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Chocolate Chip Cowboy Cookies

Katie is thankful for…

Chocolate Chip Cowboy Cookies: https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2014/12/01/chocolate-chip-cowboy-cookies/

Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Yes, very thankful for chocolate chip cookies.

And thankful for this face:

Henry Higgins

I can’t even.

Cowboy Chocolate Chip Cookies

And for chocolate chip cookies a few more times.

Especially homemade chocolate chip cowboy cookies, eaten straight out of the oven, that are filled with crushed salted pretzel pieces, chewy rolled oats, and extra gooey chocolate chips.

Cowboy Chocolate Cookies

Today, you get TWO chocolate chip cookie recipes!

My first batch of cowboy cookies calls for maple syrup instead of any granulated sugar, and I really loved the raw cookie dough. In fact, I could not stop eating it!

But I wasn’t thrilled with the texture of the healthy cookies once baked, and therefore I deemed them a no-bake recipe and tried again, this time adapting a recipe I already knew was a winner: my Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The second version is posted below, and the maple syrup version can be found on a separate page to avoid confusion.

cowboy 2

Now you can be thankful for chocolate chip cookies, too!

Chocolate Chip Cowboy Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cowboy Cookies

Yield: Makes 15-20 cowboy cookies
Print This Recipe [mrp_rating_result show_count="false" show_rich_snippets="false"]

Ingredients

  • 2/3 cup plus 1/2 cup oat flour (To make oat flour, you can simply grind up rolled oats in a food processor)
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar or coconut sugar
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar of choice or xylitol
  • 1/4 cup thinly-crushed pretzels
  • 2 tbsp shredded coconut OR rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil or melted coconut oil
  • 2-5 tbsp milk of choice, only as needed

Instructions

Cowboy Cookies Recipe: Preheat your oven to 380 degrees and grease a cookie tray. In a large bowl, combine first 8 ingredients and mix very well. Add wet ingredients, and form into one big ball. Now make little balls from the big one. For softer cookies, refrigerate or freeze the dough until cold (for crispy cookies, just bake right away). You can also freeze the dough balls for up to a month before baking.  For soft cookies, bake 7 minutes, then remove from oven when they still look quite undercooked. It’s important to let the cookies cool at least 10 minutes before touching them, as they’ll firm up considerably while cooling. (For crispier cookies, bake until they are only slightly undercooked.) For soft and chewy cookies, store in a lidded plastic container. For crispy cookies, store in a lidded glass container for up to 4 days.

View Nutrition Facts & Sugar-Free Variation

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Published on December 1, 2014

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Chocolate Covered Katie is one of the top 25 food websites in America, and Katie has been 
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Fox, The 
Huffington Post, and 
ABC's 5 O’Clock News. Her favorite food is chocolate, and she believes in eating dessert every single day.

Learn more about Katie

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75 Comments

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      • Eribis says

        She actually looks the same to me. I never really thought she gained much weight. Anyhow, Katie, I would have liked to see a picture of the “no bake” cowboy cookies.e

        • Chocolate Covered Katie says

          S and Joa,
          Please don’t make assumptions about a person on the internet based on a photo. 🙁 I’m around the same weight I’ve been for the past year.

          Eribis,
          Fantastic suggestion! I do have a few unedited iphone photos, so I’ll go ahead and add one to the post now.

          • Lauren says

            Whether or not Katie is thinner is none of anyone’s business but her own. And I found Joa’s comment to be very passive aggressive. “Katie, you are too thin, but your sister looks gorgeous”? Really? 😕

          • Sarah says

            I actually think she looks the same.

            Just ignore the haters. You are model gorgeous and look so much like Anna Kendrick!

          • Dawn says

            If you have a comment, at least have the courage to do it with an identity. It’s too easy to criticize when no one knows who you are.

          • michelle says

            Good grief. She looks exactly the same. Bare legs truncated by shorts and flat flip-flop shoes vs tall boots and black (slimming) leggings! Plus also? If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Go look after your own health and let Katie look after hers.

