Chunky Monkey Paleo Banana Cookies
Chunky Monkey Paleo Banana Cookies are chewy and flavorful healthy cookies that are completely grain-free. They taste like dessert but are full of good for you ingredients making them perfect for busy weekday mornings.
Fact: chunky monkey paleo banana cookies for breakfast = awesome.
These almond flour banana cookies are made with 100% good for you ingredients and have zero added sugar. ← And I'm fully aware that under most circumstances those two statements would not be a cookie selling feature, but these are paleo breakfast cookies so I guessing that if you're here it's because you want a healthy cookie recipe. So let's not try to hide it. These paleo cookies are all the good and healthy things.
Why you want to make paleo banana cookies:
- They are breakfast staples like bananas, walnuts, and almonds disguised as cookies.
- They last for several days so you can make a batch on Sunday and grab a couple on your way out the door on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Read: cookies for breakfast all week long!
- This is a super easy paleo cookies recipe. Throw everything into one bowl, mix, bake, and eat.
- CHOCOLATE. Did I mention that these are banana chocolate chip cookies? Chocolate makes everything better.
- They are tender and chewy and totally paleo cookie delicious.
- They are also made without dairy or eggs so they're 100% vegan breakfast cookie certified.
What the heck are chunky monkey banana cookies?
Aside from being the obvious tasty paleo cookies that they are, they are also:
→ Made from a base of bananas and almond flour. My rationalization for naming these Chunky Monkey Cookies: Monkeys like bananas. There are bananas in these cookies. That's a good enough reason, right?
→ Full of coconut, chopped walnuts, and raisins. (Yep, that's the chunky part.)
→ Loaded with chocolate chips. Yes!
What do paleo banana cookies taste like?
Paleo cookies are not your average cookie. There is no butter, flour, or sugar in sight. All paleo cookies (at least the ones that I've tried) tend to be more dense and chewy.
If you're going to compare paleo cookies to regular cookies, then these paleo banana cookies are similar to a healthy breakfast cookie, with a slightly different texture.
The almond flour makes them a little chewier than a regular cookie … which is not a bad thing.
They are the perfect morning cookie!
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Sweet Paleo Breakfast Recipes
- Chocolate Almond Flour Protein Muffins
- Triple Berry Paleo Banana Bread with Lemon Glaze
- Homemade Coconut Yogurt with Strawberry Chia Jam
- Paleo Apple Cinnamon Muffins
- Coconut Almond Paleo Breakfast Muffins
- Tropical Sunshine Make Ahead Smoothies
Chunky Monkey Paleo Banana Cookies
If you love this recipe as much as we do, let us know with a 5-star rating!
Ingredients
- 2 medium ripe bananas, sliced (+ slices for topping, optional)
- ½ cup almond butter, can sub peanut butter if not paleo
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup dark chocolate chips
- ¼ cup chopped walnuts
- ¼ cup coconut
- ¼ cup raisins
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Add the banana slices, almond butter, water, and vanilla to a large bowl and beat with electric beaters until mostly smooth. Add the almond flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt, and beat until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips, walnuts, coconut, and raisins.2 medium ripe bananas, ½ cup almond butter, ¼ cup water, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, 1 cup almond flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ cup dark chocolate chips, ¼ cup chopped walnuts, ¼ cup coconut, ¼ cup raisins
- Drop the dough (it will be sticky) into 12 equal mounds on the baking sheets. Press a banana slice into the top of each cookie to flatten it out a little.
- Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden then remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool.
Hi again, how would you describe the texture? Are these cakey cookies (soft and fluffy) or chewy and dense. I was looking for the latter, and these look cakey. The dough looks very wet/needs more flour? Would refridgerating the dough help make them less cakey? Just deciding whether to make the cookies next on my list, thanks!
These are definitely the dense and chewy variety!
