These soft chewy paleo chocolate chip cookies are made with cassava flour, making them nut free PLUS grain free and gluten free. The cassava flour makes the flavor very similar to traditional chocolate chip cookies, so you know everyone will love them!
Get ready for more Paleo + nut free baking today! It’s chocolate chip cookies for you right now – soft, chewy, chocolate chip cookies, with a flavor nearly identical to traditional white flour cookies, thanks to our star – cassava.
I worked on this recipe over last summer until it drove me so batty that I decided to shelve it for awhile. The problem? Texture. It turns out that cassava flour behaves very differently in a cookie recipe than in a bread recipe.
My cookie dough would look perfect over and over, but the results after baking were all over the place.
I was met with cookies that spread ALL OVER the baking sheet, cookies that didn’t spread at all, cookies that looked perfect but had the texture of crumbly cake, and cookies that seemed to melt into something that tasted like sand after taking a bite.
After about 5 tries, I noticed a few common themes.
First, ALL of the cookies came out of the oven fall-apart-soft. Even the ones that would up pretty good after a few hours could disintegrate if you tried to touch one a few minutes out of the oven.
Lesson 1 – cassava flour cookies need lots of time to “set” and should be cooled COMPLETELY on the baking sheet – not transferred.
Lesson 2 – using all granulated sugar to sweeten the cookies (like coconut sugar) won’t work – it needs to be combined with a nice STICKY sweetener (honey) for a good chewy texture after cooling.
Lesson 3 – Cassava flour chocolate chip cookies seem to have superior texture after cooling completely and THEN chilling in the fridge for awhile. Trust me on this one – and try it!
Lesson 4 – More than one egg (even an extra yolk) turns the cookies way too cakey and almost rubbery. I had a batch that looked absolutely perfect, but had a strange rubbery texture that I couldn’t get past! After that, I stuck to one egg and didn’t look back.
So, after compiling all these lessons learned from the failed batches, I came up with a recipe that seems to be as close to perfect as you can get, both flavor and texture wise!
I used a mixture of honey and coconut sugar to take care of the texture and flavor. One egg, one cup of cassava flour and a mix of baking soda and powder to help the cookies spread just enough.
I still recommend allowing the cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet – these aren’t “grab-one-out-of-the-oven” cookies. They need to be left alone for at least an hour to really set properly (weird, yes, but it works.)
And again, I totally prefer these after spending a little time in the fridge. That doesn’t mean they can’t be left out at room temp, but for superior texture I recommend a little chilling. As a side note, they are SO perfect with some coconut vanilla ice cream!
I hope you’re ready for insanely delicious paleo chocolate chip cookies – let’s bake!
Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies with Cassava Flour {Nut Free}
Chocolate Chip Cookies with Cassava Flour {Nut Free}
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup ghee OR grass-fed butter
- 1/3 cup raw honey
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 egg room temp
- 1 cup cassava flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder*
- 1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
Instructions
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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line a large cookie sheet (or 2) with parchment paper.
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Using an electric hand mixer, cream together the ghee (or butter), honey, coconut sugar and vanilla until smooth on medium speed
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Add in the egg and beat on low speed until combined
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In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients, then add dry mixture to wet, beating on low speed until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips, then chill the dough for 10-15 minutes in the fridge.
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Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop dough onto prepared cookie sheet about 2” apart since they will spread a bit while baking.
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You’ll need to repeat the process on a separate baking sheet for the leftover cookie dough.
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Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet - do not transfer them while they’re cooling since they’re VERY delicate due to the cassava flour. These cookies are not at their best right out of the oven - they need time to finish setting while they cool.
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Once completely cool to the touch, remove from sheet and serve. Cookies will be soft and chewy at room temp, and become more firm, yet still chewy after refrigeration. I personally prefer them after chilling! Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*For Paleo (corn free) baking powder, mix 1 tsp baking soda with 2 tsp cream of tartar. For this recipe you’ll need just 1/2 tsp of this mixture.