      • meredith peirick says

        I have to say when I saw this pic I thought, “wow killer curves!” You both are beautiful. You look happy! S, you need to seriously get a life and a name for that matter!!!

    • EVA says

      Just wanted to pop in and say that even a couple years ago when I ate a 12 in ch frozen pizza at least once a week, 8 Chips Ahoy cookies a day, and went to town on the peanut butter on my sammiches, I was still NEVER over 105 pounds. Some people just have bodies that will never be thick.

    • Debbie says

      Seriously? Methinks someone is jealous! I would love to be as thin as Katie! But at the age of 60, it ain’t happening. But that’s no reason to go all sour-grapes about it. I can look at how lovely Katie is, and be truly happy for her. I had my day in the sun, and now it’s someone else’s turn. You’re absolutely gorgeous, Katie! Keep on doing whatever it is you’re doing, and ignore the haters. We all know it’s just the green-eyed monster talking.

  1. Gen says

    Not sure I’ve ever commented before, but I had to leave a comment today because I just tried these cookies, version 2 with the regular sugar, and they are SO GOOD!

    Like I wouldn’t believe there was whole grain flour in there if I hadn’t been the one who made them. This is my new favorite recipe of yours.

    Everyone go make these cookies NOW! You will not be sorry!

  2. Sarah says

    Actually, I think your regular healthy chocolate-chip cookies have a pretzel undertone, which makes them incredibly addictive! But I’ll have to give these “official” pretzel cookies a shot, too 🙂

    Also, I just wanted to add that I’ve been making your double chocolate-chip brownie cookies for a while, and I never seem to get any because everyone eats them all before I can grab more than one 🙁 I add a few things, like instant decaf coffee, cinnamon, and a little orange zest, and use half whole-wheat and half all-purpose flour. I recently brought them to a potluck event (a double recipe) and they were ALL GONE within a few minutes — literally! (I only got one cookie…) I think they were slightly underbaked, so they were really fudgy, and people are still giving me compliments and telling me how they can’t stop thinking about the cookies, weeks later! I direct them to your recipe 🙂

  3. EVA says

    I actually keep ZERO granulated sugar in my apartment; however I do have agave, so no-bake it is! And since I’m GF, I also have ZERO pretzels. But, I do have ancient grains crackers that I’m curious to crush up and throw in there as a sub. We’ll see how my creepy substitutions fare this cookie…..

    • Joy says

      Snyders has some really good gluten free pretzels as well as Glutino. Both are good options. I’m gluten and dairy free and although I am not a huge fan of pretzels in general (I think they’re really dry) I use them in replace of breadcrumbs in meatloaf or baked chicken fingers and things like that. Wasn’t sure if you knew about them or if you just didn’t have any in your apartment : ) HAPPY BAKING!

      • EVA says

        A couple years ago when I first went GF, my momma bought me the Snyder’s pretzels and they tasted EXACTLY like the real deal! And then this summer when I was trying to gain weight, I would have a plateful of Glutino’s pretzels every morning for a snack, which were also pretty good. I’m just not a pretzel/chip fan, and I live alone (AND on an extremely tight college budget) so I can’t really afford to buy pretzels when I’ll only use them for one recipe. Still though, thanks for the response! Using them as a breadcrumb replacement sounds salty and DELICIOUS!

  4. Nancy Barry says

    These look awesome. I just want to check about the first ingredient: it says 2/3 cup plus 1/2 cup oat flour. I get the oat flour part, but 2/3 cup of what?; regular flour or regular oats?

    • Alanna says

      I think it means 2/3 and 1/2 cup each of oat flour… must be it ended up an unusual measurement so it’s more accurate to do this way than writing “slightly more than 1 cup oat flour”. 🙂

      • Nancy Barry says

        Thank you Alana, that makes sense as I reread the recipe. The picture shows whole oats and it looked like more than just the 2 TBSP. called for at first, but I realized it is a small batch recipe so 2 TBSP of oats could be enough. I can’t wait to try these, my grandkids will love these.

