Coconut Oat Pecan Cookies
The ingredient list might be long on these Coconut Oat Pecan Cookies, but they are not only delicious, they are also breakfast worthy with a good dose of lignans, fiber and protein and with a variety of M&M’s® thrown in – they are just plain fun to snack or breakfast on!
Y’all, I have come to the realization that from the get-go, this whole parenting thing has been about letting go. When my daughter was an infant, I carried her around everywhere – only to let her go when she started to crawl… and then to walk… and then to drive! And now she’s talking about me letting her go off to college! Quick, someone hit the slow-mo button on that remote that Adam Sandler wielded in Click! Or, better yet – just hit the pause button!
But, since she was a toddler, that is what I have been grooming her for – being independent, seeking advice, making decisions and doing “adulting” by herself and for herself. I just didn’t realize that that time spent grooming would fly by so quickly. While I struggle to deal with the whole letting go part of parenting, after 12 years I think I’ve got a grip on the whole back-to-school part of it – especially when it comes to food.
No – I don’t meal prep for hours on the weekends nor do I wake up early to do so. Instead, I get my daughter to pack her own lunch and snacks. It all started about 3 years ago when she told me she needed me to pack more chocolate to fuel her brain and something clicked in mine, and I thought, I need to let go of packing her lunches (saw what I did there?) So, she took over and has been doing it diligently since.
But this year, I’ve started feeling guilty, feeling that maybe I’ve expected too much from her (even though she has delivered more than I expected). So, to deal with my guilt, some days, I make her her favorite Coconut Oat Pecan Cookies loaded up with M&M’s® Milk Chocolate, M&M’s® Peanut, and M&M’s® Peanut Butter pieces and sneak them into her backpack.
When I was at the store trying to pick between the party bags of M&M’s® or the Mixed Mini Variety Bag to make these Coconut Oat PecanCookies with, I happened on the Back To School, Ghostbusters themed M&M’s® display and took a trip down memory lane to when I watched the Original Ghostbusters. Realizing that the new Ghostbusters is in theaters now, I figured it would be a much-needed break to spend an afternoon at the movie theater with my daughter, armed with bags of M&M’s® and a Mixed Mini Variety Bag and these Coconut Oat Pecan Cookies – now to find that remote from Click and freeze this moment!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- 3 tablespoons coconut oil
- 2 eggs at room temperature
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup rice flour
- 1/4 cup flax meal
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 cup coconut flakes unsweetened
- 1/4 cup pecans
- 1/4 cup M&M’s® Peanut
- 1/4 cup M&M’s® Milk Chocolate
- 1/4 cup M&M’s® peanut butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350
- Add the peanut butter and coconut oil into a bowl and heat in the microwave for 10 – 15 seconds – just enough for the peanut butter to get runny but don’t let the mixture get too warm
- Add the brown sugar and eggs and stir well with a spoon
- Then add in the oats, rice flour, flax meal, baking powder, salt, vanilla, pecans, and coconut flakes and stir
- Toss in the M&M’s® Milk Chocolate, M&M’s® Peanut, and M&M’s® peanut butter
- Drop ice cream scoopfuls or spoonfuls of cookie dough onto a parchment lined baking tray
- Bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes
- Let cool and enjoy
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Yes can regular flour be used and are they as healthy, or is there another substitution? And I am wondering if flax meal is necessary? I don’t have any rice flour or flax meal. Thanks in advance.
Hi Lydia, I’m thinking you could use regular, all purpose flour instead of the rice flour and flax (I use flax for the nutritional boost and the texture), though the nutrition content would drop significantly – maybe if you used all purpose whole wheat flour it would be a bit better nutritionally?
Thanks so much for visiting my little space – I hope your cookies turn out wonderfully
These look amazing and like something my children would eat in the morning! Can another type of flour be used? I have coconut and almond and of course regular flour already. So excited to try!
Hi Angie, yes, I’m thinking you could use regular, all-purpose flour to replace the rice flour and flax meal – or regular flour to replace the rice flour and almond meal to replace the flax – though I wouldn’t use coconut flour only as coconut flour seems to absorb more liquid than regular flour – so consistency might be off, I haven’t tried these cookies with it so couldn’t give you any idea of how much coconut flour: liquid ratio – so sorry. Thanks so much for visiting.
Can regular flour be substituted for rice flour?
Yum – these look great! And cookies for breakfast?! Yes please!
Whoa. I love M&MS, but I think vegas loves them even more. I’m not showing her this or I’ll have to spend the morning baking. HAHA!
These cookies look great for breakfast or for any time of day. I’d sneak a couple in my lunch box 😉
You sound like a very thoughtful parent which must be so nice for her 🙂 And these cookies look amazingly tempting. I love M&M, especially peanut ones 😀
I so wish I could get M&M’s in a sugar free version. Raising an independent child is an amazing thing to do 🙂
Dear Shashi, these look great! Cookies for breakfast? This is something I could get behind. I love the sound of these…perfect in the morning, afternoon and night! xo, Catherine