These Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies are soft, chewy, and loaded with bright red cranberries. Made in one bowl with a hint of cinnamon and orange, these no chill gluten free cookies are ready for the holidays!
Other grain free favorites around here are these almond flour chocolate chip cookies, healthy snickerdoodles and sugar free oatmeal cookies.
Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
If you’re already eating your way through the holiday season, now is as good a time as any to switch gears a bit with these oatmeal cranberry cookies! Swapping out healthier alternatives doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing all the chewy and ooey-gooey goodness we love about our baked treats! Great example is this skillet cookie recipe and cranberry orange muffins.
These gorgeous almond flour oatmeal cookies with flecks of red are perfect warm out of the oven. With simple healthy ingredients combined in one bowl, no chilling required dough, these homemade cookies are ready to devour in no time!
This oatmeal cranberry cookie recipe is quite versatile. You can choose to add white chocolate chips and your choice of nuts. You can decide whether to use almond flour or almond meal, coconut oil or butter, what kinds of oats you use and whether you want to add fresh or frozen cranberries.
Ingredients for Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
- Baking essentials: Flour. We are using almond flour or almond meal. Both have the same effect and will result in the same cookie. The meal just means it has the skin left on before it is ground to flour. Pure vanilla extract. Baking soda. Cinnamon. Salt. Eggs.
- Sugar: Cane sugar or coconut sugar. If you are wanting a sweeter cookie, cane sugar is sweeter.
- Fat: Coconut oil or butter will both work. Make sure to measure after it’s been melted.
- Oats: Quick or rolled oats.
- Cranberries: You can use either fresh, frozen, or dried. No need to thaw if using frozen. And if using dried, use less. And how about just folding in 1/2 cup of leftover cranberry sauce instead?!
- White chocolate chips: Totally optional and adds a lovely chunky texture and added sweetness. The accents of white complement the red cranberries in a very festive way!
How to Make Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
- Prep: So, grab a large baking sheet and line it with unbleached parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F while you’re at it.
- Beat: In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a hand mixer or whisk by hand. This frothing will invite air into them helping to make the cookies soft and moist!
- Add and combine: Add in the sugar, whisking vigorously for a couple of minutes before adding in the coconut oil, orange zest, vanilla extract, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Continue whisking to combine. It’s important to keep up the whisking movement (or hand mixer of course!) to continue capturing and holding in the air. At this point, you’ll want to stir in the oats and almond flour until just combined and gently stir in the cranberries and chocolate chips. You’ve just gone from a vigorous whisk to a gentle fold because once the air is trapped you don’t want to let it out!
- Stir and scoop: Take your cookie dough scoop to scoop out the dough to place on the prepared baking sheet 1″ apart from each other. Cookies won’t spread too much, so flatten them with your fingers into about 1″ thick discs.
- Bake: When the cookies start to turn golden brown they should be done!
- Remove and cool: As tempting as they are to eat right away, you’ll want to let them cool on the baking sheet for 15 minutes before transferring to a rack. They will be very soft and cooling them will give them time to solidify. You don’t want cookies falling apart on you!
Success Tips
- Don’t “cook” your eggs: Adding the sugar to eggs before the hot melted fat will help to avoid “cooking” the egg. That’s definitely not what you want!
- Raisins: Swap out the raisins for cranberries and you’ve got deliciously healthy oatmeal raisin cookies.
- Dark chocolate: Skip white chocolate chips altogether or swap them out for dark or milk chocolate chips.
- Nuts: Add pecans or walnuts for a toasty nutty crunchy bite. Depending on what nuts you use, it may add a bit of a salty balance to the sweet and tart combination of the cookie. So good.
- Zest: Cinnamon and orange are in a committed relationship but sometimes lemon just comes along and gives orange a run for its money. Lemon zest might be a nice twist, but you can also omit the zest completely.
- Steel cut oats: Quick cooking steel cut oats can be used, however not regular steel cut oats as they will not have enough time to cook.
Storing and Freezing
Store: These cookies do well uncovered in a cool dry place for up to 5 days. Unfortunately, because they get too soft when covered, they don’t ship well. But that just means more for you 🙂
Freeze: If you’ve made a double batch or are wanting to freeze leftovers, freeze in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Plan for make ahead dessert, basically. Just thaw them on the counter for a few hours before you’re ready to serve and eat!
More Cookies Recipes
Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies {No Chilling}
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup cane or coconut sugar
- 1/2 cup coconut oil or butter melted (measured after)
- 1 tbsp orange zest of whole large orange
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 cups quick or rolled oats
- 1 3/4 cups almond flour or almond meal
- 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries or 2/3 cup dried cranberries
- 1/4 cup white chocolate chips optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line large baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs for a few minutes with a whisk. You can also use a mixer.
- Add sugar and whisk vigorously for another 2 minutes.
- Add coconut oil, orange zest, vanilla extract, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; whisk until combined.
- Stir in oats and almond flour until combined. Then stir in cranberries and white chocolate chips.
- Using a cookie dough scoop, scoop dough, place on prepared baking sheet 1" apart (cookies do not spread much) and flatten with fingers into a cookie shape, about 1" thick.
- Bake for 13 minutes or until cookies start to turn golden brown.
- Remove from the oven, cool on the sheet for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool off for another 30 minutes. Cooling prevents cookies from crumbling.
Store: Store in a cool dry place for up to 5 days uncovered, otherwise cookies will become too soft.
Freeze: Freeze in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Thaw on a counter for a few hours.
Notes
- Hot melted oil or butter: Make sure you add it after sugar. This step will ensure hot coconut oil will not "cook" the egg.
- Dried cranberries: If you use sweetened (more common), cookies will be more sweet than original recipe. You can buy unsweetened dried cranberries or skip chocolate chips.
- Other additions: Walnuts, raisins, pecans, regular chocolate chips.
- Orange zest substitutes: You can use lemon zest or skip all together.
- Steel cut oats: You can use quick cooking steel cut oats only, not regular.
Nutrition
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My name is Olena Osipov. I'm a mom to 2 boys, a wife to Alex and we reside on magical Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. This is our healthy family recipes blog. Originally from Ukraine, I grew up on real food. As an adult, I struggled with diets for years because none worked long-term. Now for over 10 years, I cook easy healthy meals for my family. I can help you with “What’s for dinner?” too.