:
- White whole wheat flour: you can also use whole wheat pastry flour.
- Baking soda & salt: for properly baking these carrot cake cookies.
- Cinnamon & nutmeg: the cinnamon and nutmeg make the ultimate carrot cake spice combo.
- Coconut oil: I love baking with coconut oil and it adds just the right amount of moisture to these cookies.
- Dark brown sugar: I think dark brown sugar adds the perfect sweetness. You can also use coconut sugar.
- Egg: to help bind these cookies. I haven’t tried it, but you could try using a flax egg to keep these vegan.
- Vanilla: you just need a splash of vanilla for for additional cozy flavor.
- Shredded carrots: because these are healthy carrot cake cookies!
- Rolled oats: oats give the cookies a deliciously chewy texture just like your fav oatmeal cookie. I would not suggest using steel cut oats in this recipe, but feel free to use gluten free rolled oats.
- Unsweetened shredded coconut: I love adding coconut for more of that true carrot cake flavor. Yum.
- Chopped pecans or walnuts: love the crunch of pecans or walnuts in every bite!
- Raisins: I’m a huge fan of raisins in my carrot cake – so good!
- Powdered sugar: combine powdered sugar with a bit of almond milk and cinnamon to make an easy, light cinnamon glaze.
Customize these carrot cake cookies
These healthy carrot cake cookies can easily be customized to suit your taste preferences and/or dietary needs.
- To make vegan: Replace the egg with half a large, mashed banana or a flax egg.
- To make gluten free: I recommend an all purpose GF flour for the whole wheat. You can also try chickpea flour.
- Use butter: You can also use 1/4 cup of melted butter instead of coconut oil if you aren’t dairy free and prefer to bake with butter.
- Go refined sugar-free: Feel free to sub brown sugar with coconut sugar or with maple syrup. Note that if you use maple syrup your cookies will be more cake-like.
- Add some indulgence: If you like cream cheese (and aren’t dairy free), try adding a heaping tablespoon of softened cream cheese to the glaze before you mix it up; it makes the glaze super creamy and delicious!
These cookies get crisp on the bottoms and outside but are deliciously soft and chewy in the middle. Secretly wishing I had chipmunk cheeks for optimal carrot cake cookie storage.
Can I leave out the mix-ins?
Sure! Feel free to leave out the raisins, pecans or coconut if you do not prefer them. You can also substitute any nut or dried fruit.
How to store carrot cake cookies
- At room temp: these cookies will stay good for 5 days at room temperature in cooler weather in an airtight container. If humid, I recommend transferring cookies to the fridge in a glass container after a day or two.
- To freeze: get all of our best tips & tricks for freezing cookies (baked or unbaked) here!
More carrot cake recipes you’ll love
- Healthier Carrot Cake Banana Bread with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
- Carrot Cake Smoothie
- The Best Healthy Carrot Cake You’ll Ever Eat (gluten free & paleo-friendly!)
- Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins with Cream Cheese Glaze
- Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal Cups
Get all of my carrot cake recipes here!
I know you’re going to LOVE these healthy carrot cake cookies. If you make them, I’d love for you to leave a comment & rating so I know how you liked them! It encourages others to bake them, too. xoxo!
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Healthy Carrot Cake Oatmeal Cookies (made with coconut oil!)
Ingredients
- ¾ cup (85 grams) white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ cup (56 grams) coconut oil, melted and cooled
- ½ cup (107 grams) packed dark brown sugar (or sub coconut sugar)
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 heaping cup (100 grams) shredded carrots
- 1 ¼ cups (119 grams) rolled oats
- ⅓ cup (28 grams) unsweetened shredded coconut
- ¼ cup (28 grams) chopped pecans or walnuts
- ¼ cup (40 grams) raisins
- For the glaze:
- ¼ cup (28 grams) powdered sugar
- 1-2 teaspoons unsweetened almond milk
- dash of cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
- In a separate large bowl mix together coconut oil, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until well combined; next fold in shredded carrots. Add in flour mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Fold in oats, coconut, pecans, and raisins.
- Use a small cookie scoop and drop by tablespoonful on prepared baking sheet. Gently flatten with your hand. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Cool cookies for a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- To make the glaze: Combine powdered sugar, almond milk and cinnamon in a bowl. Drizzle a tiny bit over cookies, then let dry. Makes about 18 cookies.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
This post was originally published on May 8th, 2018, and republished on April 7th, 2022.
Delicious! I like to sub flax seed for the egg, and add extra walnuts and carrots. Not a finicky recipe. It turns out great every time.
Perfect! Glad you love these!
These cookies are too good! Like dangerous, stand over the cooling rack and eat 4 good. And I didn’t even wait to ice them!!! This is definitely going on repeat in my kitchen! I did add some dried pineapple to the mix-ins. 10 out of 10!
So glad you love them!! Such a great treat 🙂
I weighed out and measured out the ingredients and there was a pretty big difference between the two and confused me on which directions I should use, the weight or the measurement? I made the cookies with old fashioned oats and coconut sugar to make them healthier and I didn’t love them.
Volume measurements (cups) vary greatly because of the air / empty space in the ingredients due to different densities. Weight (mass) is always more accurate because the total amount stays consistent 🙂 hope this helps!
I would love to try this recipe. Could you add in the weight measurements as that is the only way I bake now?
Yes! We’re working on manually adding grams to each baking recipe. I’ll get the measurements in here shortly!
I love your recipes. Concerning the many oat recipes, I recently learned from Dr Steven Guntry, cardiologist, that horse trainers feed oats to horses to increase their weight.
