Breakfast: the most important meal of the day, they say. But do you find some mornings are so busy, it is hard to fit in a healthy breakfast? Also, sometimes you can’t face eating until a bit later on in the morning, perhaps once you have already left the house and on the road? The solution? Grab and go breakfast muesli cookies!

These cookies make a super tasty healthy breakfast or snack. Packed with oats, seeds, nuts, and optional protein powder and topped with dark chocolate drops, they provide slow and faster release carbs and also protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals. There is also a delicious depth of flavour from adding your nut butter of choice; peanut, cashew, almond butter; all work well (more on this later).

You can use shop-bought muesli or home-made muesli (recipe available too). I like using muesli with no added sugar so I can keep an eye on my sugar-intake, but this recipe also works fine with muesli with sugar (you may need to add a little less sweetener though).

These cookies are also a great way to encourage children to eat more healthy cookies, without them knowing! (Hehe!)

These cookies are vegan, can be made gluten-free, free from refined sugar (assuming you use no added sugar muesli) and are really easy and quick to make. Moreover, they are freezer-friendly too, so you can make a batch in the weekend to last all working week.

Makes: 22 cookies

Preparation time: 25 mins

Baking time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

Wet Ingredients:

• 100g coconut oil, melted
• 115-125g honey or agave/ date syrup (depending how sweet you like it and whether you are using sugar-free muesli)
• 1 egg or chia or flaxseed egg
• 3 tbsp peanut butter*
• ¼ tsp salt

Dry ingredients:

• 250g muesli (no added sugar)
• 60g wholemeal flour (gluten-free if required)
• 10g ground flaxseed
• 1 ½ tbsp protein powder (soya bean or pea varieties work well). Substitute for more flour if not using.
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 3 tbsp dark chocolate buttons (over 70% cocoa solids)
• ¼ tsp salt

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 170°C/ 150°C fan oven.
• Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper with a little spray coconut oil.
• Melt the coconut oil. Allow to cool slightly before adding the remaining wet ingredients. Mix well.
• In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, saving some chocolate buttons to decorate the cookies with.
• Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
• Using a teaspoon and your hands, roll the mixture into balls and place on the greased and lined baking sheet, with balls approximately 3cm apart from each other.
• Flatten the balls to make cookie shapes. Decorate the cookies with some chocolate buttons.
• Bake in the oven for 15-17 mins until golden brown.
• Allow to cool for 10 mins before transferring to a wire rack to allow to cool completely.
• Enjoy!

Variations:

• Why not add some superfood powders?
  • 1 tbsp maca or camu camu or baobab powder
  • 1 tbsp matcha green tea or supergreens or spirulina powder for green cookies!
• Orange zest or lemon zest for a citrus twist. (These go well with baobab, which had a tropical lemon flavour).
• Omit the chocolate buttons and sprinkle the cookies with coconut flakes, dried raspberry pieces or protein crunchies instead.
• Add 1 tsp ground ginger and cinnamon for spicier breakfast cookies
• *Try these cookies with different nut butter flavours: eg. hazelnut, cashew, almond, pistachio, tigernut, four seed. There are great flavours available from Funky Nut co.

Don’t forget you can find my favourite recipes in my FREE eBook here.