No Bake Almond Cookies
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Published Jul 29, 2020, Updated Jan 21, 2024
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These tasty no bake almond cookies are packed with almonds, dates and cacao nibs. They’re sweet and delicious as is, but insanely good dipped in chocolate.
Can you believe I came up with this recipe in 2011?! Yup, this recipe has stood the test of time and it’s still one of my favorite treats!
No Bake Almond Cookie Ingredients
These cookies required less than 10 ingredients and you don’t have to turn on your oven to whip them up. This happens to be super convenient when it’s 100°F outside! The flavor of the cookies is nutty from the almonds and almond butter and a bit caramely from the medjool dates. They remind me of my 4-ingredient samoas but with almond instead of toasted coconut!
- roasted almonds
- almond butter
- medjool dates – the medjool dates hold the cookies together and give them a delicious caramel flavor
- cacao nibs – cacao nibs are the pure form of chocolate and I love the crunch they give these cookies
- vanilla extract
- salt – you can omit this if your almond butter is salted (or not… it’s up to you)
- chocolate chips and white chocolate chips – dipping the cookies into melted chocolate makes them look adorable and taste delicious, but this step is optional
How to Make No Bake Cookies
The best part about these cookies, in my opinion, is that you don’t even need a bowl and spoon. Just grab your ingredients and toss them into your food processor!
Start by adding the almonds to the food processor and pulse until it’s a coarse almond meal. Add the dates, almond butter, vanilla and salt and process for about a minute until a dough forms. Add in the cacao nibs and pulse once or twice to combine.
Once the mixture is combined (crumbly but sticky enough to hold together), form the dough into small cookies by using your hands or press the dough out on parchment paper and use a cookie cutter to cut out. Each cookie should be about 1 Tablespoon of dough.
Place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and enjoy immediately or place in the fridge for 1-2 hours to firm up. Store any leftovers in a covered container in the fridge for up to a week or the freezer for up to 3 months.
Chocolate Dipped Cookies
Dipping the cookies in chocolate is optional and you certainly don’t have to do both white and dark chocolate… just pick your favorite. If you do decide to dip them, I highly recommend Lily’s Sweet chocolate chips combined with a little coconut oil to thin. Simply dip half of each cookie into the chocolate, sprinkle with extra cacao nibs and place cookie back on the parchment lined baking sheet. Once all cookies are dipped, place baking sheet with cookies into the fridge or freezer until the chocolate has set. Enjoy right away or store in the fridge or freezer.
More No-Bake Desserts to Try
- No Bake Brownies
- Healthy No Bake Cookies
- Healthy Chocolate Banana Ice Cream
- Cottage Cheese Cookie Dough
- No Bake Blueberry Muffin Donut Holes
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bark
- 3 Ingredient Icebox Cake
- Puppy Chow
No Bake Almond Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw or unsalted roasted almonds
- 1 cup about 8-10 medjool dates, pitted
- ½ cup almond butter
- 2 Tablespoons cacao nibs + more for topping
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt, omit if your almond butter is salted
Chocolate for Dipping (optional)
- ¼ cup dark chocolate chips, I used Lily’s
- ¼ cup white chocolate chips, I used Lily’s
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil, divided
Instructions
- Place the almonds in a food processor and pulse until it resembles a coarse meal.
- Add the dates, almond butter, vanilla and salt.
- Pulse/process for about a minute, until a dough forms.
- Add in cacao nibs and pulse once or twice to combine.
- At this point your mixture should be a bit crumbly, but sticky enough to hold together when pressed. Form the dough into small cookies using your hands or by pressing the dough out on parchment paper and using a cookie cutter. Each cookie should contain about 1 Tablespoon of dough.
- Place formed cookies on parchment paper. Enjoy immediately or place in the fridge for 1-2 hours to firm up. Store any leftovers in a covered container in the fridge for one week or the freezer up to 3 months.
For Chocolate Dipped Cookies
- If you want to dip the cookies in chocolate like I did, simply grab two small bowls and add the dark chocolate chips with 1/2 teaspoon of chocolate oil into one and the white chocolate chips and 1/2 teaspoon of coconut oil in the other. Heat the chocolate chips in the microwave in 30 second increments until melted. Dip half of the cookies in the dark chocolate and half in the white chocolate. Place cookies back on parchment and sprinkle with cacao nibs. Place in the fridge or freezer to until the chocolate has set.
- Store any leftovers in a covered container in the fridge for one week or the freezer for a month.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
These look so good! I really wish I had a food processor!
Medjool dates are the best, especially when accompanied with almonds 🙂
If you have a blender, it would work also:)
Thanks for the great recipe! These sound great!
These look awesome Brittany! I am looking forward to making something very similar once I’m settled into my new apartment!
Yay! Let me know how they turn out. 🙂
Pintrest is taking over my life!!!! It is so addicting, but so resourceful! I actually pinned this recipe! 🙂
I KNOW!! Pintrest is so addicting, but I love it as well. Thanks for pinning the cookies.