Thanks for the reply! Strange it didn’t notify me. I only have a small banana and a broken freezer lol so I’ll reduce the recipe. I’m assuming 2 bananas are 2/3 cup? Otherwise I’ll just follow the video for cookie texture 🙂
Yep – 2 bananas should be about ⅔ cup. 🙂
Hello again, finally made these and what an exciting challenge they became lol. Firstly I’m from the UK so I converted cups to grams for a more accurate result and I’m happy my conversions are tried and tested. We don’t have ready made almond flour, only ground almonds which is very finely chopped blanched almonds – I don’t know if that made a difference or if I added too much banana (I bought a bunch of ‘baking’ bananas – ripe and ready to go but they were very bruised so I assumed 2 medium bananas = 225g/1 cup mashed) but anyway I baked my tester cookie (which was 3tbsp, instead of stated) with a slice of banana and it came out raw in the middle at the time stated, another 5 minutes bake. Raw to me means too many wet ingredients (and it needed sweetener and molasses flavour for my tastes) So back to the batter, I added 2tbsp maple syrup (wondered if would help with spread/flavour, next time I’ll use dry sugar), 2tbsp less refined golden caster sugar (assume that’s raw sugar in US), 1tsp black treacle/molasses, 2tbsp ground flax and 3tbsp slightly heaped coconut flour and left it to sit for 10-15 minutes in the hope the flour would soak up some moisture lol. This time I baked another cookie at 325F in the hope low (oven) and slow (cooking time) would do the trick – 20 minutes later I got a soft, chewy and thick ‘cakey’ cookie with a nice crisp (but after a few hours of cooling, I lost my crisp which was a shame). I baked a batch of these (16 x 4tbsp), and then wondered if I could use this recipe for GF oatmeal cookies haha. So to my leftover dough, I added 4-5tbsp slightly heaped chopped porridge oats until I was happy with texture, a handful of chopped and toasted pecans, 1/8tsp bicarbonate of soda/baking soda (for lift with the extra oats), 1tbsp maple syrup (to sweeten oats), a drizzle of pomegranate molasses (to see if it would work in a bakng application) and at least 1tbsp ground almonds to make a drier cookie dough similar to gluten included cookies that I suddenly remembered lol – just holding itself together in my scoop. I cooked for 17 minutes this time as I was worried the dough was too dry but in fact these were my favourite – they were still soft and chewy but not ‘cakey’ like my first batch They tasted just like my gluten oatmeal cookies without the butter of course (no banana aftertaste on day 2 which i exoected), and they had more molasses and sugar flavour than my first batch – fascinatiing. Next time, I’ll try my first recipe without the water, maple syrup, and start with less banana and see if that gives me the texture I wanted. The banana comes through more on day 2 for the first batch, not the second (which I’m grateful for as it tastes like the real deal). All in all, a delicious expermient, thank you so much for the inspiration! I won’t rate the recipe as it wouldn’t be a fair interpretation. Oh and it still says money in the description box in the recipe card 🙂
What a great find! I keep my littles grain free until 2, so my little guy can enjoy these along side his gluten-free siblings and his sweet-tooth dad. I love that these are basically refined sugar free (depending on the chocolate chips), which makes them a slam dunk for mamas looking to provide delicious treats without loading everyone up with sugar. They are subtly sweet with the banana base, and the chocolate chips and raisins are the perfect addition. Even so, my husband (who is the only one not gluten free in our home) kept shoving them in his mouth and asked for another batch! WIN!
I did not have almond butter on hand, so I made them with peanut butter. If you prefer a bit more sweetness, consider adding a tablespoon of monkfruit or maple syrup to the batter. I found my batch needed 20 minutes to finish in the oven and as I eyeballed/was generous with the nut butter, I got an extra cookie or two out of the batch.
I wasn’t sure what sticky meant and my dough was really wet so I doubled all the add-ins until I thought things would stay together. My dough was “sticky” enough to scoop out 12 equal bobs. I baked them a little longer to brown on the bottom, and they were delicious! This is a very forgiving recipe That I plan to make anytime I’m in the mood for something sweet! They Really hit the spot ?
Wonderful flavour and texture! I used natural peanut butter, 2 cups oatmeal, 1/4 cup cocoa powder unsweetened, 1/4 cup coconut, and 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips. No need to add sweetener.
I realize the grain disqualifies it for paleo, but I’m sure it would be just as good with almond flour.
Definitely a keeper?
I bet the oatmeal addition was wonderful!!
Very tasty and light. My batter was very loose, so I added a little bit of almond flour until the batter tightened up. I went back and watched the video, my almond butter was a bit runny than yours. But still they came out great!
So happy to hear that they turned out!
Thanks for sharing! Do you use this dough for any other kinds of cookies?
I haven’t tried it for any other cookies yet. But the add-ins are flexible so you could definitely experiment. 🙂
These look so good! They wouid be fun to make with kids too!
Yes! The kids love them. 🙂
Amazing! I sub a little date syrup for the water and used dried cherries. We’ve made these twice this week!
That is so wonderful to hear! Thanks, Lizzy!
Do you mean “Chunky Money” or “Chunky Monkey?” All the links to your site are linking to Chunky Money cookies.
Oh man … definitely not chunky money lol!
I’m looking for healthy breakfast options but not necessarily paleo. Could I use normal butter (or any other oil) instead of almond butter?
No butter or oil won’t work in this recipe. You could use peanut butter, though!
Love this recipe! It’s become a staple in our home 🙂 My dad is allergic to coconut and walnuts so I substituted with slivered almonds and recipe was excellent!
