These Healthy Gingerbread Cookies are made with molasses, whole wheat flour and less sugar. They are soft, taste exactly like classic gingerbread cookies and are easy to make.
We also love these healthy gingersnap cookies and healthy gingerbread loaf.
Reader’s Review
Made these today! We love them! Very nice spice, soft and perfect texture. Thanks!
Chloe
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Taste: These healthy gingerbread cookies taste like everyone’s favorite cut-out gingerbread cookies infused with the signature flavor of molasses and ginger.
- Healthier: Using wholesome ingredients means you can eat more of them.
- Simple ingredients: Although the list might seem long, you need simple ingredients to make these cookies.
- Quicker: You only need to chill the dough for 30 minutes.
- Variety of toppings: Keep it healthy with chopped nuts and seeds or go the traditional route with delicious icing.
Ingredients for Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
- Flour: You can use whole wheat flour or spelt flour which is less refined than regular flour. You will however need a bit of all-purpose flour which will help give the cookies structure.
- Butter: A much needed fat for chewy cookies.
- Sweetener: Depending on how healthy you want your gingerbread men cookies, you can opt for regular granulated sugar or go the less refined route of using coconut sugar.
- Egg: Needed for binding, otherwise cookies would all fall apart!
- Molasses: If you can find molasses without sulfur, use that! This will give your cookies that deep flavor as well as the dark color.
- Spices: Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves for signature spice flavor.
- Baking soda: This will help cookies to rise and give them that soft moist consistency.
- Salt: Needed to bring out the flavors of all ingredients.
Variations
- Flour substitutions: You can use 3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour but I don’t recommend using all whole wheat flour. Your dough will end up hard and crumbly, which is why I use a combination. I also don’t recommend using gluten-free flour.
- Sugar-free: You can replace the sugar with erythritol or monk fruit extract in both the cookies and the icing but it has to be dry, not liquid. I have tried both and the cookies were amazing. To get the essence of a classic gingerbread cookie you will need to use molasses which is a sugar byproduct. So, sugar-free is a stretch.
- Coconut oil: You can use coconut oil if preferred, but keep in mind your cookies may end up crispier rather than soft. It becomes harder than butter when cooled.
- No liquid sweetener: Unfortunately maple syrup or honey won’t work for this recipe, no matter how delicious those flavors would be!
How to Make Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
- Combine dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, and salt until there are no more lumps. Set the bowl aside.
- Cream butter and sugar: In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Then beat in the egg and molasses until just combined. Do not overmix! Once the egg and molasses have been incorporated, stop beating. Overmixing can cause the butter to separate and no longer be creamy.
- Add dry to wet ingredients: Pour in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and using a spatula, combine into a ball of dough. You may find using your hands after a while easier.
- Divide and chill the dough: Once you have formed a ball of dough and everything is well blended, divide the cookie dough in 2 and form into disks. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. This will help prevent cookies from spreading.
- Cut out the cookies: Allow cookie dough to sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. It will become much easier to work with. Place it on a floured surface, roll out to a 1/4-inch thick and using your favorite cookie cutters start cutting out your shapes and transferring cookies to the prepared baking sheet. Leave 1/2″ in between each one. They won’t spread much. Roll up the remaining dough into a ball, and roll it out again for more cutouts.
- Bake cookies: Depending on whether you like your gingerbread cookies soft or crunchy, that will determine how long you bake them. 8 minutes for soft, 12 minutes for crunchy. Then let cool completely.
- Make the icing: In a small bowl, mix powdered sugar and water until smooth.
- Decorate: Add icing to a Ziploc bag, push it to one corner, cut the tip slightly and decorate the cookies. They will harden and set within a couple of hours. Do not stack your healthy gingerbread cookies until they are all completely dry.
Tips for Best Results
- Use softened butter, not melted butter: Soft butter is room temperature butter that is easily spreadable and will mix, cream, and blend easily. Melted butter will not work.
- To soften butter quickly: Grab a tall glass (one that will fit an entire stick of butter), fill it with water and microwave for 2 minutes. Place the stick of butter standing upright on a small plate, dump the water and put the glass right overtop the butter. Transfer the plate into the microwave (do not turn it on) and leave in there for 10 minutes. Your butter will be soft at this point.
- Chilling the dough is a must: If you don’t, gingerbread cookies will spread too much.
- Don’t overbake: Overbaking cookies will result in burnt cookies. Remove from the oven before visible browning.
- Cutting the tip of icing bag: It’s impossible to make the corner cut smaller, so it’s always a good idea to start small and make it bigger. If the hole is too big, the icing will pour out.
How to Store
Make ahead the dough: You can make the dough in advance and freeze rather than chill it. Form it into disks, wrap tightly in plastic wrap followed by foil and freeze in a freezer-friendly bag for up to 1 month.