  5. Alanna says

    These sounds great! I’ve been debating what to bake this year for people (I get bored doing the same recipes over and over) and this sounds like a winner. I can’t decide whether I want to try the shredded coconut or rolled oats, but they’re small enough batches I may just try one of each! 🙂

    • Alanna says

      Okay, has anyone else tried making these yet? I just tried and I am having so much trouble! My “batter” never reached the consistency I expected… it looked super dry after adding the oil and vanilla, so I started with the minimum amount of milk and kept adding a little bit more and mixing (I ended up adding all of it). I transferred to a plastic bag and tried to smoosh together, but it was an oily, sticky mess that’s incredibly difficult to shape into a small ball. The hold together okay after baking and taste good, but the dough is so tricky! The only thing I can figure is my oat flour wasn’t ground finely enough (I did it myself with quick oats and a small processor) so maybe that kept it from holding together since there aren’t any other binders in the recipe? I used granulated sugar, rolled oats, and veg oil.

      • Sara says

        I used oat flour and didn’t have a problem, but I used oat flour from a package so it was already finely ground. So that could quite possibly be it!

        • Alanna says

          Thanks, Sara… I may try them again with all-purpose flour to see if they turn out better. They did taste good, but they looked nothing like the pictures and had way more texture than they were supposed to, haha.

  6. Anna says

    I can’t wait to make these! I LOVE cookie dough so I think i’ll try the no-bake version. Btw, Katie, you and your sister both look super cute!

  7. Dawn says

    First-stop with the food I can’t stop eating! Seriously, though, I have a killer sweet tooth, so thank you for recipes I can devour without guilt when I’ve had one of those days!

    Second-try to only see the people who love you, and not the people who feel the need to “fix” you. The only people who have the right to express concern over your weight are you and the people who love you, who hug you and worry. The other person is your doctor. Anyone else has either nothing else to do except make other people feel bad about themselves, or they don’t understand the concept of social boundaries. They’re the people who “are saying it for your own good.” Those people mean well, but don’t take the time to realize you’re NOT an actual part of their life, they do not know you personally, but because you feel so friendly to all of us, that line gets blurred.
    I hope you realize that you are respected and admired by far more people than you realize. Take strength from that, and find some way to feel sympathy for the people who need to fill some hole in their lives by criticizing you. Merry happy!

  8. Diana says

    I agree that it’s none of the commenters business to remark on your appearance, but most of these hardly seem like “trolls”. Were there other comments you deleted?

    Love your blog, and thanks for clarifying in your most recent post. I struggle with an eating disorder and your blog has actually helped me to gain some much needed weight!

    • Chocolate Covered Katie says

      Thanks, Diana! There were emails and two comments I deleted because of disgusting language. I don’t often delete comments, but when someone calls me a word most readers would never want their children to see (or wouldn’t want to see, themselves!), those comments are deleted immediately.

      • nuts4knits says

        Grateful for that policy. I like to be able to share this site with my 13 year old daughter, and it’s policing comments that often makes me nervous about doing so.

  9. Charmaine says

    I can’t believe people think it’s okay to comment on people’s weight like that. I cringed when I read those comments. Since when is it ever okay to say something nasty about someone’s appearance in general?

    Don’t worry Katie, you look AMAZING – your face always glows, and your hair is so shiny. Your body size is your own choice, and no one’s business but your own. I’m so sorry that you even had to read horrible comments like that. It breaks my heart when people say things like that – don’t they know how damaging it is?

    Thank you for your wonderful blog.

    • Amy says

      Someone is clearly jealous. Nothing to see here folks, move along. Just another lame internet troll that has nothing better to do than put others down. You’re soooo cool!

