Soft, perfectly pumpkin spiced, and somehow gluten-free and vegan, these pumpkin oatmeal cookies are ideal any time of day, preferably when they’re generously coated in maple glaze.
Please don’t stop reading just because I said gluten-free and vegan! You will not know it – I promise, these pumpkin oatmeal cookies are amazing and unbelievably easy.
These super soft and delicious cookies came about because — have you caught on to how I create recipes yet? — I was feeling lazy a couple weekends ago. It was cool and crisp and very October-y outside, we were lounging around watching college football, and I really wanted some pumpkin cookies.
Normal, right?
I actually have a go-to pumpkin cookie recipe from a friend that is chock full of gluten and definitely not vegan. It’s also one of those recipes that somehow contains four different kinds of sugar, and it involves creaming of butter and folding of flour and …all those fun baking things I sometimes have the energy to do, but this day did not.
Nope, on this particular day I felt like stirring everything together with a fork and dropping it on a cookie sheet and eating cookies as soon as possible. I had a football game to watch, after all. It’s feelings like these that, in the past, have inspired such joys as my easiest chocolate chip cookies, so I knew my lazy tendency had the potential to lead me somewhere new and possibly great.
I have a tried and true recipe for banana breakfast cookies on here that uses only oats for the flour, and I thought maybe I could swap pumpkin in for the banana and use pumpkin spice instead of cinnamon. I figured I would also have to alter the maple syrup amount slightly since pumpkin is not nearly as sweet as bananas. On the whole, though, these were already shaping up to be FAR healthier and easier than my traditional recipe, and the only question was whether they’d measure up in taste.
Spoiler alert: they did.
How a few simple ingredients like oats, olive oil, maple syrup, pumpkin purée and some spices can come together and create something this magical without the use of eggs, butter, or sugar, I still really don’t know.
But it worked! All you need is a blender to grind half the oats into flour, and half of them into chopped pieces. Then you stir them with the rest of the ingredients until well-combined (no gluten formation to worry about here, yay!), portion them out, and bake. The whole thing takes about 10 minutes (less if you’re faster at measuring than me), plus baking time. The pumpkin oatmeal cookies come out soft, perfectly spiced, and just sweet enough to curb the cookie craving but not cloyingly sweet. Hooray!
One caveat: I am of the opinion that nearly everything benefits from a maple glaze, and these pumpkin oatmeal cookies were no different. They came out of the oven smelling amazing, and they tasted amazing too, but they were just a little too plain for a dessert cookie. So I made a simple glaze of 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 2 tbsp maple syrup to drizzle on, and it made all the difference.
Could you skip the glaze and call these breakfast cookies? Definitely. Would I tell anyone if you used the glaze and still called them breakfast cookies? Definitely not.
I highly recommend trying these on a day you’re feeling only semi-ambitious in the kitchen. You’ll feel super accomplished in a very short amount of time. And you’ll have cookies — but not for long.
Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Maple Glaze
Ingredients
For the pumpkin oatmeal cookies:
- 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats, divided (see below)*
- 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
For the maple glaze:
- 1/2 cup powdered (confectioner’s) sugar
- 2 Tablespoons pure maple syrup
Instructions
For the pumpkin oatmeal cookies:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place 1 cup of the rolled oats in a food processor or high-speed blender and blend on high speed until the oats become a flour-like consistency – you now have oat flour. Place in a large bowl.
- Take the other 1 cup of rolled oats and place in the same food processor or blender, and pulse or blend on low speed until the oats are in small pieces – about 30 seconds. Do not grind them into a flour. Place in the same large bowl with the oat flour.
- Add the pumpkin puree, olive oil, maple syrup, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt to the bowl and stir vigorously (I like to use a fork) until everything is well-blended.
- Scoop batter using a cookie scoop or a tablespoon onto two baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake for 15 minutes, or until edges are golden and cookies are set. They will be soft!
For the maple glaze:
- While cookies are baking, in a small bowl whisk together powdered sugar and maple syrup until smooth. Drizzle over cookies in whatever pattern you like!
Notes
Like this recipe? Please rate it and leave a comment or tag me on Instagram @katiebirdbakes, and sign up for my email list to receive my recipes straight to your inbox every time I post!
My glaze turned clear after I drizzled it over the cookies. Did that happen to yours as well?
Hi Lindsey – that can happen after a while. Doesn’t affect the taste!
Hi! I already have oat flour (finely ground). Is 1 cup of rolled oats equal to 1 cup of already ground oat flour? I’ve read differing measurements (some say 1:1 rolled oats:oat flour output; others say 1:3/4; others say 1:1/2).
Hi Nelly – I have found that it’s a 1:1 ratio when I’ve blended it myself. Hope that helps!
My boyfriend is vegan and we recently made these cookies together (I had also made them once before). The texture reminded me of muffins and the glaze really took the cookies to another level. Also, I like the recipe since you don’t need any abnormal ingredients to make it vegan. I will definitely be making them again in the future!
Note on vegan cookies: I’ve tried many vegan dessert recipes and often times I find vegan cookies to seem more “warmed up” rather than actually baked. I think due to the oat flour and the lack of animal products these cookies are kind of like that – don’t expect them to change too much from how they go in the oven. That being said, I don’t mind those types of vegan cookies and I liked these ones!
They are definitely softer than normal cookies – so glad you and your boyfriend enjoyed!
I’m anxious to try this recipe….how much canned pumpkin? I have 2 different sized cans.
Hi Melissa – the recipe calls for 1 cup of pumpkin puree, not a can. Just measure puree into a measuring cup!
Any substitute for the olive oil?
Hi Bobby – you can use any liquid oil you like, or even melted butter or melted coconut oil (measured after melting). Enjoy!
I used sweet potato instead of pumpkin…yummy
Great idea! Thank you for the review!
Made these today. So good. I love the level of sweetness: perfect. I made them small and ended up with 50.
Do you have nutritional info?
Thank you for recipe. Next time, I’ll double. 😊
Hi Christine – thank you so much for the review! So glad you enjoy these as much as we do. I don’t have nutrition info right now but you can plug the ingredients you used into MyFitnessPal or another online calorie calculator for an exact measurement 🙂
Hi! Do you think if I use cinnamon works? I don’t have pumpkin spice.
The pumpkin puree is from natural pumpkin? Or it comes from a can?
I used organic pumpkin purée from a can and did 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg I would add clove too but I didn’t have any and I also added vanilla and chocolate chips. Hope that helps!
Hi Vale – you can definitely use cinnamon. Pumpkin puree from a can!
I will be trying these soon and will add chopped walnuts…
I hope you love them!
I made these for the grandkids with leftover pumpkin from making pancakes. They loved them and didn’t know they were good for them! I did forget the spice but they didn’t mind. I did add just a touch of GF flour because they didn’t quite look like yours. I may have got the ingredient measurements off a tad. They were a hit and I’ll be making them again. I’ll bet they would be good with walnuts or raisins added. May try that! Thanks for the recipe.
Yay! Thank you so much for the great review! I’m so glad your grandkids loved these.
ooo this is like the breakfast cookie. i am going make the mixture now before work and put it in teh oven afterwards…let you knowhow it turns out like
Yes, it is very similar to the breakfast cookies! I just changed out pumpkin for the banana 🙂 hope they turned out great!