Apple Walnut Oatmeal Cookies
Tighten up your apron strings dear readers, you’re about to meet your new favorite cookie on the planet. It is a healthier oatmeal cookie with walnuts, apple and white chocolate chips. They have just a touch of cinnamon, sweet butter and they are sweetened with unrefined maple sugar!
Table of contents
Why We Love This Recipe For Apple Walnut Oatmeal Cookies
These cookies are the essence of autumn! They are like a Oatmeal Raisin Cookie with chewy bits of dried apple, crunchy walnuts and sweet creamy white chocolate chips. They ooze fall!
Key Ingredients for This Recipe
Walnuts
I decided to use walnuts in the flour mixture too. I ground them up with the flour to replace some of the flour. They add a nutty richness that really goes well with the maple. I tried it both with roasted unsalted walnuts and raw unsalted walnuts. Either is great, though the roasted walnuts have more nutty flavor.
Whole wheat flour
I also knew I wanted my oatmeal cookies to have whole-grain flour in addition to the oats. (Rolled oats are also whole grain.) I used King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour. It’s more mild in flavor than regular whole-wheat so it doesn’t detract from the flavor of the cookie.
Old fashioned oats
Oats is an obvious must when making oatmeal cookies. I like using the regular old fashioned oats from Quaker. I’d stay away from instant or quick oats as they might change the texture of the cookies.
White chocolate chips
White chocolate pairs really well with anything maple. Use any standard white chocolate chip from the grocery store, or chop up a white chocolate bar. If you don’t like white chocolate, use semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips instead.
Dried apple and applesauce
I used a bit of applesauce to stand in for the extra butter, and they still stayed nice and chewy. They puffed up in an unexpected way in the oven, but then when they cooled, they looked more like a traditional oatmeal cookie.
I found the apples for these at two local health food stores, but a lot of large supermarkets carry them as well. Chop them into pieces about the size of a dime.
Butter
And then comes the butter!!! It had to happen. I wanted to make sure that these were really chewy and lately, I’ve been noticing that coconut oil and I don’t really get along that well. So I decided that one stick of butter wasn’t going to be a bad thing. Especially when divided among 4 dozen cookies.
Maple Sugar
I knew I wanted to sweeten them with granulated maple sugar- which is such a truly magical unrefined sugar– that tastes of the essence of maple. After the first test, the cookies weren’t sweet enough and they did not have enough pan spread. So I did end up needing to increase the amount of sugar. I settled on 1 ½ cups. Which sounds like a ton for a healthy recipe, but when spread out over 48 cookies, isn’t so bad. I mean, keep in mind it’s a cookie folks.
One more note on the sugar: I also experimented with subbing in brown sugar for the granulated sugar. Using all brown sugar worked- kinda. But they were too wet. Instead, I discovered that you can sub in ¾ cup light or dark brown sugar, and ¾ cup granulated white sugar for the 1 ½ cup maple sugar. The flavor isn’t as completely awesome, but they are still majorly good. I think you’ll agree!
Additional Ingredients
- 2 cups roasted unsalted walnuts, divided
- 1 cup whole wheat flour, preferably white whole-wheat
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- ½ cup applesauce
Step-By-Step Instructions to Make These Apple Walnut Oatmeal Cookies
Step 1: Preheat & grease baking sheets
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat two large baking sheets with cooking spray.
Step 2: Grind walnuts
Grind 1 ¼ cups (3.75 ounces) walnuts in a food processor fitted with steel blade attachment until it looks like coarse meal. Add the white whole wheat, all-purpose flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt and process 10 seconds.
Step 3: Chop walnuts
Chop the remaining ¾ cup walnuts.
Step 4: Make butter mixture
Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl on medium speed until creamy. Add the egg and beat until combined. Add the applesauce and beat until completely combined (it is okay if the mixture looks broken).
Step 5: Combine dry & wet ingredients
Beat the flour and walnut mixture into the butter mixture on low. Add the oats, the remaining ¾ cup chopped walnuts, white chocolate chips and dried apple and stir by hand with a silicone spatula until completely combined.
Step 6: Form cookies & bake
Drop heaping tablespoons onto one of the prepared baking sheet, leaving 1 ½ inches between each cookie. Moisten finger-tips and press the dough down slightly. Bake in batches, 1 sheet at a time until the cookies spread and set, 8 to 10 minutes. For a crisper cookie bake up to 12 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet 3 to 5 minutes before carefully transferring to a cooling rack with a thin metal spatula.
FAQs and Expert Tips
I like these cookies on the under-baked side. I recommend only 8 minutes. They will seem like they aren’t quite done, but let them sit, and they’ll shrink down into their craggy goodness, and set nicely. Try it! My cross-tester baked them until they were more visibly set- at 12 minutes, and she liked them really well. So it’s more of a preference thing.
If you don’t have a food processor you can use a regular blender or Nutri bullet instead. You can also place the walnuts in a large sealable bag and smash/roll them with a rolling pin until coarsely ground.
Always finish mixing cookie dough with a spatula or a spoon so that you don’t overman the cookie dough. Doing so can result in denser cookies and more air in the cookies.
