Ingredients

Hazelnut Butter—Widely available in most grocery stores. You can substitute any nut or seed butter you like or have on hand.

Pumpkin Purée—We like to make our own homemade pumpkin purée, however, you can use canned if you want.

Chocolate Chips—Because we generally eat these at breakfast time, we use dark chocolate, but you can use any chocolate chips or chunks you like.

Rolled Oats—Sometimes called large flake oats. Do not use quick oats.

Hazelnut Meal—This is more of a specialty ingredient but we just love the flavour of it. Use almond meal or any other nut meal you want.

Pumpkin Spice—The quintessential fall flavour! We have a recipe for homemade pumpkin spice but store-bought is also terrific.

Oat Flour—This is an ingredient we always have on hand, but since this recipe is not dependent on the flour, any gluten-free flour will work.

Coconut Oil—You can also use a good quality dairy-free butter. If dairy-free isn’t an issue you can substitute regular butter.

Method

Dry ingredients added to a bowl. — Add dry ingredients to a mixing bowl.

Dry ingredients mixed in a bowl. — Stir together.

Pumpkin, date, and hazelnut butter mixture. — Blend the wet ingredients.

Cookie dough in a white bowl. — Stir into the oat mixture.

Finished cookie dough with chocolate chips added. — Stir in the chocolate chips and chopped nuts.

Cookie dough scooped onto a lined baking sheet. — Scoop onto a baking sheet.

Cookies after baking. — Flatten slightly with your hand.

Cookies slightly flattened before baking. — Bake and cool.

Pumpkin breakfast cookies on a round cooling rack.

Tips & Notes

Since these are gluten-free and vegan, they are slightly crumbly. They should be transported in a hard-sided container rather than a bag if you plan on moving them. They will break down if squished.

Pumpkin breakfast cookies can be stored at room temperature for a couple of days, but should be refrigerated or frozen for any longer period of time due to the high fruit and moisture content. They freeze well in a sealed container for up to a month.

Some brands of pumpkin purée and nut butter will vary significantly in terms of moisture content. Refer to the step-by-step photos for the consistency of the cookie dough and alter yours if necessary (by adding slightly more oat flour or even a splash of milk).

A plate full of pumpkin breakfast cookies with spices in a jar.

Substitutions

Hazelnut meal can be made by blending raw hazelnuts in a food processor until a fine meal forms. Alternatively, you can use store bought almond meal instead.

For nut-free pumpkin breakfast cookies, try sunflower seed meal. If you can’t find it, simply pulse sunflower seeds in a food processor or blender until fine and mealy. Note that sunflower seed meal may make the insides of your cookies greenish in colour.

Any kind of nut or seed butter can be used in place of hazelnut butter. Almond is excellent, but sunflower seed butter and peanut butter work as well. Try to use something that doesn’t overwhelm the other flavours (which peanut butter tends to do).

If it doesn’t matter to keep the cookies gluten-free, use regular flour in place of the oat flour.

Coconut oil helps to solidify the cookies a bit when they cool, but other oils can be used if you prefer, like olive. We haven’t tried it, however, butter should be fine as well.

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