Midnight Cookies are made of all insomnia-fighting ingredients! The best healthy midnight snack recipe ever! Refined sugar-free but still deliciously sweet and full of healthy fats to keep you satisfied all night.
The cookies are super chewy and soft and delicious. Enjoy them with a warm cup of herbal tea, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite! If you prefer salty snacks check out these healthy snack ideas.
How To Make These Cookies
I love this healthy midnight snack recipe for its simplicity. You basically just mix the dry the ingredients in a bowl, then blend the wet ingredients in a blender, mix both, form cookies, pop in the oven, and you’re done.
I have a couple of extra tips for you though:
Make the oat flour first in your blender. Add the old-fashioned rolled outs, pulse a couple of times and then pour the coarse flour out into your bowl.
Now, use the blender, dirty as is, to blend the wet ingredients. No need to wash it out, the wet ingredients will end up in the oats anyway at the end.
Make sure all pits are out of the dates. Even if you buy pitted dates there is a chance one pit is still in there and your wet ingredients will have hard bits of date pit in them.
You can freeze the cookies. They defrost pretty quickly when popped in the oven for like 5 minutes.
You want to achieve a very creamy consistency of the wet ingredients. A high-speed blender works best but you can achieve it in a food processor as well. You simply have to blend for long enough.
Can A Midnight Snack Help You Sleep?
Well, I think there is still a lot of research necessary. What we DO know is that some snacks and foods can make you NOT sleep. That’s for sure. Anything containing caffeine, unhealthy fats, and excessive amounts of sugar are definitely a big no no close to bedtime.
Try and stay away from coffee, black, green, and white tea, dark chocolate both in a bar and in liquid form.
How Can I Satisfy Late-Night Cravings?
The best way to avoid late-night cravings is to eat a nutrient-dense clean diet. The better you nurture your body throughout the day, the less it will crave in the evening.
Cravings are often caused by a lack of certain nutrients. You can be psychologically extremely disciplined but the cravings won’t go away unless you solve the problem at the root.
Eat nutrient-dense foods that cover all your nutritional needs and you won’t even need a snack. If for whatever reason you were unable to nurture your body properly one day, resort to a healthy nutrient-dense healthy midnight snack to get you to the next day.
What Is The Healthiest Late-Night Snack?
Avoid sugary treats late at night and instead eat healthy fats. If you crave something sweet late at night (hi twin!) try and eat stuff containing natural sweeteners like dates or a little honey or maple syrup.
Try and have a healthy midnight snack. I know it’s hard. You’ve been at work all day, you came home and had to do chores. It’s midnight and all your crave is chocolate! Remember though, fighting insomnia once you lie in bed definitely won’t make you relax. It’ll just stress you out more.
Try and enjoy without having any electronics in hand or watching TV. Enjoy while looking out the window and staring at the stars. I know this sounds cheesy but I swear it helps relax and calm down to get ready for bed.
Midnight Cookies
Ingredients
- 3/4 cups old fashioned rolled oats made into oat flour
- 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
- 1/2 cup chopped cashews
- 1/2 cup sesame seeds
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp cardamom
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 cup pitted dates - if hard then soaked in hot water for 5 minutes and then drained
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup coconut oil - melted
- 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
- 1-2 Tbsp honey
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Add 3/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats to the blender and pulse to create a coarse oat flour. Then add to a large bowl.
- Add whole old-fashioned rolled oats, chopped cashews, sesame seeds, and spices to the bowl.
- Put dates, apple sauce, coconut oil, honey, and egg in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Combine wet and dry ingredients.
- Scoop out 1/4 measuring cup of dough per cookie and place on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet flattening the cookie to about 1/2 inch thickness.
- Bake for approximately 18-22 minutes or until golden. Beware of not burning the bottoms.
- Cool on a cookie sheet and store in an airtight container preferably in the fridge.
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Jenny says
These sound great. I would like to make these gluten free, so need to substitute the oats with something else. Do you have any suggestions? Quinoa maybe, or something else?
