These soft and chewy Applesauce Chocolate Chip cookies are a delicious sweet, and slightly healthier cookie.
I love these soft chocolate chip cookies with apple sauce. They a great way to satisfy my sweet tooth without as much added sugar.
These are a soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie that is made a little lighter with less sugar and less butter thanks to the addition of applesauce.
Applesauce is a great sweetener, and also helps keep these cookies nice and moist too. Because of the applesauce in the cookies we are able to lower the amount of sugar, and reduce the amount of fat in these cookies.
I altered this recipe slightly from when I first posted these cookies to give you a more chewy cookie, but I’ve included the original recipe below the recipe card if you’re one of the 5 people who’ve made them before and liked the original 😉
Ingredients Needed:
- all purpose flour – is the bulk of this recipe, and makes the cookies into cookies.
- baking powder and baking soda – helps give these cookies lift, so they aren’t too dense.
- salt – just a little helps to balance out the sweetness of the cookies
- ground cinnamon – this gives the cookies a nice lightly spiced flavor.
- unsalted butter – a little butter helps to keep these cookies soft, and a little bit chewy. You can substitute coconut oil if you want too.
- brown sugar – gives the cookie some additional sweetness, and also a better chewy texture. You can substitute white sugar, if needed.
- applesauce – this adds a nice flavor, and texture to the cookies. You can use a plain unsweetened applesauce because it’s naturally sweet on it’s own
- vanilla extract – adds a nice flavor to the cookies.
- chocolate chips – they add a little texture, and sweetness to the cookies, and who doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies?!
How to make Applesauce Chocolate Chip Cookies?
These applesauce cookies are super easy to make, start by combining your dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add your flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon and whisk them together.
In a separate bowl stir together your butter, and sugar until they’re nice and fluffy. Then add in the applesauce and vanilla extract and stir them together.
Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir them together until just combined and you have a nice soft cookie dough. Then fold in your chocolate chips.
Cover the dough in the bowl and stick it in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes, up to overnight.
Scoop the cookie dough by the heaping Tablespoon onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven until the edges are slightly golden brown and the top looks set. Let the cookies cool on the pan for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Tips and Tricks:
- To make the cookies picture perfect, add a few extra chocolate chips to the tops of the cookies right after removing them from the oven to make your finished product extra pretty.
- Use a homemade applesauce for an even yummier flavor in your cookies.
- For the best results, bake your cookies until they barely look set on top. The cookies will continue baking as they are on your baking sheet out of the oven.
- The cookies stay thick unless you smack the pan down while baking to help them to flatten. Remove the baking pan after 7 minutes and smack the pan down a few times to help the cookies fall. Put them back in the oven for the final minutes. Then smack the pan down again when you pull them from the oven.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How to store cookies?
These chocolate chip applesauce cookies are best stored at room temperature in an airtight container. They can be stored for up to 3 days.
You can also freeze the cookies once they are cooled in a freezer safe container for up to 3 months. Thaw them at room temperature, or in the fridge until soft.
Are these applesauce cookies vegan?
As the recipe is listed the cookies are not vegan. But you can substitute the butter called for in the recipe for a vegan butter, or coconut oil, and use dairy free chocolate chips (dark chocolate chips) and that should make them vegan.
Can I use applesauce in cookies instead of eggs?
This recipe is already made with applesauce instead of eggs. Since the applesauce adds moisture to the cookies we removed the eggs from the recipe to keep them chewy.
In other cookie recipes you may try substituting 1/4 cup applesauce for each egg as called for. But applesauce can make the cookies a little denser, since eggs usually add some lift so you can add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp extra baking powder if you want the cookies to have a lighter texture.
**This easy recipe below doesn’t have any eggs, so you don’t need to worry about making any substitutions.**
Applesauce can also be used to lower the amount of oil/fat in a recipe.
These applesauce chocolate chip cookies are perfect served with a glass of milk. They’re moist, soft, and slightly chewy cookies that have a slight apple flavor, and lots of chocolate chips!
More recipes using applesauce:
- Zucchini Muffins
- Apple Cake with Applesauce
- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Bran Muffins
- Applesauce Pancakes
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Applesauce Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter (softened)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup applesauce
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Equipment
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking pan with parchment paper.
- Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a medium sized bowl. Whisk them together.
- In another bowl combine the butter and sugar until they are mixed well.
- Add the applesauce and vanilla extract to the butter and stir it in until combined.
- Mix the dry ingredients in with the wet ingredients.
- Pour in the chocolate chips and fold them into the batter.
- Scoop the cookies by the 1.5 TBS and roll them into balls, and place them onto a cookie sheet a couple inches apart.
- Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the tops are golden. **
Notes
- The cookies stay thick unless you smack the pan down to help them to flatten. Remove the baking pan after 7 minutes and smack the pan down a few times to help the cookies fall. Put them back in the oven for the final minutes. Then smack the pan down again when you pull them from the oven.
Nutrition
These applesauce chocolate chip cookies were first April 11, 2013. The photos, post and recipe were updated for clarity on August 19, 2022.
If you enjoyed the Original Recipe, here it is. The updated and improved recipe and photos are what are found above.
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 TBS cornstarch
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1/4 cup cinnamon applesauce
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
- Combine flour, baking soda, cornstarch and salt in a medium sized bowl.
- In another bowl combine sugars, oil, applesauce, egg and vanilla
- Mix the dry ingredients in with the wet ingredients.
- Pour in the chocolate chips and mix in well.
- Chill cookie dough in the fridge for 30 minutes up to overnight.
- Scoop cookies out onto a sprayed baking sheet and bake in oven preheated to 350 for a bout 10 minutes.
Brenda says
I ended up with a really dry, shaggy dough. I had to add more apple sauce just to increase humidity. Also there’s two recipes listed here. The cookies from the second one are the ones photographed? That’s what the second recipe says. So what am I making with the first recipe? I’m not very impressed so far with this blog page or it’s recipe…
Aimee says
I have the old recipe listed below the recipe card because I occasionally have people ask for my old recipes when I have updated them to make them better. Most people love the new recipes more, but a few people prefer the old versions, so I left it there for those people. The recipe in the recipe card is the photographed cookies, and the updated recipe which it states, the original recipe was much cakier and not a chewy cookie.
However for your problem of dry cookies, please make sure you are weighing out your flour, or at minimum spooning and leveling it into the measuring cup (not scooping straight from the measuring cup). If you are scooping the cup straight into the flour you will likely end with about 1/4 cup or 1/3 cup extra flour in this recipe, which would give you a much drier dough and cookie.