Primal Chocolate Chip Cookies are made with high protein almond flour and naturally sweetened with honey. This incredible grain-free cookie is made with just 7 ingredients and will knock your socks off! No one will know this is a healthy cookie recipe!
There are so many forms of the grain-free diet. Primal. Paleo. Specific Carbohydrate Diet. GAPS. Call it what you want. I began the grain-free diet in 2001. I have adhered to it religiously ever since. When I began, I followed the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. And ever since then, I’ve been strictly grain-free. This is not a fad for me. It’s a way of life. When I started the grain-free diet, people thought the gluten-free diet was freakish.
Now there are so many of us on paleo diets. We’re gluten-free. We’re grain-free. We’re definitely not freaks. Now we’re merely a bit ahead of the curve. It wasn’t always like that.
The almond flour cookie recipe that I share with you today for a paleo chocolate chip cookie reminds me of the way I used to bake a decade ago. When I used honey quite often in my recipes. Call them what you want. Argue with what they’re called. It’s all semantics anyway. And I promise you. I won’t argue back. I just want you to enjoy the cookies.
Primal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups blanched almond flour (not almond meal)
- ¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ cup palm shortening
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Combine almond flour, salt, and baking soda in a food processor
- Pulse in shortening, honey, and vanilla until dough forms
- Remove blade from processor and stir in chocolate chunks by hand
- Scoop dough one level tablespoon at a time onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet
- Press balls of dough down gently
- Bake at 350°F for 6-8 minutes
- Cool for 15 minutes (do not handle prior or cookies will break)
- Serve
If you want to make changes to this paleo cookie recipe, please do. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your substitutions and alterations turn out. I can’t do the testing for you. I’ve got two boys, and they keep me real busy. And they like to eat cookies that I bake from scratch. These cookies. Gluten-free cookies. Easy chocolate chip cookies. It just seems that all is right in the world when young men sit at the table eating cookies. So go ahead, enjoy the cookies!
What changes and substitutions will you make to these cookies to custom tailor them to your special diet needs? How do you think they’ll turn out?
Here are some of my other easy paleo cookie recipes:
Laura @ She Eats Well says
I plan to bake these cookies following your recipe except the palm oil…perhaps I’ll use Earth Balance or butter. Yum! Love this grain free recipe.
Jenny says
I made these to share with my boyfriend, considering hiding them so I can pork out! : ) Great flavour! Def did not get even in the vicinity of 30 cookies, more like 12. Also found the dough a little too dry, was having a hard time forming balls by hand. Next time will add a tablespoon of coconut oil to help with that. Baked for 8 min at 6000′. Thanks Elana!
Jenny says
Made these again tonight, adding 2 tbsp melted unsalted butter. Made the dough the perfect consistency, moist and easy to form into balls. Also got 12 again, really think the “30” should be reconsidered.
Carol says
SO good! Thank you for your simple yet tasty recipes. I subbed half coconut oil and half banana in place of shortening.
John says
Hi Elana,
I’ve been doing a slow carb diet for 4 weeks now (beans, lentils, meat, nuts, slads), with a modest success and as I have a cheat day on Saturday I’ll try your cookie recipe. I hope it turns out well!
Amberoni13 says
Watch the beans and lentils – HUGE carbs. Most low-carbers avoid legumes in general.
Scott says
My son is allergic to almonds , what other flour can be used ?
Abby says
Try coconut flour
Abby says
Elana, your intro to this recipe made me chuckle. “Just eat the darn cookies, wouldja?”
So, these just came out of the oven about 10 minutes ago. I love how simple this recipe is. The dough tasted great and they smell wonderful. I added an egg (duck egg) because the dough was not holding together at all. This could have been due to the fact that I used Trader Joe’s Almond Meal instead of the brands of blanched almond flour that you use. Then I sweetened it with agave instead of honey and used butter instead of shortening, because these were the ingredients I had on hand.
And I just tasted one! So good! I need to leave and eat more. :) Thanks!
Abby says
And now I have made them several more times. The second time, I actually chopped some of the choco chips into the dough in the processor: chocolate chocolate chip cookies!
Then I used almond extract instead of vanilla and those were tasty too. I am think that this is a great basic recipe that can be turned into all sorts of cookies. Next I am going to try the almond extract thing again, but leave out the chocolate and add a dollop of jam on top: raspberry thumbprints!
All the times I have made it, I have added a duck egg and used butter instead of shortening and agave instead of honey. And I have always gotten 25-27 cookies out of this recipe. I use a 1 tbsp measure spoon and level it – this makes nice little half-round dough balls that i then flatten a bit. The cookies are not huge but perfect for snacking.
QueenJellyBean says
Thanks for the update Abby! That’s all I needed to know, could I use agave instead of honey (just because I don’t want to spoke my sugar, just because I want to be super-model thin! Ha Ha!). I’m making these right now with this sweetener sub- of course the cookies won’t help me to be super model thin. Oh well, I choose cookies(occasionally!) :-]
QueenJellyBean says
OK I made them and ate them.
– great consistency on the batter
– I need sweeter. I’d dash two shakes of pure stevia powder next time (I do no sugar)
– Chocolate: I used bakers unsweetened chocolate, chopped into chunks on a cutting board with a big knife. Even dark CChips have too much sugar for me.
Thanks whoever it was who suggested subbing a banana for half the shortening! I will try that next time to reduce fat.
I will make these many times more. Did I say “great consistency/texture”?Thanks Elana!!!
demi says
i see that many talk about the baking soda…so coudl we add baking powder instead?and how much?or it wont be the same?thanks again!
Angie says
Baking soda and baking powder provide different chemical reactions so they can’t be substituted for each other.
Sarah says
how did you know! I came to your website looking for a chocolate chip cookie recipe and there it was, the latest picture and recipe on the website. Thanks for all of the tasty treats.
Skimblecat says
Just made these using coconut oil, and substituting shredded coconut for the chocolate (I didn’t have any in the house)
Made 14 cookies, and I may eat them all tonight :-)
Sarah says
I mean for the chocolate chips….so I’m wondering if there are GAPS diet chocolate chips out there using honey….