Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars Recipe — A Healthy Blondie!
Ever hear of a “blondie” brownie? A blondie resembles your traditional brownie, with one major difference, one’s made with vanilla and the other with chocolate. The thing is, I love benefit-rich dark chocolate and even my blondie has to have some chocolate chips thrown in there, so this recipe is a spin on the blondie (which is already a spin on the brownie). These are my chocolate chip cookie bars, the untraditional and healthier blondie.
What Is A Blondie?
A traditional blondie recipe calls for vanilla and brown sugar instead of using cocoa, which gives it that lighter, blonde color. Unlike brownies, there’s no chocolate or chocolate flavors added to blondies. Some people add white chocolate or butterscotch chips to their blondies, but I use chocolate chips — making them my own chocolate chip cookie bars.
My blondie-esque chocolate chip cookie bars are also gluten-free and made with a natural sugar substitute, maple sugar. Maple sugar is what remains after the sap of sugar maple is boiled for longer than is needed to create maple syrup. Once almost all the water has been boiled off, solid sugar remains. This takes the place of brown sugar, which is commonly used in blondie recipes.
And, curve ball, I use cannellini beans in my chocolate chip cookie bars, too. Beans help to add volume to the cookies without the need for flour or gluten products. Just like using black beans for my black bean brownies recipe, I chose light, cannellini beans for my blondies.
How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
This recipe only requires you to add ingredients to a blender and throw the mixture in the oven — super easy! Start by preheating your oven to 325 degrees F.
I use some very basic ingredients here: eggs, maple sugar, vanilla extract, melted butter and a can of rinsed and dried cannellini beans.
It’s important to me to use good quality ingredients when I’m cooking or baking. For instance, I like to use grass-fed butter, and although people are often terrified of saturated fat, when it’s obtained from healthy sources in moderation, like grass-fed butter and coconut oil, it provides the body with much-needed fuel and helps with blood sugar stability. Also, studies have shown that the milk from grass-fed cows is significantly richer in fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins than milk from cows that are fed grain-based diets.
Adding cannellini beans to this recipe makes it pretty unique. When the beans are blended and broken down, they act like the flour in the batter, which allows this recipe to be completely gluten-free.
Beans such as cannellini are also an important part of a healthy diet because they provide you with protein and fiber without overloading a meal or dessert with calories.
Once you’ve blended your batter ingredients, pour the mixture into an 8 x 8 pan.
Now it’s time to add the best part — chocolate chips and walnuts. I add a 1/2 cup of each. The chocolate provides an extra sweetness and richness to these easy cookie bars, and the walnuts add the perfect crunch. I think any dessert, or meal for that matter, needs that crunchy texture for a satisfying bite.
Your blondie brownie, or blondie with a twist, needs to bake for 45 minutes, until it is golden brown. Once it’s cooled for a few minutes, you can dive in!
Sometimes I add kefir and raw honey on top for that creaminess (and the boost of probiotics too, of course). But these chocolate chip cookie bars, my play on blondie brownies, are perfect all by themselves. Enjoy!
Looking for other healthy snack bars? Try these recipes:
Want to just eat cookie dough? Try our Paleo, vegan and gluten-free edible cookie dough recipe!
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Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars Recipe
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
My blondie-esque chocolate chip cookie bars are gluten-free and made with a natural sugar substitute, maple sugar. And, curve ball, I use cannellini beans in my chocolate chip cookie bars, too. The results are delicious.
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup maple sugar
- ½ tablespoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- one 13.5-ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed and dried
- 4 tablespoons unsalted grass-fed butter, melted
- ½ cup walnuts, crushed
- ½ cup dark chocolate chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 F.
- Add everything except walnuts and chocolate chips to a high-powered blender, blending on high until well combined. (You can also use a food processor.)
- Pour mixture into an 8 x 8 pan.
- Sprinkle chocolate chips and walnuts over the mixture.
- Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.
- Top with coconut kefir and honey if desired.
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 45 min
- Category: Snacks, Desserts
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie bar (73g)
- Calories: 209
- Sugar: 12.7g
- Sodium: 136mg
- Fat: 11.4g
- Saturated Fat: 5.3g
- Unsaturated Fat: 5g
- Trans Fat: 0.2g
- Carbohydrates: 22.5g
- Fiber: 1.3g
- Protein: 4.9g
- Cholesterol: 51mg
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Hi,
I’d love to send these in lunchboxes for my kids to snack on during the day. Will these store nicely at room temperature for a while, or are they best eaten chilled?
How many carbs?
Good question, Nancy. This one will be higher in carbs but just added to our nutritional breakdown schedule so an editor will be updating soon!
22.5g carbs per bar
Can this recipe be used with black beans too instead of Cannellini beans?
yes, absolutely
Nutritional breakdown? Especially macros per serving and serving size.
Updated! See above.
Could you use chickpeas as a replacement for the cannellini beans?
Yes, certainly.
Hi Dr. Axe,
Thank you for your recipes. I have a question. What blender is used in the recipe u used to make those Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars?
I look forward to your response.
Vitamix, Nutribullet … also a food processor would work.
What can you substitute with butter with your recipes?
You may substitute coconut oil for butter. Just remember that may change the consistency of the recipe.
can you sub. coconut sugar for maple sugar? is it 1:1 ratio?
The taste will change slightly, but feel free to sub 1:1. It should work.
I am allergic to legumes (especially peanuts) What do you suggest that I could substitute for the beans in these cookies?
Unfortunately, the beans are the base of this cookie recipe and trying to find a substitute would change it entirely. I do have a number of other cookie recipes that might better fit your diet though.
You can find some here: https://draxe.com/search-results/?cx=010110460513198589347%3A10dblys_dma&cof=FORID%3A9%3BNB%3A1&ie=UTF-8&q=cookies
Is it okay to use steviana instead of maple sugar?
Feel free to substitute maple sugar for stevia. Just beware that you will need to use less stevia, and it may alter the flavor.