This is a recipe my older sister created many years ago and it’s been a family staple ever since. It’s not a low-fat recipe (I think I gained a pound just making these yesterday!), but it’s delicious.
It’s a hearty cookie and it blends two of my favorite foods together — chocolate and peanut butter. And the whole-wheat flour and oats might help balance out the sugar and fat… or at least I like to tell myself that! 🙂
This cookie dough freezes well and is perfect to have on hand for last-minute guests or a mid-afternoon snack.
Whole-Wheat Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
- 1 cup shortening or butter (softened)
- 1/3 cup peanut butter
- 3/4 cup brown sugar*
- 3/4 cup sugar*
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups oats (rolled or quick oats)
- 1 12-oz. package chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together first six ingredients. Add flour, baking soda, salt and oats. Mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Roll into 1-1 1/2-inch balls. Place on greased cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes or until done. Makes approximately 40 cookies.
Freezer-Friendly Instructions:
Roll dough into balls and place on a cookie sheet. Freeze for 1-2 hours.
Put frozen cookie dough balls into a plastic freezer bag and seal tightly. When ready to bake, pull out the desired amount of balls and place on a greased cookie sheet for 30-45 minutes to thaw. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes or until done.
*I use 1 1/2 cups raw sugar.
I love these! I love that they can be dairy free with the right chocolate chips. I just doubled the recipe and now have 80 dough balls to freeze. It was a breeze to make the balls with my stainless steel cookie scoop. I added raisins, too. Yum!
I finally got to make these last night and they’re awesome!! My new favorite choc-chip cookies! I love how you can’t even tell they’re made with whole-wheat flour. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I tried these cookies today, an now I’m trying not to be a glutten with them! So yummy! 🙂
I am going to make these right now!! I don’t have butter though, so I am going to try making them with coconut oil!
They came out wonderful!!! Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!!
Thank you Crystal!!! These sound scrumptious! Oatmeal choc chip are my favorite. I keep experimenting to make “healthier” versions, but so far haven’t gotten it just right. And the peanut butter makes me love this recipe even more!
I make a similar recipe, and the last time I made a batch of cookies I put most of them into the freezer. Now when I want a cookie fix, I pull one out (OK, I pull out 3 or 4) and microwave them for 30 seconds. They taste as if they just came out of the oven and it’s an instant reward! Just wanted to make that suggestion because you don’t have to wait for the thaw time with your method. 🙂
I just pulled the last batch out of the oven. I don’t know if there will be any left by morning. (With guilty look on my face) I needed a sweet fix and this showed up just in time. I did substitute. I used 1 cube of butter and 1/2 cup of expeller pressed coconut oil. For sugar I used sucanat for 3/4 cup. These are holding together just fine. I’m thinking these have a bit of a leeway to add or subtract extras, like coconut, dried cranberries, raisins. I bet you could leave the peanut butter out without too much of a problem. Have to go hide them before the baby gets out of his bath, ha, he had two and was ready to sit down and make a feast near the cooling racks.
Thank you!
Just made these, but doubled the peanut butter. Used turbinado for the sugar. FABULOUS! Thanks so much. Oatmeal/choc chip is my hubbies favorite cookie…I just scored big points with him! 😀
My little ones and I just made a batch of these and took them to our fire station. The firefighters were *needless to say* very excited! I was thoroughly impressed that you could make such a good cookie with whole wheat flour. A first for me! THANK YOU!
I HAD to make these tonight, and I’m so glad I did! I made a half-batch and added fresh nutmeg and 1/4 tsp. of cinnamon for fun – they turned out SO yummy. I also used super crunchy peanut butter, since that’s what I had open, and the bits of peanut are fabulous 🙂
Do you find that Turbinado doesn’t dissolve in baked goods? The stuff we get is so coarse!
Yum! I tried these today and they were a nice treat. Thanks! Also thanks for the inspiration for the 1 hr. cooking “burst!” I often have this idea but fail to implement it. 🙂 But today I made 2 pizza dough batches , made 4 loaves of zucchini bread, and the cookies to so I have plenty of stuff for now and some to freeze for later!
This recipe comes awfully close to the dog carob chip cookies I make!
Crystal, these are SO yummy! Mine looked a lot different than yours, though ~ flatter, with sparkles in between the oats and chocolate chips from dehydrated cane juice crystals. Also, my dough was too soft to roll, but we loved them. My favorite part was the hint of peanut butter. Just baked one tray and trying to forget about all the balls in the freezer…! Thanks for sharing your sister’s special recipe.
Glad you enjoyed them!
I have baked frozen cookies balls right out of the freezer giving it an extra few minutes in the oven and they’ve been great. Is there a reason you thaw yours first?
I never thaw mine either! And the bakery I worked at we always pulled cookies straight from the freezer!
Would hard white, soft white, or a combo be best to use? I mill both and usually use a 50/50 mix for baking – like your cinnamon roll recipe, which is to die for!!
I use Summer wheat, but we’ve also made these with hard wheat. I’d say soft or combo, though.
thanks 🙂
I can’t wait to try this one! I make a whole wheat M&M cookie (or chocolate chip) also. But mine recipe doesn’t have PB or oats!
I was actually going to make my recipe tomorrow (which is very yummy), but I may have to try yours!
