Big bakery-style chocolate chip cookies (but healthier!) Thick and chewy made with cashew butter, cassava flour, and dark chocolate. Vegan and paleo!
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There is a time and place for crispy cookies, thin snappy cookies, dainty two-bite cookies, cookies filled with nuts or dried fruit or mini chips, breakfast cookies that feel borderline granola bar-ish. This is not that place.
This is the place for thick cookies, chocolatey chunk cookies, rise and spread and puff and turn golden cookies, deserving of a flakey salt sprinkle cookies, hunky handful of a cookie cookies. We are breaking out the big cookie scoop and the best dark chocolate chunks and turning the oven temp up a little and creating the ultimate THICK and CHEWY Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Thick and Chewy Cookie Ingredients
This recipe is vegan and paleo, so we are using one of my favorite grain-free flours: cassava flour. I know it’s not the most mainstream yet, but you can find it at most grocery stores (or online of course) and it saves us from having to use more than one flour. All purpose will work too if you’re not gluten-free.
Another one of my favorite ingredients in this recipe is cashew butter. Sure you can use almond butter or peanut butter instead, but cashew butter has a butter-butter-like richness that I find is really the best for baking. There is also a quarter cup of coconut oil in this recipe. I tested them with just cashew butter and while delicious they don’t spread as well, but you can make that swap if you prefer not to use oil.
We are using coconut sugar to mimic that caramel-y flavor of brown sugar. Vanilla and salt of course. A flax egg for binding (or a real egg works too). And dark chocolate, my favorite is always and forever Hu Gems.
Tips for Perfect Cookies
- Oven temperature: I’m pretty basic with my baking––350ºF for most everything––but I experimented with higher heat for this recipe and it was well worth it. Crispier edges without the inside drying out, deeper richer color, more spread.
- Scoop them generously: I used about 3-4 tbsp of dough per cookie, and I cannot recommend a spring loaded scoop enough.
- Let them cool: Give them at least 15 minutes on the pan before transferring, they will be fragile while hot.
More Cookie Recipes To Try
- Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies (flourless)
- Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies
- Oat Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies (date-sweetened)
Thick Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 27 minutes
- Yield: 6 cookies 1x
- Category: cookies
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: american
Description
Big bakery-style chocolate chip cookies (but healthier!) Thick and chewy made with cashew butter, cassava flour, and dark chocolate. Vegan and paleo!
Ingredients
- 1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water)
- 1/2 cup (125g) cashew butter (or any nut/seed butter)
- 1/4 cup (50g) coconut oil*
- 2 tbsp (30g) almond milk
- 1/2 cup (70g) coconut sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (70g) cassava flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 cup (80g) Hu Gems
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
- Prepare the flax egg and set aside to gel.
- In a mixing bowl, combine cashew butter, coconut oil, flax egg, coconut sugar, almond milk, and vanilla. Beat with a hand mixer until well combined.
- Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, and beat to incorporate.
- Fold in the Hu Gems.
- Scoop onto a lined baking sheet (I did about 3 tbsp per cookie, but they are quite big so you could use less for smaller cookies) leaving space in between for spreading.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes at 375ºF until golden on the edges.
- Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Notes
* You can sub applesauce, but you will lost the crispy edges and natural cookie spread.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 328
- Sugar: 17g
- Sodium: 148mg
- Fat: 21g
- Saturated Fat: 8g
- Carbohydrates: 30g
- Fiber: 3g
- Protein: 4g
Keywords: gluten free, cassava, grain free, paleo, vegan, dairy free, easy, one bowl, dessert, egg free, baking
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Can you use tahini instead of cashew butter?
Yes absolutely! That would be delicious😋
Oh my gosh I have tahini I need to use up, and have an allergy to cashews, so am going to try this, thank you for the suggestion
Hope you love them Kelly, sounds like a delicious version to me too!
It will be hard for me to find cassava flour near me. Can that be substituted with another flour? These look amazing!
All purpose or spelt would work. I haven’t tested them with any others so I don’t know of another great gluten/grain free sub. I did link some alternate recipes in the post too with different flours (almond and oat) if you prefer!
Looks amazing!! Can maple syrup be used instead of the coconut sugar? Thank you for all you do!!! You and your recipes are the BEST! 🙂
Haven’t tested it and it may affect the texture and spread, but they will still taste yummy! You may need extra flour to make up for the dry vs liquid difference, add slowly until the dough is still sticky but just roll-able🍪
I see 2 tablespoons almond milk in the ingredient list but don’t see it in the instructions. I assume it goes in with the wet ingredients. Thanks!
