These apple oatmeal cookies are perfect for fall! Packed with apples, walnuts, cinnamon, and raisins, they're a healthy, cozy autumn treat.
Baking these soft, chewy apple oatmeal cookies allowed me to cross off #1 on my fall checklist: fall baking! Now that we’ve moved back to Chicago and are experiencing fall to its fullest, I have all sorts of fall activities I want to do. I can’t wait to go apple picking, to carve pumpkins, and more! If you’re also someone who loves fall activities and getting in the fall spirit, I highly recommend making these apple oatmeal cookies as soon as you can. Packed with oats, raisins, apples, and walnuts, they’re basically fall in a cookie. 🙂
Apple Oatmeal Cookies Ingredients
To make these apple oatmeal cookies, I use a mix of unprocessed, whole foods ingredients. Here’s what makes them so good (and good for you):
- Flax adds fiber and omega-3s, and it acts as a binder, so these cookies are egg-free.
- Oat flour makes them delightfully soft and puffy – no gluten necessary!
- Creamy almond butter adds moisture and richness, so only 1/4 cup coconut oil is required here!
- Whole rolled oats fill these with fiber, nutty flavor, and chewy oatmeal cookie texture.
- Cinnamon adds cozy, spiced fall flavor.
- Brown sugar gives them a lovely, caramelized sweetness. You’ll only need 1/2 cup!
- Applesauce acts as a healthy substitute for some oil and sugar.
- Raisins dot them with little pockets of sweetness.
- Walnuts give these some crunch and make them rich and nutty.
- And fresh apple adds juicy apple flavor! Any variety will work, but Gala and Granny Smith apples are my favorite.
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
Finely dice the apples, and stir the flaxseed and water together in a small bowl. Set them aside for 5 minutes to thicken!
While you wait, stir together the dry ingredients – the oat flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the almond butter, coconut oil, applesauce, vanilla, and brown sugar. When the flaxseed mixture has thickened, stir it in as well.
Then, stir the whole rolled oats, apples, walnuts, and raisins into the bowl of dry ingredients. Pour in the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
Use a 1-tablespoon cookie scoop to scoop the dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Transfer the cookies to a 350-degree oven and bake until the bottoms are nicely browned.
Let them cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!
Apple Oatmeal Cookies Variations
As written, this recipe is wonderful – the perfect hybrid between an apple cinnamon muffin and an oatmeal raisin cookie. If you feel like putting your personal twist on them, though, don’t hold back! Here are some ideas to change them up:
- Skip the raisins. Use dried tart cherries or cranberries instead!
- Spice it up! In addition to the cinnamon, add a dash of nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, or pumpkin or apple pie spice to your dough.
- Try another nut. Chopped pecans or almonds would be equally at home here.
- Go full-on oatmeal raisin. Nix the apple, and up the raisin measurement to 1/2 cup.
- Or oatmeal chocolate chip 🙂 Instead of diced apples, stir in 1/2 cup chocolate chips.
Happy baking!
More Favorite Fall Treats
If you love these apple oatmeal cookies, try one of these fall baking recipes next:
- Pumpkin Bread
- Perfect Oatmeal Cookies
- Best Pumpkin Pie
- Apple Crumble Pie
- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Cinnamon Apple Crumble
- Vegan Cinnamon Rolls
- Or any of these 25 Super Fun Baking Recipes!
For more vegan dessert recipes, check out this post!
Apple Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed + 4 tablespoons warm water
- 1½ cups oat flour, blended from 2 cups whole rolled oats
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ cup very creamy almond butter
- ¼ cup melted coconut oil
- ¼ cup applesauce
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup Truvia Brown Sugar Blend or regular brown sugar
- 1 cup whole rolled oats
- ¾ cup finely chopped apple
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- ¼ cup raisins
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, combine the flaxseed and water. Stir and set aside to thicken for about 5 minutes.
- In a large bowl, stir together the oat flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
- In a medium bowl, combine the almond butter, coconut oil, applesauce, vanilla, and brown sugar. Add the thickened flaxseed mixture and stir well.
- Stir the whole rolled oats, apples, walnuts, and raisins into the bowl of dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir well to combine. The batter will be thick and sticky.
- Drop rounded tablespoons onto the baking sheet and press down slightly. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the bottoms are nicely browned. (Note: do not under-bake or your cookies will be more likely to fall apart). Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before cooling completely on a wire rack.
This post is in partnership with Truvia, thank you for supporting the sponsors that keep us cooking!
Can I use coconut sugar as a substitute for the brown sugar?
It’s brown coconut sugar
Loved these! Always looking for dessert recipes that use whole foods and this seriously delivered! Highly recommend trying it out. And for reference, I subbed out turbinado sugar for the brown sugar because it’s what I had in my pantry and they turned out great.
I’m so glad you loved them!
Wow, this recipe is incredible! I’m not vegan, but making a point of eating mostly plant-based healthier foods. I had a sweet tooth and wanted to do some baking and these were the perfect fix. Even the batter tasted absolutely delicious! They’re easy and quick to make, and the texture and flavor is fantastic.
Hi Emily, I’m so glad you loved the cookies!
Hello! Love this recipe! Can I substitute 2 eggs for the flax seed and water? Every store by me is out of flax seed and I’m making these for thanksgiving!
Thanks!
Or could I use chia seeds?
UPDATE: I substituted chia seeds for flax seeds 1:1 and the recipe came out perfectly!!! Some family members don’t like sweets that aren’t loaded with sugar so on half I dipped the tops in a powdered sugar glaze, delicious!
Hi there, just went apple picking and can’t wait to try these! Question though-I’ve never had/used almond butter before, would using peanut butter work the same?
Thanks for all your great recipes, I love your site!
Hi Liz, I don’t recommend peanut butter because I think the peanut taste will overwhelm the apples.
Got some almond butter and just baked these! They were such a great fall treat! Yum yum! And almond butter certainly is delicious!
These were so delicious! I don’t often bake vegan/gluten-free but was making treats for a friend with those restrictions. Luckily this recipe was super easy and the ingredients are very accessible unlike some other vegan/gluten-free recipes I’ve come across. They’re definitely very soft and fall apart fairly easily after the day they’re made, so just be prepared for that. Wonderful balance of flavors and textures, and my friend loved them – would definitely make again!
Hi Natalie, I’m so glad you loved them!
Just a couple of questions: Can I replace the oat flour with almond flour? I have been trying to find recipes that use almond flour and are vegan and sugar-free at the same time(which is sort of a hard task) and this seems to be a really yummy one!
I also saw some people were doing stevia brown sugar instead of the normal brown sugar, and right now I only have normal stevia white sugar packets and wasn’t sure if I could switch brown sugar out for something else? Looking forward to making this at some point!
Hi Louisa, no oat flour and almond flour aren’t interchangeable. You can use Truvia’s brown sugar baking blend (which has the same texture as brown sugar), not the packets.
Can you use whole wheat flour instead? Will find out ……
I haven’t tried – oat flour is lighter so the amounts might not be the same.
This is extremely helpful info!! Very good work. Everything is very interesting to learn and easy to understood. Thank you for giving information.
Could you bake them in an 8×8 and cut them into bars?
Amazing! Soft and comforting. I made this for a gluten-free, dairy-free friend and was so grateful to have the leftovers!
I’m so glad you loved them!
Any idea how to sub the nut butter in these? They look amazing, but I can’t have nuts or soy. Thanks!
Hi Sherry, unfortunately not in this recipe since the almond butter is the binder. Maybe give these nut-free pumpkin cookies a try? https://www.loveandlemons.com/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-cookies/
This is really good for everyone
Thanks for sharing this awesome content here.