Sweet Potato Cookies are melt-in-your-mouth delicious! The recipe is even a wee bit healthy, made with peanut butter, teff, and sorghum flour. Just what the dietitian ordered when you’re craving a better-for-you sweet treat!
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Stuffed FULL of Sweet Potato Cookies!
Just for the record, let me say that after much recipe testing and sweet potato cookie recipe tasting, I don’t want to see, eat, or smell another one of these Sweet Potato Cookies. At least until tomorrow when I want a healthy treat. LOL!
Usually, I’m spot on regarding my recipe experiments, and I get the recipe right the first time. But not this time. As good as the first batch of Sweet Potato Cookies was, I wanted perfection—along with some white chocolate chips—so I had to make a second batch. Thank goodness batch two is a winner in my book—and hopefully yours, too!
3 Reasons You’ll LOVE These Sweet Potato Cookies!
Ingredients, Adaptations, & Substitutions
These sweet potato cookies contain simple ingredients you likely have at home or can buy at your local grocery store. However, I’ve listed substitutions if you still need to get all these ingredients on hand or want to get creative making your own cookie creation. See the full recipe and instructions on the recipe card.
- Cooked Sweet Potato. This recipe uses cooked sweet potato. They’re super easy to make if you’ve got leftover mashed sweet potato! No sweet potato puree? Swap pumpkin puree for mashed sweet potatoes.
- Peanut Butter. Yum! Or, feel free to use almond butter or nut butter instead of peanut butter.
- Vegetable Oil. Choose a heart-healthy monounsaturated oil, like expeller-pressed high-oleic sunflower oil or avocado oil. Virgin coconut oil tastes delicious in these vegan sweet potato cookies. Just know that the coconut oil version will be higher in saturated fat.
- Maple Syrup. I love the flavor of maple syrup in these sweet potato cookies. If you prefer a natural sweetness, try date syrup. If you don’t have a liquid sweetener, try brown sugar or coconut sugar.
- Gluten-Free Flour. I use a combination of sorghum flour and hearty, high-protein teff flour. Other gluten-free flour to try are brown rice, oat flour, buckwheat flour, or millet flour.
- Baking Essentials & Flavorings: Baking soda, salt, vanilla extract, and pumpkin pie spice. You can also use cinnamon or other warm spices like allspice, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg.
- White Chocolate Chips. Enjoy Life and Pascha make dairy-free white chocolate chips. You can also swap them for bittersweet chocolate chips or omit them for a lower-sugar yet equally great recipe!
How to Make Sweet Potato Cookies
This is an easy recipe once you cook your sweet potato (or use leftover sweet potatoes).
- Microwave (~10 minutes) or bake (~45-60 minutes) sweet potato on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet.
- Mash sweet potatoes. Combine them with the wet ingredients in a large bowl of a stand mixer or a hand mixer. Add the dry ingredients and beat until cookie dough is well combined.
- Stir in the chocolate chips. Use a cookie scoop, spoon, or clean hands to shape dough into one-inch balls. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Make a crisscross pattern in the cookies and bake. Cool on a wire rack. Enjoy or store in an airtight container at room temperature for a day or two.
Storage & Reheating Options
Allow your baked cookies to cool completely before storing them if you don’t eat them immediately-LOL! Leftovers should be stored in a well-sealed, airtight container for:
- Up to three days at room temperature.
- Up to two weeks in the refrigerator.
- They can be stored in the freezer for up to one month. You can reheat them in the microwave oven at five-second intervals until warm. Or, pop them in a 350 F oven on a baking sheet and heat for three to five minutes.
Better yet, for the best-tasting cookies, make an extra batch of sweet potato cookie dough and store it in the freezer for up to two months.
Pre-portion cookie dough into individual cookies, freeze on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and store in an airtight container. You can also shape your cookie dough into a log, wrap it in parchment or wax paper, and freeze it. Thaw the dough slightly before slicing and baking.
Sweet Potato Cookie Variations
We love these sweet potato cookies as is, with peanut butter, pumpkin pie spice, and white chocolate chips. Other delicious variations and additions to try include:
- Dried cranberries, almond butter, and orange zest.
- Dried apples, sunflower butter, and cinnamon.
- Shredded coconut, cashew or macadamia nut butter, and ginger.
What makes these Sweet Potato Cookies healthy-ish?
- Teff flour is high in fiber, iron, protein, and calcium.
- Sweet Potatoes add fiber plus vitamins A & C.
- Peanut Butter provides extra protein, fiber, and heart-healthy monounsaturated fats.
- Although these cookies are lower in added sugar than most cookie recipes, they still taste delicious. The sweet potatoes and maple syrup provide additional sweetness.
Nutrition Notes
- Following a special diet? These sweet potato cookies are gluten-free, vegan, and low FODMAP.
- One cookie has 170 calories, 18 grams of carbohydrates (2 grams of fiber, 9 grams of sugar), and 10 grams of fat (3 grams of saturated fat)
More Sweet Potato Recipes
Sweet Potato Cookies w/ Peanut Butter, Teff, & White Chocolate Chips
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups cooked sweet potato
- 1/2 cup creamy natural peanut butter
- 1/2 cup high oleic sunflower oil, expeller pressed
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup sorghum flour
- 1/2 cup teff flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, or cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup white chocolate chips, omit for vegan version
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit, and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Prick 2 medium sweet potatoes with a fork, and bake them in the microwave for approximately 10 minutes, or until done, turning them over half way through the baking time. If you don't have a microwave, you can bake the sweet potatoes in a 425 degree F oven for 45-60 minutes on a foil lined baking sheet.
- Once the sweet potatoes have cooled a little, slice them down the middle to remove the flesh. Depending upon the size of your sweet potatoes, you may have a little flesh left over.
- Combine the sweet potato flesh, peanut butter, sunflower oil, maple syrup, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl, and beat with a hand mixer on medium speed until well combined.
- Add all the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, and beat for 1-2 minutes.
- Stir in the white chocolate chips by hand if desired.
- Form one inch balls of dough and place them on parchment lined baking sheets. You can press the balls down a little bit, or use a fork to press them down and make a criss cross pattern in the cookies.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, then remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Notes
- Pumpkin puree instead of mashed sweet potato.
- Expeller pressed high-oleic sunflower oil in place of avocado oil.
- Use any nut or seed butter in place of the peanut butter.
- Brown rice flour in place of sorghum flour. And, oat, buckwheat, or millet flour in place of teff flour.
- No pumpkin pie spice? Replace with a combination of any warming spices you have including allspice, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and/or nutmeg.
- Try with dark chocolate chips if desired or omit for a lower sugar version.
Nutrition
More Gluten-Free Cookies You’ll Love!
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