That’s wonderful! Thank you for coming back to let us know!
I’m not seeing any nutritional facts? Have they had to be removed for some reason? Thanks for the recipe!
Sometimes they take a minute to load on the screen. They are still there!
So yummy!! I made my own almond flour by mixing some almonds in my nutribullet, which was super easy and then I didn’t have to by a whole bag of almond flour. These are super yummy and a perfect breakfast for busy mornings.
Thanks, Amanda! So happy you like them!
Great recipe, made these tonight, very quick easy tasty and bonus that they are healthy too!
I’m so happy to hear that the recipe was a hit!
They are fantastic. I didn’t have raisins so I used chopped dates and sub in pecans for the walnuts.
That’s a great idea!
Excited to make these! I ran out of vanilla extract, do you think I could use my unsweetened vanilla almond milk in place of water to help?
These cookies are quite flexible so I think that would work!
Do you have the nutritional fats?
The nutritional information is all below the recipe. 🙂
Really great recipe. Uses pantry items. So I didn’t have to run out to the store for ingredients. My only concern is the amount of calories. Kind of high, no?
The calories are high but that’s not a bad thing. Almonds are high in healthy fats which means they’re also high in calories.
I added pumpkin seeds & about 1/4 c. gluten free quick oats.I used cranberries instead of raisins.
If I make again I would try to add a little swerve to see if that boosts the sweetness a bit.
Good call on the pumpkin seeds!
Excited to try these! What do you recommend for a paleo subsitute for 1 cup almond flour? (Sadly allergic to almonds!)
I haven’t tried them with anything but almond flour. Are you allergic to all nuts? I’m sure another nut flour would work – although you might have to grind your own as I don’t know of any others that are readily available in stores.
I did them with tiger nut flour and a bit of coconut flour and they turned out really good 🙂 I also added 2 eggs to the mashed bananas mix.
I’ve never heard of tiger nut flour. I need to find out what that is!
I know these are vegan cookies but do you think the recipe would work well if used all-purpose flour + whole milk or all-purpose flour + almond/soy milk? Do you think those combos would work? Really want to try out the recipe!
I definitely think that the water could be replaced by dairy or almond/ soy milk. I’m not sure about the flour. All-purpose flour and almond flour are very different so the recipe might take some tweaking to get it to work properly with regular flour.
Do you have the nutritional fats?
Just added them for you!
Hi, I don’t see the nutritional facts. Can you point me in the right direction?
They’re just below the recipe. Sometimes they take a minute to load onto the screen. 🙂
I love the recipes ease and how great they taste. If I wanted to add some protein or fiber powder, how would I best offset that with a liquid?
I would add a little more water. Add the protein powder first then add water only as needed. Since you’ve made these before you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the batter should be like. I think it should work just fine!
Hi! Do you think I could chop up almonds instead of walnuts? I don’t usually have/buy walnuts
I think almonds would work just fine!
I know you mentioned you hadn’t used anything but Almond flour. What are your thoughts on using Oat flour?
I suspect it would work but I haven’t personally tried it. 🙂
I thought I had almond flour but only have about 1/3 cup. Do you think I could substitute coconut flour?
Coconut flour is quite different and (to be honest) I haven’t had much luck with it. It requires a lot more liquid that almond flour so I would worry these would end up very dry if you used it. If you have a high-powered blender you could always use it to grind some almonds into almond flour!
What can I use in place of the coconut? Or can I omit it all together?
I’ve made these without the coconut and they work just fine. 🙂
Can you use pecans in place of walnuts?
Absolutely you can!
Would all-purpose flour work in a pinch?
I’ve honestly never tried it so I can’t say for sure. It’s worth experimenting!
What is the serving size?
It’s one cookie. 🙂
Can these be frozen and for how long? I want to food prep for upcoming baby!
I haven’t frozen them before so I can’t say for sure how they’d taste once thawed. Maybe do a test cookie to see? Most frozen food will last for 3 months in the freezer if it’s well wrapped. (Technically it would be safe to eat indefinitely but the quality degrades over time.)
And congrats on your upcoming little one!
Thanks for sharing! Do they keep long?
They’ve never lasted longer than 3-4 days in my house. 🙂
These are so good! Just made them. What’s the best way to store them? Fridge?
I generally store them in a plastic bag on the counter. I’m sure the fridge would work just fine, too!
I would love to try them! So on Instagram, did you substitute both chocolate chips and raisins for currants?
Nope! But you could use currants instead of raisins. That would be good, too!
Trying not to eat the whole batch! I love your site…I may cook everything.
Awww thank you so much!!
I would definitely try them. They sound delicious.
They are tasty!