Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies — These cookies are soft, moist, and oh-so chewy. They taste like banana bread and chocolate chip cookies rolled into one dessert! Hundreds of 5-star reviews for a reason – they are just SO AMAZING! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Table of Contents
These chocolate chip banana oatmeal cookies are my holy grail of desserts rolled in one. They have the flavor of banana bread, the chewy texture of oatmeal cookies, and the soft and gooey factor of chocolate chip cookies.
They’re soft, chewy, moist, and not at all cakey, which can be a problem when baking with bananas. Cookies that taste like little banana cakes instead of cookies are not my idea of cookies, and thankfully these are all cookie, zero cake.
These banana cookies are adapted from my favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I reduced the butter, added bananas, and increased the flour. Bananas contain so much moisture that more flour is needed to absorb it.
You’re going to love the bold banana flavor, the chewy oats that add so much texture, and plenty of chocolate that melts in your mouth in every bite.
Recipe Ingredients
For these banana oat chocolate chip cookies, you’ll need:
- Egg
- Bananas
- Light brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Unsalted butter
- Vanilla extract
- Old-fashioned oats
- All-purpose flour
- Cinnamon
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
If you’ve ever made regular chocolate chip cookies before, you can easily make these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with banana! Here’s an outline of the recipe steps:
- Whip together the wet ingredients (because of the bananas, the mixture won’t look light and fluffy at all).
- Stir in the dry ingredients and carefully fold in the chocolate chips.
- Scoop the cookie dough onto a parchment paper-lined baking tray and chill for at least 2 hours.
- Pop the chilled cookie dough balls into a preheated oven and bake until the edges are just set. You don’t want to over bake the cookies — remember that they’ll firm up as they cool on your counter.
Recipe FAQs
You can use your favorite chocolate chips (or chunks!) in this banana cookie recipe. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend using white chocolate chips since I think they’d make these cookies too sweet, but use whatever flavor of chocolate chips you like.
No, quick and steel cut oats will not work for these banana oat cookies. Rolled (old-fashioned) oats are a must for these banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
Yes! The banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough is soft, loose, moist, and must be chilled before baking or the cookies will spread into thin, flat pancakes.
Your bananas should be nice and ripe, but not black. If the bananas are very overripe (black), the cookies won’t be quite the right texture or taste.
Recipe Tips
Adding the bananas: When I add the bananas to the wet ingredients, I add them in whole and don’t pre-mash them. Your mixer should do all the hard work for you, but if you’re making the cookie dough by hand it might be helpful to pre-mash the bananas.
Cinnamon: The cinnamon is optional but recommended. Adding 1/2 teaspoon doesn’t make the cookies taste overly of cinnamon, it just adds some warmth to the cookies.
Bake time: Because bananas have differing levels of moisture and no two are exactly alike, baking times could range. Don’t get too hung up on what the clock says and bake until your cookies are done.
Make-Ahead Instructions
You can actually make the banana chocolate oatmeal cookie dough ahead of time and freeze it for later. Just scoop out the dough as if you’re going to bake the cookies immediately, but freeze them instead of placing them in the fridge.
You can bake the frozen cookie dough as is, but you may have to leave them in the oven for an additional 1 to 2 minutes.
Storage Instructions
Room temperature: Let the cookies cool completely, then store in an airtight container or zip-top bag. The cookies will last up to 5 days.
Freezer: Store in an airtight container and freeze them for up to 6 months.
Recipe Video Tutorial
Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies
Video
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- 2 small/medium or 1 extra-large ripe bananas, about 1/2 heaping cup mashed banana
- ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened 1/2 of 1 stick
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups old-fashioned whole rolled oats*
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ to 1 teaspoon cinnamon, optional
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large mixing bowl and electric mixer) combine the egg, bananas (I leave them whole and don’t pre-mash them before adding to bowl), sugars, butter, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well combined, about 4 minutes. The mixture won’t be smooth, fluffy, or ‘creamed’ like traditional cookie dough and will have small chunks of bananas present and it’s on the runnier side.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the oats, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and beat on low speed until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the chocolate chips, and beat on low speed until just combined, about 30 seconds.
- Using a large cookie scoop, 1/4-cup measure, or your hands, form approximately 14 equal-sized mounds of dough.**
- Place mounds on a large plate or tray, cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 5 days. This is a wetter, looser dough and isn’t suitable for baking until it’s been chilled. Do not bake with unchilled dough because cookies will bake thinner, flatter, and be more prone to spreading.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat or spray with cooking spray. Place dough mounds on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet) and bake for about 13 minutes (for very soft cookies, longer for more well-done cookies), or until edges have set and tops are just set, even if slightly undercooked, pale, and glossy in the center; don’t overbake.
- Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for about 10 minutes before serving. I let them cool on the baking sheet and don’t use a rack.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Even More Oatmeal Cookie Recipes:
ALL OF MY OATMEAL COOKIE RECIPES!
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One-Bowl, No-Mixer, No-Chill Oatmeal Cookies — An incredibly FAST and EASY recipe that produces perfectly thick cookies with chewy edges and soft centers!! One bowl to wash, no mixer to drag out, and no waiting around!!