Nutrition
What I Used To Make My Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies with Cassava Flour:
Want More Paleo and Nut Free Baking Recipes? Try one of These!
Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Double Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Banana Blueberry Breakfast Bread
Classic Blueberry Muffins with Cassava Flour
Chocolate Donuts with Chocolate Frosting
Hearty Cassava Flour Banana Bread
Chocolate Chip Donuts with Chocolate Ganache
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So my cookies spread into one giant pan of cookie. What would i have done wrong. I followed all of your steps. I only forgot to add the chocolate chips. I still broke them up and they taste like caramel brittle. Delicious!!! but how can I get them to stay in cookie form?
Thanks
My daughter and I have been doing AIP for two months now and have added in eggs and dairy. We made these cookies tonight subbing the baking powder and soda with tapioca starch and used a little bit of cacao nibs. The cookies are amaaaazing. To us, they taste like toffee…and remind me of the torched sugar on a crem brûlée (I think that’s the flavor of the coconut sugar) anyways we love them and made some whipped coconut cream with them and it was heavenly. We are so happy to have this simple easy to make delicious treat!!
That sounds so delicious, now I’m craving them too! Thrilled you enjoyed them!
This cookie recipe is amazing. I recently started using cassava flour and wanted a good cookie recipe. I read about five different recipes and some of them did not have good reviews. Since people seemed to like it, I decided to try this one. I’m glad I did because they came out great. I can definitely give this one a five star rating. Only thing I did different was added a little cinnamon. They came out just like the photo. They don’t taste like regular chocolate chip cookies, of course, but the texture is very similar. And they are still delicious in their own unique way. The combination of coconut sugar and honey is delif. This is my first cookie recipe using cassava flour and I’ll definitely be adding it to my personal recipe book.
These are very good taste like regular chocolate chip cookies
So happy you enjoyed them!
An awesome cookie recipe!I appreciated all the advice about how to let it cool, but was not able to contain my self and ate three cookies strait out of the oven! deliciousness!!!
These are so good! My husband loved them too and he is SUPER picky! I made mine a little bigger than suggested but I just added about 5 extra minutes to the cooking time and they came out perfectly. I don’t eat a lot of sugar so for my pallet they were a bit on the sweet side. I would love a suggestion on how to cut down the sugar while still accomplishing the same great texture.
Like myra said, I found the flavor too sweet in my first batch–I am strict AIP and eat very little natural sugars. So in second batch I added 1/4 -3/4 teaspoon cinnamon mixed with olive oil to even out the sweetness without compromising texture. The flavor of the cookie was so good I really didn’t mind that they were a bit on the puffy side and a few were crumbly. Like others, I tasted them 20 mins out of oven and later after being in fridge overnight. Really good considering the simplicity of recipe.
Very delicious! This is my first time using cassava flour, and these were PERFECT!
The dough needed at least 30 mins, close to an hour, of chilling to roll nicely into balls (too sticky at 15 mins, yet still worked). And I didn’t have any extract, but these luckily still tasted scrumptious! Thanks for the recipe and all the tips Michele!
I also want to note that I used maple syrup instead of honey. 🙂
These turned out good and my family and I ate them right up but they were a little too crumbly. I did some reasearch on cassava flour and learned that it can be used 1:1 in WEIGHT as regular flour. 1 cup of Cassava flour weighs 120 grams. I will try these again measure the weight rather than volume.
I made these yesterday evening, and we all, including my 4 year old- devoured them! Yum!!
Followed your advice exactly -on letting them cool in baking sheet and then chilling. Absolutely delicious! 🙂
My one and only question is, how do I get them from not sticking on that parchment paper so much? Should I spray the parchment paper with cooking spray next time?
Thanx!! Love that youre using cassava flour!
First batch did not spread. Used Stevia instead of coconut sugar because I did not have it. Could not open honey jar so I used maple syrup. I read your lesson 1 thru 4. May try again
I used regular sugar but that’s the only deviation and they turned out really well! Thanks