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This simple and customizable recipe for gluten free monster cookies is packed with peanut butter, oats, and chocolate. Plus, they're made without any rice flour or flour blend at all.
my take
Why you'll love these cookies
- Perfect texture: Hearty and chewy with a crisp edge, but not fragile at all because of the combination of quick cooking oats and oat flour and an extra egg yolk.
- Tons of flavor: A rich combination of smooth peanut butter with chocolate candy pieces and the sweet, nutty flavor of oats.
- Quick and easy: No need to chill the raw cookie dough before shaping and baking it, so it goes right in the oven.
what's in it
Recipe ingredients
- Gluten free quick oats – You can begin with rolled certified gluten free oats and process them briefly in a blender or food processor, or buy gluten free quick oats, which are already more processed.
- Oat flour – Adds more structure than quick oats. Rather than buying oat flour like I do for my oat flour brownies, you can grind old fashioned or gluten free quick oats into oat flour in a blender or food processor.
- Butter – Adds richness and tenderness.
- Peanut butter – Adds flavor, structure and richness.
- Eggs – A whole egg adds structure, and the added egg yolk helps soften the texture (peanut butter tends to make baked goods crunchy)
- Light brown sugar – Adds sweetness, tenderness, and depth of flavor
- Chocolate chips and mini M&Ms – This combination adds flavor, texture, and makes them pretty to look at.
How to make gluten free monster cookies
- First, mix the dry ingredients (oat flour, quick gluten free oats, baking soda and salt) in a separate bowl.
- Mix the butter, gluten free peanut butter, egg and egg yolk, vanilla and brown sugar separately. This makes it easier to get the lumps out of the brown sugar.
- Add the oat and oat flour mixture to the wet ingredients.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.
- Add the chips and candies, and mix again gently to combine.
- Scoop the dough into mounds with a medium ice cream scoop placed about 2 inches apart from one another. Aim to make the pieces of dough about 2 1/2 tablespoons each.
- With wet fingers, press the cookie dough into disks about 1/2-inch thick
- Bake at 350°F/177°C for about 14 minutes or until the cookies are lightly brown on the edges and the cookies look crackled on top.
- Allow the cookies to set on the baking sheet for a few minutes before moving them, or they'll fall apart. After cooling, the cookies are very stable.
My Pro Tip
Expert Tips
Combine oats and oat flour
Using a combination of quick oats and oat flour helps avoid using an all purpose flour at all, but still makes cookies with varying textures that hold together as well as if we added an all purpose flour.
Use no-stir peanut butter
Truly all natural peanut butter that requires stirring is usually too oily for baking, and tends to separate in the cookie dough. No-stir peanut butter has emulsifiers that keep the oil mixed in to the nut butter.
Don't overmix
When baking with oat flour especially, the baked goods can become tough if you work the batter or dough too hard. This way, the oats can be handled much less when everything is combined.
substitutions
Ingredient substitutions
Dairy-free
In place of the M&Ms, which contains dairy, you can use more dairy-free chocolate chips. In place of butter, use block-style vegan butter like Melt or Miyoko's Creamery. You can also try replacing the butter with virgin coconut oil. It's the type that's solid at cool room temperature.
Egg-free
The single whole egg in this recipe should be able to be replaced with 1 “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). Try replacing the egg yolk with 1 tablespoon smooth applesauce.
Peanut butter-free
A no-stir almond butter like Barney Butter would work well. For nut-free, try Wowbutter, made with toasted soy nuts.
Oat-free
In place of oat flour, try quinoa flakes. In place of quick oats, try buckwheat or rice flakes. For more information, see our post on how to substitute for oats.
Gluten-Free Monster Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup (120 g) oat flour, (certified gluten free if necessary) (See Recipe Notes)
- 1 ½ cups (150 g) quick cooking oats, or rolled oats, processed slightly in a food processor or blender (certified gluten free if necessary) (See Recipe Notes)
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 tablespoons (56 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup (128 g) smooth, no-stir peanut butter, the kind that doesn't separate in the jar
- 1 (50 g (weighed out of shell)) egg, beaten, at room temperature
- 1 (25 g) egg yolk, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (218 g) packed light brown sugar
- 5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 5 ounces miniature M&Ms chocolate candies, (gluten free in the U.S.)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and set it aside.
- In a medium-size bowl, place the oat flour, oats, baking soda, and salt, and whisk to combine. Set the bowl aside.