Once cool, place them in an airtight container or sealable bag at room temperature. You can also freeze for up to one month.
Additional Cookie Recipes to Try
- If you grew up in New England, you’ve probably had a Soft and Spicy Hermit Cookies. The flavors of spice and molasses are just what this season ordered!
- Our Raspberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies also have oats in them for a bit of nourishing chewy texture.
- These Maple Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies are a twist on classic jam thumbprints. Also try these Healthy Jam Thumbprints they are almond and raspberry flavored!
- Our chewy Buckwheat Gluten-Free Double Chocolate Cookies have a twist of orange or bergamont wich pairs so well with the flavor of the chocolate.
- These Raspberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies are perfect at any time of year!
At Healthy Seasonal Recipes, we specialize in cooking with fresh veggies and creating weeknight meals. Sign up HERE to get more produce-forward dinner ideas for FREE! If you make this recipe, please come back and leave a star rating and review. I would love to hear what you thought! Happy Cooking! ~Katie
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Apple Walnut Oatmeal Cookies
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 dozen 1x
Description
Chewy Oatmeal cookies, with white chocolate chips, walnuts and chunks of dried apple rings added in for a fall twist!
Ingredients
- 2 cups roasted unsalted walnuts, divided
- 1 cup whole wheat flour, preferably white whole-wheat
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
- 1 1/2 cup granulated maple sugar (or 3/4 cup brown sugar plus 3/4 cup white)
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 2 cups old fashioned oats
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 1 cup chopped dried apple rings
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat two large baking sheets with cooking spray.
- Grind 1 ¼ cups (3.75 ounces) walnuts in food processor fitted with steel blade attachment until it looks like coarse meal. Add white whole wheat, all-purpose flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt and process 10 seconds.
- Chop the remaining ¾ cup walnuts.
- Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl on medium speed until creamy. Add egg and beat until combined. Add applesauce and beat until completely combined, it is okay if the mixture looks broken.
- Beat the flour and walnut mixture into the butter mixture on low. Add oats, the remaining ¾ cup chopped walnuts, white chocolate chips and dried apple and stir by hand with a silicone spatula until completely combined.
- Drop by heaping tablespoons onto one of the prepared baking sheet, leaving 1 ½ inches between each cookie. Moisten finger-tips and press the dough down slightly. Bake in batches, 1 sheet at a time until the cookies spread and set, 8 to 10 minutes. For a crisper cookie bake up to 12 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheet 3 to 5 minutes before carefully transferring to a cooling rack with a thin metal spatula.
Notes
Baking Tip:
I like these cookies on the under-baked side. I recommend only 8 minutes. They will seem like they aren’t quite done, but let them sit, and they’ll shrink down into their craggy goodness, and set nicely. Try it! My cross-tester baked them until they were more visibly set- at 12 minutes, and she liked them really well. So it’s more of a preference thing.
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 130
- Sugar: 10 g
- Sodium: 56 g
- Fat: 4 g
- Saturated Fat: 3 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 16 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 2 g
- Cholesterol: 9 g
This was soo easy to make. I made a batch and it disappeared in less than an hour.
Love how you added the apples and walnuts to this classic cookie! Such a great idea!
This is such a delicious treat! My kids loved it!
These are the perfect healthy treat. I love serving them for breakfast too!
The added apples is genius! I love this flavor combination!
The apple and walnuts make these cookies stand out from the pack! The are so delicious and I love knowing that they are a bit healthier when I make them for my family!
These apple walnut oatmeal cookies were a big hit! Everyone loved them!
These are one of my go-to cookie recipes. My kids frequently request them!
Nota fan of the apples. Do you think it would work without them?
Love your recipes!!!
It should work without, no problem. Or swap in another dried fruit you do enjoy, such as dried cranberries or raisins. Happy Cooking Mary!
I love the apple rings in there! What a great idea! They look super moist and delicious!
He Karen! They work perfectly in the cookies because they’re already dehydrated so they are nice and chewy and the texture of the cookie is not compromised.
I’m allergic to walnuts. Have you ever tried this with pecans?
I haven’t tried it, but I’m am almost completely sure it would be delicious and work just fine. Let me know if you try it.
What a combo! I like my cookies on the undercooked side too. I never seem to have walnuts at home, but it sounds fantastic mixed into the flour!!!
Thanks so much Cathleen. I try to keep walnuts in the freezer, and then replenish when I use them up. I don’t tend to snack on them, like almonds, pecans and pistachios so it is a little easier for me to rely on their being there when I need them for a recipe.
Crunchy nuts, chewy apple rings and creamy white chocolate…this sounds like a perfect combo, Katie. Maple sugar..is it white sugar flavoured with maple or real maple syrup in dry form?
Thanks Angie. Maple sugar is maple syrup that has been boiled to the hard ball stage and then stirred as it is cooled. Lore suggests that this was how early Native Americans used maple- as opposed to in syrup form, because it lasts much longer and is easier to store. We actually make our own maple sugar quite a bit because we make our own maple syrup and therefor have plenty of maple syrup around to use. I use it in place of white sugar almost exclusively, but it is expensive for a lot of folks. That’s why I offer the alternative to it with half brown sugar and half white sugar combination.