Lorena Grater says
You can buy certified gluten-free oats. Oats are naturally gluten free. They only contain traces of gluten if they’ve been packaged at a facility that also packages wheat products. If your oat package says certified gluten-free though it means it’s been packaged far away from any gluten-containing products.
Gurkirat says
Hello Lorena,
Can I use peanut butter instead of apple sauce?
Lorena Grater says
I’m afraid that won’t work as well. Peanut butter is super high in fat and apple sauce is high in water and offers carbs in the form of fruit sugar. The cookies would become super dense and incredibly high in fat if you replace the apple sauce with any nut butter.
davidsoso says
I want to know, calories 230 kcal per one cookie or per 8 cookies?
Lorena Grater says
One cookie. All nutritional information on any website is always “per serving” so always look for the number of servings in a recipe card when you want to know what the nutritional information shows.
Makatiso says
Hi Lorena I’m 31 years and mi weight is 110 I’m from south Africa I need your help from making the right decision on grocery shopping and timetable 4 7days. Mi grocery needs the food that are found in Africa plz.
Lorena Grater says
Hi Makatiso, I’m so happy to read you are embarking on this new journey of eating healthily. Unfortunately, I’ve never been to South Africa so I don’t know what the grocery stores there have. I am so sorry.
Mo says
How important is the Apple sauce? Can that be eliminated?
Lorena Grater says
It can’t be eliminated as we need the liquid but you can replace it by pear sauce if you don’t like apple.
Robin Stepanek says
These are really satisfying and tasty. I used walnuts instead of cashews and used molasses instead of honey for a variation. I also added raisins with no negative changes to the recipe. I have reflex issues with the flour in regular cookies, I don’t have any stomach issues at all with these cookies!
Kathy says
Is there a substitute you might recommend for the sesame seeds?
Lorena Grater says
Hemp seeds or chopped up sunflower seeds.
Ed Krol says
Would there be a problem if I eliminated the cashews, due to a nut allergy?
Lorena Grater says
No problem, you just have to replace them so you get to the same volume of dry ingredients. You could use sunflower seeds instead of cashews.
Edward Krol says
I made them as you suggested with the sunflower seeds. Tasted great! I then made another batch and substituted the cashews with chopped almonds (no nut allergy problem) and they were even better! As an added treat or splurge, I spread the chopped almond cookie with natural sunflower seed butter. And OMG they were FANTASTIC!! Thanks again!
Kim says
Hello!
What would you recommend as a sub for the coconut oil?
Thanks 🙂
Lorena Grater says
Melted butter is the best replacement as it is liquid when warm and hard at room temperature. You will achieve the same consistency.
Daniela says
These look perfect!! Can’t wait to try them.
Since you named them Good Night Cookies I thought about adding Ashwagandha hmmmmmm!
Lucienne says
Just made these!! It is delicious, thanks for the recipe. Also made your lentil soup…. excellent!!!
Lorena says
I’m so happy you like my recipes Lucienne!!! Thank you for coming back and rating and commenting :)
Analee says
My wet mixture was definitely a lot thinner and not that color! I followed it exact. Could it be the brand of dates/my blender?
Lorena says
Hi Analee, I’m not sure why. I used Medjool dates. Those are usually nice and soft and my blender is a Vitamix so it makes everything super super smooth. Is you apple sauce maybe super runny? How big was your egg? Did the cookies still turn out ok?
Jessica says
Might these be freezable?
Lorena says
Hi Jessica, I’ve never tried but I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Definitely worth a try. And I can imagine them defrosting really nicely in the oven :)
Kathrin Botkin says
Just made them as a “rainy -snowy-winter-has-started-Sunday-afternoon-comfort cookie” ! They are GREAT. I admit, I did add some dark chocolate chips … after all, it was afternoon, not midnight. DELICIOUS !!
Lorena says
Hehehe, sounds like an awesome addition to the cookies ;)
Brenda says
Just made these. They are awesome! So good with only natural sugars. So full of Good, Good, Good ingredients. This recipe is a keeper. I will make these over and over. Thanks , Lorena…again….girlfriend. :)
Lorena says
You have no idea how happy your comment makes me!!! Thank you so much :D