- In a large bowl, place the butter, peanut butter, egg and egg yolk, vanilla, and brown sugar, and mix well. Add the oat flour mixture to the large bowl, and mix until just combined.
- Add the chocolate chips and M&Ms candies and mix until the pieces are evenly distributed throughout the dough. The dough will be thick but should not be stiff.
- Using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop or two spoons and scoop the dough into mounds about 2 1/2 tablespoons each onto the prepared baking sheet, about 2 inches apart from one another.
- Using wet fingers, press each mound down into a disk about 1/2-inch thick.
- Place the baking sheet in the preheated oven and bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly brown around the edges, set in the center and the top of each cookie has taken on a crackled appearance.
- Allow the cookies to sit on the baking sheet for 10 minutes or until set. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.
- These cookies also freeze amazingly well in a sealed freezer-safe container.
Video
Notes
For gluten free quick oats, process old-fashioned rolled oats in a food processor or blender a few times. For oat flour, grind rolled oats until they form a soft powder.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
make ahead/leftovers
Storage instructions
These cookies will stay fresh for at least 3 days in a sealed glass container at room temperature.
For longer storage, freeze them in a freezer safe zip-top bag for up to 3 months. Defrost at 50% power in the microwave for 20 to 30 seconds.
FAQs
I specify “no-stir”, regular creamy peanut butter in this recipe, as I do in most recipes that I write that contain peanut butter as an ingredient. All “no-stir” means is that the oil in the jar of peanut butter doesn’t separate significantly from the rest of the nut butter in the jar.
Chunky peanut butter doesn't mix in quite as well as smooth peanut butter in this recipe, so I'd avoid using it in this recipe. Stick with the creamy smooth peanut butter, and replace some of the chips or mini M&Ms with some chopped peanuts for a nutty crunch if you'd like that.
If your butter was melted or oily because it was too warm, your cookies may spread too much and come out flat.
If you live in the U.S., most plain varieties of M&Ms chocolate candies are gluten free. I do understand that if you're in Australia, M&Ms aren't gluten free. Just use miniature chocolate chips or even raisins.
Sometimes, it works to replace oat flour with blanched almond flour, but I haven't tried that in this recipe. And, of course, you'll still need rolled oats or a substitute for oats. Instead, I'd try our recipe for almond flour chocolate chip cookies and replace half of the chocolate chips in that recipe with miniature M&Ms.
Great recipe. I used other mix-ins because I had small bits and wanted to use them up- coconut flakes, candied peel, dried cranberries and of course choc chips. Really liked that it doesn’t take any special GF flour – oatmeal and peanut butter I can find at most peoples houses so it is easy to make these where ever I happen to be.
That sounds delicious, DJ, and these are the perfect cookies to use other dry mix-ins. I agree that the fact that it doesn’t take any special flour makes these so convenient. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Delicious. I cut the sugar in half (which I do with almost everything), & used whole egg, instead of just egg yolk, to help compensate for resulting moisture loss. Will make these again. :-)
My 7 year old granddaughter and her friend have these cookies a two thumbs up! We have people with celiac disease and gluten sensitivities in our family.
Love your recipes. I’ve never had a fail!
Anita – southern vancouver Island fan
I’m so happy to hear that you loved the monster cookies, Anita! And thank you so much for the kind words about your success with my recipes. That means so much to me that you know you can rely on me. :)
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I made them & I thought they were dry but I think I did something wrong. My husband loved them & ended up eating them all. I am going to make the again & I will see what went wrong. Oh I know I gad ran out of brown sugar. I may not creamed it enough. I Will let you know how they turn out. I love your cookbook too.
These cookies are so good I’m taking the time to leave my very first internet recipe review. My kid suggested monster cookies for holiday baking and fortunately you had a recipe (we have a celiac in the house and use your recipes extensively). Incredible! We have made so many batches in the past few weeks I have the recipe memorized – never in my life have I made one recipe so often in such a short time frame. It’s pretty much expected that there will be some ready to eat at all times. With oatmeal and peanut butter you can squint and it even turns into a breakfast food. We left the m&m’s out and didn’t increase the chocolate chips and they were just perfect sweetness for us.
Hahaha it’s breakfast food if you say it is, K.D.! I’m honored to be your first internet review. I can relate. I don’t leave them myself, even when I know I should! Thank you for sharing your experience. :)
Made these for a large family gathering. I got RAVE reviews from everyone!! Thanks so much for all the tips! Definitely a keeper!