This edible chickpea cookie dough dip is a super healthy protein snack. It’s delicious for dipping crunchy apple slices or eating by the spoon on its own, to fix a cookie craving. Bonus, one serving will bring you 6 grams of protein and only 150 kcal!
I love making sweet treats with chickpeas, like my Chickpea Flour Pancakes, Chickpea Blondies, or Chickpea Brownies. Chickpeas are a great way of turning classic recipes into healthy, protein-rich treats without sacrificing the taste of texture.
With a lot of testing and tasting, I’ve managed to find how to get all the chickpea goodness with no aftertaste and no bitterness, so you can enjoy the cookie dough you love! Calling all the cookie dough lovers with this healthy cookie dough recipe made of chickpeas! I know you are wondering if chickpea cookie dough actually tastes good, right?
Is it like a sweet hummus kind of recipe? Well, let me reassure you this chickpea cookie dough doesn’t taste like chickpea or hummus at all. Quite the opposite, it tastes sweet and smooth, and chickpeas are only adding a creamy smooth texture and proteins, no flavors!
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Canned Chickpeas – Use canned chickpeas also known as canned garbanzo beans, drain them and remove their skin.
- Peanut Butter – Or powdered peanut butter, rehydrated for low fat, low calorie, high protein boost. Make sure to use natural peanut butter that is made from only peanuts. For a nut-free alternative, you can also use sunflower seed butter.
- Maple Syrup – Any liquid sweetener works, such as coconut nectar, rice malt syrup, or simple syrup. While it’s possible to use brown sugar or coconut sugar, it’s better to opt for liquid sweeteners.
- Sea Salt – Just a pinch for taste.
- Vanilla – Vanilla extract adds a delicious taste.
- Oat Flour – Oat flour is a healthy flour. You can make your own oat flour.
- Almond Flour – Almond flour is a healthy flour that is very low in carbs and can be eaten raw. If you don’t have any, you can use more oat flour instead.
- Almond Milk – Or any other plant-based milk such as coconut milk, oat milk, or cashew milk.
- Vegan Dark Chocolate Chips – You can find dairy-free chocolate chips in most shops.
It’s easy to make this vegan recipe at home. There are only a few little tricks to follow to create the best fluffy, smooth dip. Let’s see the important steps to achieve the best protein chickpea cookie dough dip.
The recipe calls for canned chickpeas, which is the fastest and easiest way to make a chickpea cookie dough recipe. Obviously, canned chickpeas come with a fine, slurpy translucent skin on each bean. While chickpea skin is edible, it doesn’t create a smooth cookie dough dip if you keep it on. That’s why you must remove the skin before making this recipe.
In order to peel off the chickpea skin, rub the chickpeas vigorously between your hands, and the skin will fall off effortlessly. You can also proceed one by one, squeezing the chickpea between your index and thumb, and the skin will go off in a second.
This vegan cookie dough recipe must be made in a food processor. It’s quite a thick dough, not runny or liquid, and it doesn’t come together in a blender. The reason is simple, blender bases are not wide enough, and you need a lot of liquid to blend dry ingredients in a blender.
Therefore, you can’t make healthy chickpea cookie dough recipes in a blender. The chickpea will remain coarse and will never get as smooth as in a food processor.
- First, blend at high speed for 30 seconds. You need some patience to turn the chickpea and nut butter into a creamy smooth chickpea cookie dough.
- Then, stop the food processor, scrape the sides and bottom of the food processor bowl. Blend again for up to 1 minute or until the dough is smooth.
- Fold in chocolate chips, and pulse to incorporate in the batter. I recommend you store the cookie dough for 10 minutes in the fridge before incorporating chocolate chips. The blending process transfers heat to the chickpea batter resulting in a lukewarm dip. Therefore, if you add the chocolate chips straight away, they could melt, and the dip would turn into a chocolate chickpea dip. It is still tasty, but probably not what you expect from this chickpea chocolate chip cookie dough!
Depending on the flavor you expect for your cookie dough, you have different nut butter options.
- Plain Cookie Dough: use cashew butter, it is low in flavor, and the dough will taste like plain vanilla cookie dough.