Is there a sub for oats?
I’m a firm believer in everything in moderation when it comes to food and ingredients 🙂 I can’t recommend a sub for oats in this recipe. Sorry!
Can I use oat flour in place of the whole wheat flour and quick oats instead of old fashioned oats?
I wouldn’t recommend swapping those, sorry! I’m afraid the texture will be different.
These are so yummy! I swapped out the brown sugar for Monksfruit brown sugar and added some grated ginger and sugar free white chocolate chips and topped with cream cheese frosting, made with powdered monksfruit sugar. Best breakfast ever!
Perfect! Glad you enjoyed!
These were super good, but I mistakenly forgot to put in the rolled oat!!! Needless to say, they still tasted good
Haha oops! Glad they still turned out great for you and you’re enjoying them 🙂
As always, these are fantastic too! A great little sweet treat without too much guilt. I left out te raisins added some mini chocolate chips of course, cuz duh! 😉
YUM! Sounds delish, glad you are loving these cookies 🙂
Can you use quick oats?
I haven’t tested it! They should work fine, but the texture might be a little different. Let me know how it goes 🙂
I subbed banana for the oil, and half monkfruit half coconut sugar for the sugar. I made some without any raisins, coconut, and pecans, and some cookies with all 3 add-ins. The ones without the add-ins were only 1-2 WW points each, so that was great for some of the family members. Thanks!
Happy you enjoyed these, Melinda! Thanks for the review 🙂
These were absolutely fabulous. Made is as an Easter treat. We made the cream cheese frosting version. My kids loved it too. Tastes just like carrot cake! So excited we can eat them for breakfast.
Wow! These are so delicious and super easy to make. I used walnuts because that’s what I had and just 1/4 cup of coconut. These are soooo good and I definitely don’t feel guilty having a couple. Will make these again!
I can’t wait to try your recipes for cookies. They sound delicious and healthy which we all need especially me. Just got a new Hamilton Beach Stand Mixer (works great!) and love to bake. My other mixer stopped working (was only 30+ years old). It was time to get a new one. Looking forward to more recipes from your blog. Thank you from an 81 y/o grandmother and great-grandmother.
These are delicious! I subbed 1/2 a banana for the egg like suggested, used 1/4 cup of maple syrup instead of the brown sugar and subbed 1/2 the coconut oil for apple sauce. They still taste guilty. Husband said… “umm, make these again.” Thanks for a great recipe I can feel good about giving to my kids!
Oh YAY so happy those worked out and that you guys loved them!!
Really good cookies!!! Subbed g-free flour and coconut sugar and came out wonderful!
Perfect! I’m glad that worked out well 🙂
These were really good. I substituted in olive oil and they were still tasty. Just the right amount of sugar too.
Perfect! Such a great treat 🙂
These are ambitioulicious! Seriously, I love being able to eat a sweet with healthy ingredients included!
Absolutely! Glad you love these ones 🙂
These are not healthy at all. 9g of sugar for one cookie is a LOT! Plus, who can stop at just one? Not me! lol! Three of these cookies have more sugar than the average adult should eat in an entire day! Please rewrite your title as to not confuse healthy-eating beginners trying to find their way. This isn’t it!
Hi Tina! Everyone’s definition of “healthy” is different, but I consider these healthier as they only have 1/2 cup of brown sugar for the whole batch. Many other cookies have more added sweeteners. You can also feel free to use coconut sugar + my paleo powdered sugar: https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/how-to-make-paleo-powdered-sugar/ to keep these refined sugar-free if you’d like!
This is such a great, simple recipe for carrot cake cookies! I used the regular cream cheese frosting recipe (cream cheese, powdered sugar, milk, vanilla extract) because I figured this healthy recipe would take some guilt off of the cream cheese frosting 😛 will definitely be making these again!
Absolutely! The best treat 🙂
Can I use applesauce in place of coconut oil or better?
No, I would not recommend sorry!
These were AMAZING – the entire family thought so and this includes a very picky eater. I will definitely make these again. I used homemade coconut milk instead of almond milk & Bob’s gluten free 1:1 baking flour.
Perfect! Glad those swaps worked out well – one of my fav muffin recipes, too!
My kids loved these! So good!
So happy to hear that!
These are wonderful! Not too sweet and full of great ingredients. I opted for more pecans and coconut and left out the raisins, but next time I will add them. I baked for 11 minutes and they were still a bit gooey inside, but so delicious!
Perfect! Glad you enjoyed!
Could I substitute honey for the sugar?
Sure, but you’ll have to use less honey than the recipe calls for! I would do 1/4 cup.
These cookies sound delicious! I love and make a lot of your recipes Monique! Do you think pineapple can be added? If so how much!
They are! So happy to hear that, Dawn. And yes, absolutely. I would use 1/2 cup crushed pineapple — just make sure it’s drained of all the liquid
These were so good! I will say after one day stored in an airtight container the carrots turned green! Which tells me the baking soda ratio may be too high..
Interesting! I’ve never had that happen to me before, but will definitely look out for it. Glad you liked them!
Love this cookie! I left off the glaze and used a flax egg and they came out amazing!
I would love to try these out! Can I use quick 1 minute oats for this recipe or does it have to be old fashioned? Also, can I substitute the coconut oil with either olive or canola oil?
Yes you can use quick oats. And yes you can use olive oil or even butter.
Hi, just wondering what the consistency of the batter is like. Sometimes if I use a gluten free flour blend, I have to use additional flour. I really want them to turn out with the flour I use. They look so great. Thanks!