Crystal: Can you explain to me what the difference is with raw sugar please if you have time? I guess I could always Google it too. : )
Google can probably do a better job than me, but basically it’s just a less-processed sugar that is a little better for you.
Here in Panama turbinado is much cheaper than normal sugar. I saw that you substituted it in this recipe (which looks FABULOUS, btw). Can you substitute in any recipe??
panamom.blogspot.com
Thank you so much for posting the recipe! I have some whole wheat flour that I need to use up and didn’t feel like making bread … sounds yummy!
You are most welcome!
Did you triple this recipie yesterday or just make 1 of it??? I am thinking about doing a double and not sure if I will have way to many for my family of 3 (the baby doesnt eat real food yet :D)
I doubled it and split it in four bags. Each makes enough for one dinner for us.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe. I love using whole wheat in chocolate chip cookies, makes me feel better to indulge in them 😉 This may sound like a silly question but are “rolled oats” the same as the Old Fashion Oatmeal?
Yes, Old Fashioned Oats are the same as Rolled Oats — at least as far as I know!
Have you tried making these with turbinado?
Yes, that’s what I used for the cookies shown (see note at bottom of recipe). 🙂 I think they are slightly better with the brown sugar/sugar combo, but if you didn’t know any differently, these tasted almost just as good.
Thanks, I figured you had, just missed the comment. I think I will try the turbinado first so I “don’t know any differently” 😉
I’ve made these several times since you posted them on your other blog. Believe it or not, this die-hard chocoholic likes them even better with butterscotch!
Oh, and we call these the “horrible cookies”. As in, no, no, they’re horrible, you don’t want any, I’ll suffer through eating them so they don’t go to waste! 😉
😉
What other blog, its been mentioned a few times in the comments… Do you have more than one blog now, Crystal, or is that a previous one they are referring to?
My previous blog that I started before MoneySavingMom.com — way back in 2005!
I use a small ice cream scoop 1 Tablespoon or smaller to make cookie dough balls to freeze. It goes faster and makes nice uniform cookies which makes for lots of compliments.
I forgot, I also grind my oats whenever I put them in anything. It disguises them and the kids don’t know they are eating healthy ; )
Great tip! 🙂
Have you ever tried this with white flour? These sound delicious but I don’t cook with whole wheat flour because for some reason, even though I can eat whole wheat bread, the uncooked whole wheat flour makes my face and eyes itchy.
Thanks!
I think they’d definitely work with white flour, they just might not have as much heartiness to them! 🙂
How could I adjust these to accomodate DH peanut allergy? Also, Have you ever used butterscotch chips? Thanks, I love your site! And I can’t wait to make these!
I would love to know as well. My home is peanut free due to food allergies. Please let me know if anyone has substituted something else.
I think you could probably substitute any other nut butter — almond, etc.
Sunbutter would probably taste great!
I would think almond butter would work well.
I might have to try that. DD just got diagnosed with peanut allergy, which baffles me because she has eaten it for years, and we bought some almond butter that she does not like. Thankfully she likes Sunbutter. I was hoping to find something to use the almond butter in and this just might work! Thanks 🙂
Looks so good. We grind our own wheat to make break quite often. I have a question though, have you ever left out the peanut butter? If I do, do you think I would need to substitute something else for it?
I just know that when I’ve used whole wheat flour before for cookies, they tend to be dry. I’m thinking the peanut butter probably fixes that problem.
I’ve not left the PB out before, but if you try it and come up with a great alternative, I’d love to hear it!
I always add cinnamon to all of my chocolate chip cookie recipes!
These sound delicious! And, we’re not afraid of butter around here. 😉
Have you ever tried making them with Sucanat? I’ve made FishMama’s farm-style oatmeal cookies with Sucanat and had much success, but I tried a different oatmeal cookie recipe with it last week and they were a flop.
I’ve not tried it with sucanat, but I think it should work. They might have a tad bit different consistency since sucanat is not as granulated, but it should work.
My guess is that it wouldn’t work quite as well. I’ve tried sucanat with cookie recipes and they turn out too dry. When I use turbinado sugar for my cookies I also add some molasses as the “wet” ingredients are what help keep cookies chewy. I’ve tried that trick with sucanat too, but it didn’t seem to help. Here is my favorite whole grain chocolate chip cookie recipe. http://delicious-nutritious.blogspot.com/2011/03/whats-in-your-skillet.html
Thanks so much for this!! If possible, could you post more recipes on here more of the ones where you can freeze some things for future use? I would love to be able to make some things and freeze so I could just pull out ahead and have something ready to go on nights where we are busy!!
I have a few recipes that I often freeze too! I hope to be adding more to my blog soon! The Fiesta Chicken could also be frozen! 🙂 http://mylittlebitoflife.com/?p=1030 and http://mylittlebitoflife.com/?p=609 Hope this helps!!
Oh yum, those look goooood.
Thanks for posting these! Can’t wait to try them!
Wow! These sound so good, I can’t wait to try them!
Is this the same recipe you posted years back? I loved those cookies!
Yes, ma’am! I realized not too long ago that I’d never posted it here!
I had been looking for it recently, and couldn’t find it! I am so glad you re-posted it.