Ah my bad, sorry Susan! But yes you assumed right 🙂
Really delicious and fast to make! I used a homemade sunflower and pumpkin seed butter; spelt flour and only 1/4 cup of sugar (which was enough for me); and I also made a quick stuffing out of beet powder and vegan chocolate spread and it turned into a nice thick and chewy halloween themed cookie. Thanks for all the work you put into each recipe. I truly love your new-ish website and drool over every recipe wanting to try EVERYTHING 🤤😍😂 have a wonderful weekend and Halloween 😊
★★★★★
Whoa your version sounds delicious and festive, I love the idea to stuff them! Appreciate your feedback and support Lara, happy halloween to you too😊
Hey Natalie, can I use just normal dairy butter instead of nut or seed butter for this recipe ?
I haven’t tested it and they may spread and turn out a bit thinner, but should work yes!
These are really good. I’m a fan of your chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies, and whilst they remain my favourite (because of the crunch) these are properly chewy and came out gigantic, making them feel more like a sugary white flour shop bought cookie. Great recipe! One question: how long do they keep? Mine came out so huge I can only manage one a day, (they’re the size of my outstretched hand and I have big hands)
★★★★★
Good thing we can have multiple cookie loves in our lives, because I absolutely agree! The oatmeal feel more wholesome and these feel more like a bakery treat. Anyways, so so happy you loved them and airtight container in the fridge they will last a week or so. You could also freeze them, although haven’t tried it with these yet!
This cookie dough feels very runny! Am I missing something? I’ll pop these in the oven and hope for the best.
Hmm nope shouldn’t be runny! I’d recommend adding more flour and maybe refrigerate for a bit before baking
This is the second time making these cookies the first time I didn’t have cashew butter or cassava flour so I substituted with half almond and peanut butter and all purpose flour and they were perfection. This time I had all the same ingredients as the recipe and they didn’t spread and seemed a little dry. Any idea why this would happen?
What brand of cassava flour did you use? And how thick/runny was your nut butter? Those would be my top two guesses for the difference, sorry the second round wasn’t as yummy Kathy!
Do I need to melt the coconut oil first? Or just mix it in at room temp?
Mine was melted, yes!
They look amazing, but 328 kcal each? Ouch. :'(
I made mine quite big, feel free to make them smaller!
I’ve made a lot of gluten free and egg free cookies and this recipe it my favorite!!
YAY!! Oh that makes me so happy to hear Chandra, enjoy them 🙂
I just made these and tried one when they were in the middle of cooling, about after 10ish mins. They weren’t chewy but I will see tmrw if they get chewy overnight. I made these with almond butter instead. Batter was runny but I think it was bc there was too much oil from the almond butter so I figured that I needed to add more cassava flour. I also used the Hu Gems for the first time just for this recipe, they are very rich. One last thing- how long do these keep for? And can they be refrigerated to keep longer? Thank you
Hi Karen! They will get chewier the next day, were they crispy or dry or? Almond butter will be totally fine here and you actually want the batter slightly oily so you probably didn’t need the extra flour unless its too runny to scoop. They will keep best in the fridge, yes. Sealed in the fridge they can easily last a week 🙂
Hm I tried another cookie the next day. They were soft.. like how a soft cookie usually is. Neither crispy or dry the next day. I used a cookie scoop, the oxo brand one, but it was difficult to scoop the batter as it was pretty sticky and wouldn’t form a ball like in your video. I added a bit more flour to help with the stickiness. In the end, they are still edible. I think the culprit is that I didn’t realize I needed a hand mixer for this recipe..
Alternative to the coconut sugar? Or can I just leave it out?
Brown sugar would work! I don’t recommend leaving it out, they will be rather bland tasting and not spread as well
These cookies turned out perfectly, yum! What’s the best way to store them and can I freeze them? Thank you ☺️
★★★★★
YAY!! So so happy you like them too😋 In the fridge in an airtight container is best, they will last a week or so there. You can freeze them too!
Hi, how was the dough like after mixing all the ingredients? Is it sticky?
Yes relatively sticky, not too sticky to roll into cookies in my experience though!
Hi was wondering if I can use tapioca flour instead of cassava flour?
Tapioca tends to be much stickier so I think that would make the cookies too gummy, sorry!
Could avocado oil be substituted for the coconut oil? Also, can this recipe be doubled?Thanks
Yes and yes! Both should work just fine, enjoy😋
Can we use an egg instead of the flax egg?
absolutely!
I am excited to try this recipe. Before I do, would you kindly let me know if you used raw or roasted cashew butter, and what was the consistency of the cashew butter? I always make my own, where the raw version is always stiffer/dryer.
Hi Linda! I used roasted cashew butter, personally I like the more pronounced flavor in this recipe, but raw would work as well. You can see the consistency pretty well in the video, but it’s runnier not stiff/dry like homemade tends to be. If yours is thicker like that, I’d recommend using 2 parts nut butter and 1 part coconut oil to thin it out a bit. Hope that helps!