      And Katie you look FAB! 😉

  10. Rachael Bell says

    Not to draw more attention to this…but Katie looks perfectly healthy. Coming from someone who has a great knowledge in eating disorders, health and photography…it may be a trick on the eye. She is wearing black leggings (a slim color that is tight) and heels. Heels make legs look longer. She also has her legs apart and her toes pointed in. This creates a “leg gap”. If her legs were placed like her sisters, then I am sure this conversation would not be here. Katie’s hair is long and shiny and her skin is glowing. She does not look dull or harsh. Coming from someone who used to have an eating disorder…she looks very healthy. People should not judge. I have also participated in fitness modeling and I learned a lot about posing. How you pose helps you look a certain way. People who are posting that she looks anorexic should try eating a diet that is consisted of real foods. Let Katie shine! She looks great. xo

  11. Anna says

    I think that you’re absolutely gorgeous. But you know what? That’s what I think. The only person that can truly say anything about you is you. Because you are the one living your life, no one else. Hugs and much love xx

  12. Kim says

    I just made these cookies and literally eating one right now…they are so good! I used the coconut oil and I love the taste that it gives. I didn’t have any pretzels so I added a little extra sea salt. But the next time I have pretzels I’ll make these! You have such a great blog, I’ve been reading your posts for about 2 years and all these recipes are genius. I’m so happy that you’ve come so far. Keep up the good work!<3

  13. Meeko says

    Your blog is now my go to source for decadent tasting but healthy treats that don’t use out of the way ingredients. I made these cookies with a little butter extract and walnuts and a little extra milk to where the dough was more smooth. They spread out a bit and came out so yummy! My family swore I used 2 sticks of butter and loads of sugar and couldn’t believe these were healthier. Now I will have to go down the list and try all your recipes!

  14. Kate says

    i really like this recipe. cookies hold together really well and they taste deliciously oaty. I left the dough in the fridge overnight before baking so next time i would probably add the pretsels in right before i bake them so they stay crunchy 🙂

  15. Barbara Trombley says

    These were mighty tasty. Yes indeed. I did use mint chocolate chips though, cuz that’s what was on hand. The minty taste was just fine.

  16. Cindy says

    These are so delicious!! I made them last Christmas and couldn’t stop eating them. I made them again last weekend, and I’m not sure what I did differently, but the pretzel pieces were hard and chewy. They lost their crunch. What could I have done wrong? Maybe they weren’t crunched up enough?? They were still delicious, but I loved the crunch of the pretzels last time I made them.

  17. Triona says

    Hi Katie,
    I am new to your page, and this is the first recipe I have tried,…..and OMG these were actually the best cookies ever! I normally make full fat gooey white choc or peanutbutter cookies and I thought they were the best…until now. I took out the white sugar and put some dried cranberry and a small amount of white choc chips and they are sooo good I have had to portion them off because I will eat them all!
    I look forward to trying more of your recipes 🙂 FYI, this si the first time I have ever written a review on anything but these were that good that I had to 🙂

  18. Paulette says

    I wish I saw this recipe before now! I just pulled my last sheet of cowboy cookies out of the oven and they are waaaay too sweet! (I questioned the 3/4 cup of both sugar and brown sugar.) I think I’ll be giving those away and try your batch!

  19. Haley says

    I LOVE this recipe!! I have made it a few times and love it!!! Two things that intrigued me were the pictures–amazing! And, secondly, I love the name of it. I am a country girl at heart and the word ‘cowboy’ made me click very fast on that recipe! So glad I found it!

  20. Skyler says

    Omg for being vegan theses are awesome cookie! I just made a batch for my brothers bday, I’ve already ate 3?Lol.Thanks for the recipe?❤️

  21. Katie (not that one) says

    What a dreamy recipe! I definitely didn’t have any oil, so I used applesauce instead. Brown sugar, mini chocolate chips, coconut and coconut milk–I am in paradise! If you use applesauce, I would reduce the granulated sugar by a tablespoon or so, plus an extra minute in the oven. Since there’s no oil, I can eat these babies for breakfast 🙂 Thank you, Katie!

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