Store: Once cookies are completely cooled, transfer them to an airtight container and keep at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Freeze: Once cooled, and the icing has solidified, transfer cookies to a freezer-friendly Ziploc or container, separate with parchment paper and freeze for up to 3 months.
More Holiday Cookies Recipes to Try
- Almond flour shortbread cookies
- Healthy snowball cookies
- Almond flour snickerdoodles
- Healthy oatmeal cranberry cookies
- Almond flour thumbprint cookies
Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
These Healthy Gingerbread Cookies are made with molasses, whole wheat flour and less sugar. They are soft, taste exactly like classic gingerbread cookies and are easy to make.
Video
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat or spelt flour
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, more for dusting
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup cane or coconut sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
Icing
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 1 tablespoon cold water
Instructions
- In a large bowl, add whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda and salt. Whisk until no lumps and set aside.
- In another large bowl, add butter and sugar. Beat with an electric mixer until combined and creamy. Add egg and molasses. Beat until combined well (don't overbeat to prevent butter separation).
- Add flour mixture, first stir with spatula and then mix with your hands until a ball of dough forms.
- Divide it into two balls, place on two separate sheets of plastic wrap, flatten into discs, wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line two large baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper. Set aside.
- Remove chilled dough from the fridge, let warm up on the counter for 5 minutes, and unwrap from plastic. Dust the surface and rolling pin with flour and roll the dough 1/4 inch thick. If dough is hard and crumbly, roll it out as best as you can, let warm up a few minutes and roll more until 1/4 inch thick.
- Using your favorite cookie cutters, cut out cookies and transfer to previously prepared baking sheet (loosening with small spatula if necessary), leaving just 1/2 inch in between. These cookies do not spread much. Combine the dough scraps into a ball, roll it out, cut out cookies and repeat until you run out of dough. Repeat the same step with the second disc of dough.
- Bake for 8 minutes for soft cookies and 12 minutes for crunchy cookies. Do not overbake as cookies will harden during resting. Remove from the oven and let gingerbread cookies first cool off on a baking tray for 15 minutes, then transfer onto a cooling rack to cool off completely.
To decorate cookies:
- In a small bowl, add icing sugar and water; whisk until smooth and no lumps.
- Transfer to a sandwich size resealable bag, push to one corner, twist bag on top and cut a tiny hole at the tip. The smaller the better as you can always make the hole bigger but not smaller.
- Decorate cookies as you wish by pushing icing through the hole. Let icing dry and it will harden and set within a couple of hours. Do not stack them until then.
🎉 Last step! If you made this recipe, please leave a review and let us know what you think!
Notes
- Make ahead: You can make the dough in advance and freeze it rather than chill it. Form them into disks, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap followed by foil. Store in a freezer-friendly bag for up to 1 month and thaw when you’re ready to use the dough.
- Store: Store baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
- Freeze: Wrap cookies or store in airtight container for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
Serving: 1cookie, Calories: 87kcal, Carbohydrates: 14g, Protein: 1g, Fat: 3g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 12mg, Sodium: 83mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 5g
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Perfect! My 27 month old grandson does not eat a lot of sugar, so I tried this recipe. He helped! We followed the recipe exactly and baked for 10 min. They did not spread, they were perfect. I used softened cream cheese to pipe decoration. Will save this recipe and bake them again.
Made these today! We love them! Very nice spice, soft and perfect texture. Thanks!
I’m so happy to hear you love these gingerbread cookies, Chloe!
Looks like a good recipe. However, in the video at 0:40, it calls for allspice but I do not see it listed in the instructions. Please advise. Thanks!
Don’t add allspice, it’s a typo in the video. Sorry about the confusion. Just follow the written recipe.:)
Hi!
Can I use 3 cups of all purpose flour? Also can this recipe be halved?
Either way has not been tested, but yes you can try to half the recipe and you can try using an extra 1 tablespoon per cup of all purpose flour for wheat flour called for.
Five star cookies! Scrumptious! Best gingerbread cookies I’ve ever had. I used half coconut and half brown sugar for the sugar and the flavor profile with that and your spices is bomb. They also did not stick to everything and rolled out and cut out like a dream. Thanks for your healthier recipes!! I feel better about eating a more wholesome cookie. Gracias!!
So glad you enjoyed them Laura Anne, and agreed they are scrumptious! Happy holidays!
These are beautiful. My 3 kids and I made these and you are right they are chewy, wholesome and way better than anything store bought. Although we need to work on our icing piping skills.:)
So glad you and your kids enjoyed them Kim!
Made your healthy gingerbread cookies with my kids and we had a blast!
Just finished making them and they are absolutely amazing!!! Honestly I think they’re better then the unhealthy tradional version 🙂
That is awesome, Joanna! That’s what my friends said as well. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!!!
I agree! Better than traditional unhealthy versions!!
these are so pretty!
Those are so beautiful!