These Gluten-Free Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies are soft, chewy, and taste like banana bread. They're versatile and easily customisable, are made using a handful of simple ingredients, and are ready in 30 minutes. They're also refined sugar free, can be made completely free from added sugar, and oil-free optional. They make a satisfying and healthy dessert, snack or breakfast and are perfect for meal prep as their taste and texture remains unchanged for a good few days. They travel well so are great for packed lunches or road trips.
How to make this recipe
- Mash the bananas with a fork in a bowl.
Tip: For naturally super sweet, fudgy cookies, make sure to use ripe bananas.
- Mix together all the ingredients in a separate, larger mixing bowl.
Tip: Leave the mixture for 10 minutes as leaving the oats to soak for a bit will make them much easier to bind together.
- Take a heaped tablespoon of the mixture and use your hands to form it into little patties to lay it out onto a rectangular baking tray lined with baking paper - make sure to grease the baking paper so that the cookies don't stick.
- Then just bake for 15 minutes and they're done!
Tip: Make sure to leave them to cool completely before storing.
Substitutions you can make
- You can use any type of liquid sweetener: maple syrup, agave syrup, brown rice syrup etc.
- To make the cookies free from added sugar, omit the maple syrup.
- You can use any type of oil: coconut oil, olive oil or vegetable oil.
- For an oil-free version, the coconut oil can be replaced with almond butter, peanut butter, cashew butter or sunflower seed butter.
- If you're not into cinnamon, it can be omitted.
- The ground almonds can be replaced with ground walnuts.
- For a nut-free version, use ground sunflower seeds instead of ground almonds.
Ingredients you can add to the cookie dough
- Chocolate chips.
- Dried fruit: raisins, dried cranberries, dried cherries, dried mango, dried papaya, dried pineapple, chopped dates, chopped dried figs etc.
- Chopped nuts: walnuts, pecan nuts, Brazil nuts.
- Desiccated coconut.
How long do these Banana Oatmeal Cookies keep for?
These cookies keep well in the fridge in an airtight container for a good few days.
More gluten-free vegan cookie recipes
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Blueberry Breakfast Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Chocolate Cookies
- Carrot Cake Cookies
- Oatmeal Cookies
- Snickerdoodles
- Millionaire Shortbread
- Orange Cookies
- Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies
- Lemon Blueberry Cookies
If you try out this recipe or anything else from my blog, I'd really love to hear any feedback! Please give it a rating, leave a comment, or tag a photo @rhiansrecipes #rhiansrecipes on Instagram! Thank you.
Watch how to make this recipe
Gluten-Free Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 medium-sized ripe bananas
- 30 g (⅛ cup) coconut oil (or sub olive or vegetable oil, or nut butter such as peanut butter or almond butter)
- 6 tablespoons maple syrup *(or sub any other sweetener
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) ground almonds (almond meal) **
- 150 g (1 ½ cup) rolled oats (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
- 40 g (¼ cup) dark chocolate chips ***(ensure vegan/gluten-free if necessary)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Peel the bananas and place in a small bowl, then use a fork to mash until you get a smooth paste.
- Place the coconut oil in a separate, large bowl and melt over a saucepan of boiling water or in the microwave (skip this step if using any other oil).
- Once melted, add all the other ingredients to the same bowl.
- Mix well, adding a tiny splash of plant-based milk if it's looking too dry.
- Leave the mixture for 10 minutes as leaving the oats to soak for a bit will make them much easier to bind together.
- Take a heaped tablespoon of the mixture and use your hands to form it into little patties.
- Lay it out onto a baking tray lined with greased baking paper.
- Repeat until the rest of the dough is used up - you should be able to make 12 cookies.
- Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes until golden brown.
- Leave to cool completely before storing in an airtight container in the fridge - keeps for a good few days.
Video
Notes
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Mary
My mixture was much wetter than shown in this article; probably because my bananas were completely ripe. I allowed the mixture to sit as directed, but it remained wet. I used 2 heaping tablespoons of mixture per cookie and still ended up with 14 3-inch cookies. The cookies did NOT spread during baking, so can be placed close together. Perhaps because my mixture was wet, these cookies needed more time in the oven. I increased the time to 18 minutes and they browned only along the bottom edge. Depending on how wet the mixture is next time, I may increase baking time to 20 minutes. I feel I should store these in the refrigerator as well as in an airtight container. These are only slightly sweet, so I can't imagine leaving sweetener out completely. Use liquid stevia if you don't want to use maple syrup or such.
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much for sharing your feedback!
Rachel
yum yum yum! these are my new go-to for the kids lunchboxes! so easy to make and the whole batch was gobbled up in a flash! i ended up leaving the milk out because they looked wet enough already when i’d added all the other ingredients. came out beautiful and golden and totally yum! thanks for so many great recipes! xx
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that!
Catherine
Hi Rhian,
Made these today and they taste amazing. Thanks so much for sharing your recipe.
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that!
Mary
These are great, perfect texture and taste very similar to banana bread. Definitely recommend !
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much!
samantha
Hey! What can you sub for almonds? I’m allergic to nuts
Rhian Williams
Ground sunflower seeds!