- Peanut Butter Cookie Dough: use crunchy or smooth peanut butter.
- Almond Chickpea Cookie Dough: use almond butter. This option creates a darker color, but it is higher in healthy fat and lower in carbs.
Step-by-Step Video
Pro Tips
This is a healthy cookie dough snack high in protein, fiber, and healthy fat. It is not a high-calorie snack, though, as 1/4 cup of this protein chickpea dip brings you 155 kcal and 6 grams of protein. One serving of this vegan snack recipe reaches the calorie target and nutrients of a fulfilling, healthy snack.
However, if you are watching your calories, below are my tips to decrease your calories per serving and make this vegan snack low-fat!
- Nut Butter – replace nut butter with protein powdered peanut butter or peanut-based protein powder. It contains 70% less fat and therefore fewer calories. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to create the amount of peanut butter required by this recipe and add it to the recipe as a peanut butter replacement. This will also create high-protein chickpea cookie dough!
- Chocolate Chips – don’t add chocolate chips in your dip or use cocoa nibs for a no-sugar crunchy chocolate addition.
- Almond Flour – replace almond flour with homemade oat flour. It is higher in carbs but lower in calories as it contains less fat.
More Protein Snack Recipes
You may also want to try these easy vegan snack recipes loaded with proteins:
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Chickpea Cookie Dough
Ingredients
- 1 can (15 oz/400g) Canned Chickpeas - drained
- ⅓ cup Peanut Butter (Unsalted) - (note 1)
- ¼ cup Oat Flour - (note 2)
- 1 tablespoon Almond Flour - (note 3)
- 3 tablespoons Maple Syrup - (note 4)
- 3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 2 tablespoons Almond Milk
- ⅓ cup Dairy-Free Dark Chocolate Chips
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
Instructions
- Drain the can chickpeas, place in the bowl of the food processor with the remaining ingredients, except the chocolate chips.
- Blend on high speed for 30 seconds.
- Stop the food processor, scrape the sides and bottom of the food processor bowl with a spatula.
- Process again for 30-45 seconds or until the dough is smooth. If not, you can scrape down the bowl again and repeat the processing steps in 30-second bursts. If the dough is too thick to your liking, add a bit more almond milk. If too liquid, add more oat flour, one tablespoon at a time.
- Fold in chocolate chips, pulse a few times to incorporate.
- Transfer the chickpea cookie dough to a serving bowl, dip fruit slices into it, or eat it with a spoon as a healthy snack.
SOOOOO good!!! Added the last bit of my maple syrup for maybe another tablespoon’s worth and threw in some chopped pecans. AMAZING!!!!
I liked it… this was my first try. Needed to add much more oat milk, it was so dry it would not blend in my vitamix. My kids were not fans, but I liked it. I decreased the vanilla too. Good basic recipe.
Can I used reconstituted powdered peanut butter instead of actual peanut butter?
Yes, it’d work!
Love this recipe. I added extra peanut butter because I wanted pb cookie dough. Delicious!!
Thank you!!
Can this dough be baked to make cookies?
Absolutely! Add a touch of baking powder to make it fluffier (more details in the FAQ of the recipe)
OBSESSED with this recipe! My friend shared this in a group chat and all of us started making this like once a week. It’s such a nice, guilt-free snack and you can spice it up with different mix-ins. Cranberry + white chocolate, a turtle version with carmel + chocolate + pecans, oatmeal raisin and cinnamon. I don’t bother removing the chickpea shells and i think it comes out delightful.
Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe!
You CAN use a blender. I used a Vitamix. You just need alot of patience… Probably took 20 mins total (periodically stopping to scrape down sides and stir ingredients every 30 ish seconds). Also took alot of extra liquid.
Good tip!
Love this! I used cashew butter and added a bit of almond extract as well. Yum!
First off, this is my fav go-to recipe for when I want a nutritious but sweet snack!
Second, is the nutrition count using regular peanut butter or powdered peanut butter?
Thanks a lot for that. It’s calculated with regular peanut butter.
Can I use a blender for this recipe? I don’t have a food processor.
No, it doesn’t work well in a blender.