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies — 3 favorite cookies combined into 1 so you don’t have to choose!! Easy, no-mixer recipe, and always a hit!
Soft and Chewy Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies — These pumpkin oatmeal cookies are bursting with chocolate chips in every bite! They’re thick, hearty, perfectly chewy, and not at all cakey.
Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Scotchies Cookies – My favorite classic oatmeal cookie base loaded with sweet butterscotch chips! A classic cookie that you’ve just got to try!
Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies — These oatmeal coconut chocolate chip cookies are packed with oats, shredded coconut, and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Sure to be a new favorite recipe!
Salted Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies — Soft, chewy, loaded with chocolate, and the flaky sea salt adds the PERFECT touch!! If you’re an oatmeal cookie fan, these will become your new FAVORITES and they’re so EASY to make!!
Originally published April 13, 2015 and republished April 9, 2021 with updated text.
Hello. I made these, but made some modifications due to my own dietary restrictions: i replaced the butter with ripe avocado, oat flour rather than regular flour and coconut sugar rather than white sugar. They baked up beautifully- I didn’t chill the sought either as I missed that part. However, my didn’t spread. These cookies are so delicious. Everyone in the household are amazed with their texture. They remain soft.
Thanks for the 5 star review Karla and I’m so glad to hear these turned out amazing – even with all the modifications! The avocado, oat flour, coconut sugar and they didn’t spread, wow I love hearing this!
Love the cookies, they are so good. Doubled the recipe and gave me about 40 cookies. They freeze well!
Thanks for the 5 star review and I’m so glad you love the cookies and doubled the recipe, too!
The first time I made these, I was greatly disappointed. They were ugly, floppy, and did not resemble the photos at all. I was scratching my head until I saw someone else’s comment and decided to make these again and added much more flour. I added an addition ½ cup if not more and they ended up looking like the photo. Glad I gave them another shot but I’d suggest either updating the recipe on the site to account for this or if you’re another comment reader like I am, add more flour! I failed the first time so you don’t have to! Haha
Because bananas vary in their moisture content, the exact amount of banana one uses down may vary, so the dry ingredient ratios may vary.
Sometimes with recipes you do have to make some adjustments as you go and it sounds like you adjusted for your ingredients the second go round and things worked out well for you. I’ve never needed to add more flour than I call for and many others haven’t either, but you did and that’s great that they turned out well for you the second time.
Great alternative to making banana bread using leftover bananas. I did add an additional 1/4 cup of flour to account for my mushy frozen bananas. I also halved the brown sugar and chocolate chips to cut down on sweetness. Using a large scoop was a little too big for me, so I used a small one (two tbsp) and they baked perfectly around 11 minutes
Thanks for trying the recipe and the 5 star review, Raine! I’m glad to hear that was a winner for you and good job thinking on your feet with the extra flour to account for the mushy-frozen banana situation and glad to hear it worked well by halving the brown sugar, too!
I used quick oats but I used 1/4 cup less of flour and added raisins. Worked well!
That’s great you were able to make this work with quick oats and raisins!
I added extra bananas and flour. Also added walnuts. They turned out delicious!
Thanks for the 5 star review, Tiffany, and I’m glad these turned out delicious!
These are the best cookies!! I made them and gave them to my daughter and her boyfriend and they both took them to work to share. I had requests that morning for the recipe from both of them. They are now one of my favorite cookies, too! Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks for the 5 star review, Debbie, and I am glad that you had recipe requests for these and that they’re now one of your favorite cookies. That’s awesome!
Used this recipe because I loved chocolate chip cookies and my son usually has old bananas. I throw these cookies straight into the freezer. I prefer eating them right out of the freezer bag
Thanks John for trying the recipe and I am glad you enjoy it and it’s handy for both you and your son.
I followed the recipe, but they are just ok. They actually are rather cake-like which I know was not the intention. I did use Old-Fashioned oats, but not “rolled oats”, so I’m wondering if that was the issue.
Still pretty good though — loaded with chocolate chips!
I followed the recipe, but they are just ok. They actually are rather cake-like which I know was not the intention. I did use Old-Fashioned oats, but not “rolled oats”, so I’m wondering if that was the issue.
Still pretty good though — loaded with chocolate chips!
I followed the recipe, but they are just ok. They actually are rather cake-like which I know was not the intention. I did use Old-Fashioned oats, but not “rolled oats”, so I’m wondering if that was the issue.
Still pretty good though — loaded with chocolate chips!
Thanks for trying the recipe. The oats yes are important to consider which type you’re using for any baked goods recipe that calls for them. I always use Quaker and for me, I don’t find these cookies to be overly cake-like. Old-fashioned oats and rolled oats tend to be the same thing, but of course, labeling varies across brands.
This recipe is great! My husband wanted a “treat with bananas” 😂😂 I googled ‘ Banana Cookies’ and this recipe was one of the top few so we tried it. Perfect recipe and delicious cookies! We were wondering – why is important to refrigerate the batter before baking? Thank you!