The classic chocolate chip cookie with the protein punch of quinoa. Healthy, gluten-free, vegan, quinoa chocolate chip cookies that will fool anyone into thinking they’re eating a decadent dessert. These call for a double batch!

Savory, sweet, dinner, side dish, DESSERT? Ah!!! You know I write all my posts over the weekend and trying to figure out which recipe I wanted to post today took me all week plus the weekend. Then it was a mad rush to edit and write! I didn’t plan on posting these cookies for a few more weeks, but, well, they’re just too good to wait any longer! I made enough of these cookies to have stocked in my freezer and have been heating them up for a mid-morning “protein” burst the last couple of weeks. Daily cookies? Good stuff!

I think we can all agree that the chocolate chip cookie is the ultimate classic cookie. Everyone has had a chocolate chip cookie and everyone has a recipe…maybe. Actually baking did happen in my childhood at least. More than “just add water“. The ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of the Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chips.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told you about making chocolate chip cookies as a kid before, but maybe not all the memories. So let’s take a trip down memory lane to a simpler time full of young innocence and gluten-filled goodies. Even then, ever since I can remember, I’ve just loved the excuse to get in the kitchen and cook or bake. So when my mom would randomly call out to my brother and I, asking if we wanted to help with some baking, I ran!

From what I remember, it was always nighttime, maybe after dinner, but it would be dark outside, the kitchen would be warm with the oven preheating and the overhead ceiling lights giving the room an orange glow. The big (and still only) red glass mixing bowl would be set down on the table, the all-purpose flour, and a bag of semi-sweet chocolate “morsels” to the side. I’d make sure I got prime spot in front of the bowl, kneeing up on the kitchen chair. To keep it fair, my brother and I would take turns adding each ingredient to the bowl.

First we would measure and dump in the flour to the big red bowl. Then one of us would measure out the brown sugar (which we always joked about how it looked like “poop” when combined with the melted butter). There was the the glorious smell of vanilla extract! I loved dumping that in! It was my favorite smell! Then the milk and egg which my brother and I both had my mom do. No scary raw egg cracking for us! Last but (really) not least, we got to add in the chocolate chips.

Now, obviously some of those chocolate chips ended up straight in our mouths, but for the most part, we got them in the batter where they belonged 😉 (P.S. my family DOES NOT eat raw cookie dough or any batter. That is so dangerous and never happened in our house!). But then came my favorite part and the most “work”. Mixing the batter!

When you first start, the batter is so hard to mix and we would have to mix for SO long (it felt like). My brother and I would take turns when our arms go tired, but then the batter would become smooth and the only bumps would be the great feel of the chocolate chips gooping around in the batter. I just loved that feeling of mixing the smooth batter! Of course, that also signaled that out work was over. My mom would be the one to drop the cookie batter ever so evenly on the bare greased cookie sheet while my brother and I started counting down the minutes until warm fresh baked cookie would be taken out from the oven in all their aromatic chocolatly gooey hot glory!

They say one of the simple pleasures in life is a fresh baked warm from the oven chocolate chip cookie, and they are correct. It’s one of those experience everyone must have (multiple times) in their lives. It’s pure and utter magic. Since I want everyone to be able to experience that (as well as myself, yet again), I had to make allergy-safe chocolate chip cookies. I whipped them up on a whim, all with quinoa! Quinoa flour, flakes, and of course a bit of arrowroot for the chewy factor. While baking they smelled EXACTLY like “real” chocolate chip cookies. And to my even bigger surprise, when I had my brother try one he said, “Wow, there taste like the actual thing!” <——- Mind blown! I can attest to that too! The crumb and texture is exact and the chew is perfectly how a cookie should be. No to mention the abundance of studded chocolate chips though out! These quinoa chocolate chip cookies are a MUST make, 5 times over!

Quinoa Chocolate Chip Cookies

Would you like a cookie? If you were to make one Strength and Sunshine recipe, right now, I would want you to make these! I promise, you may just rethink your Toll House classic when you get a taste of these! Quinoa chocolate chip cookies for EVERYONE! The joy, comfort, warmth, and love, it’s all right here just waiting for you! From my kitchen to yous, xoxo

So tell me:

+ I’m scared to ask, but I have to. Are there any NON chocolate chip cookie people out there? Bless your sad soul 🙁

+ What’s your favorite baking memory you have as a child? Definitely these cookie nights!

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