God bless you. These are just what I need today, and I have all of the ingredients on hand already! I actually make something similar, but I roll them into balls. Calling them cookies sounds 1,000 times better than balls. 😉
I really need a food processor. I just have too many gadgets and no room to put them!
I want to try to make this sooo bad.
They look delicious! 🙂
Glad you weathered the storm ok! Looks like I got out of town just in time, huh?
I just made a similar recipe from Chocolate Covered Katie, but since I’m obsessed with almond butter, these are up next for sure.
You definitely left just in the nick of time! I hope you’re doing well.
These look amazing and so easy. I am definitely going to try them! Thanks for sharing!
I’m loving all of the no-bake cookie recipes going around these days. So simple and delicious (and usually pretty healthy)!
These look amazing!
What a great recipe and can’t wait to try it out.
Talk about Hurricane friendly 🙂
Excellent! I’ll have to try these. I just made some protein “cookies” with dates, almonds, whey protein, and cooked quinoa (all chopped together in food processor)…but the texture is kind of weird. I’m starting to feel addicted to dates, so this came at a good time. And it looks like you can swap out ingredients, and still end up with a tasty treat!
Also, I wanted to thank you for posting your latest Whole Foods tasting experience. Now I have YET another fun idea for zucchini now (the ricotta-stuffed zucchini). They’re on the menu for this week, in fact. 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed the Whole Foods cooking demo recap! I hope the ricotta-stuffed zucchini turn out to be delicious.
I love making recipes like this but I must admit, I lack the will power to have just one or two 🙂 I will try this recipe soon though!
You and me both. 🙂
These look so wonderful!:) I can’t wait to try this recipe out!
I got so excited when I saw YOU were feature on FitSugar today! Glad to see that you are getting deserved recognition!:)
Thank you so much Savannah!
I’m so glad you guys didn’t have too much damage! We lost power Saturday night but had it back by late Sunday morning.
These cookies look incredible!!
Glad to hear that you’re a-okay and have power now as well. Saturday was definitely scary.
yummmm i love no bake anything! mostly bc im lazy…those look awesome!
this is my kind of cookie 😉
glad you are okay from the storm!!
Definitely your kind of cookie. If you ladies ever come to town, I’ll make some for you!
You know i love Larabars! This looks so good! And I love Pintrest too 🙂 I hope you are having a terrific Tuesday morning. I’m about to head off to work and begin my day. Much love and hugs from Austin!
I love how simple these are to make! They look delish!
You’re right – the ingredients totally remind me of Lara Bars! I never have dates in the house – I don’t know why!
i love the addition of cacao nibs…they sound delicious!
mmmm those look fabulous!! thanks for the recipe !! 😀
Thanks for this.
perfect to make with and then send to school with the kinder-girl!
Ooo adding these to my “To-make” list. I’ve been craving cookies lately and you really cant go wrong with dates and nuts as far as I’m concerned. If life would let me, I would get lost for hours on Pinterest. It’s an addiction!
Oh..am loving these healthy and easy peasy cookies..making them ASP.
These look absolutely delicious! I’ve been meaning to try some of ohsheglows.com’s no bake cookie recipes. This one will be added to the list!
Made these last night…YUMMMM!
Hi, these are delicious.
I’m a consummate recipe-admirer and I’ve *finally* challenged myself to actually make some of the recipes I’ve bookmarked; this is one of the first! (Wrote about it: http://foodanddo.lindsaybeeson.com/2011/10/08/day-18-of-101-chipping-away-at-my-fifty-recipes/)
I even made my own almond butter for this! Simple: just roasted an extra cup of almonds and put them in the food processor (when they were still warm) until they butter-ized. That made a little more almond butter than I needed, but no worries … extra almond butter is highly snackable.
would just using almond flour work in place of grinding up the almonds?
I haven’t tried it with almond flour but it seems like it would work. Let me know if you test it out!
I love these cookies, I usually eat them as a snack. I was wondering if you have any idea what the calorie and fat content are per cookie.
If you make 22 cookies they have about 80 calories and 5.5 grams of fat each.
Hi there this is kinda of off topic but I was wanting to
know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually
code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding know-how so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated!
If you use a service like blogger or wordpress you won’t need to code manually. Best of luck starting your blog.
I already have almond meal on hand. Was wondering if 1 C of whole almonds, when processed, is equal to 1 C almond meal or does the amount change?
I looked online and it looks like that is correct. 1 cup of whole almonds should make 1 cup of almond meal. 🙂
My kinda cookies for sure 😉
Another winner! These look delicious.
I made these a ton when you first published them, but haven’t in forever. Thanks for the reminder!
These look delicious! I love almond cookies!
I love these! So simple.
Mmm these look so yummy, Brittany! 🙂 Inspired now to write a recipe post this week.
These cookies ARE really cute! And made from whole food ingredients, I love that 🙂
So excited to make these! Would sunflower butter and cashews work? I have a sensitivity to almonds. Thanks for all the recipes and great information!
Hi Claudia! I bet sunflower butter and cashews would work. Let me know how they turn out if you try it. 🙂
Can’t wait to make these! Do you know if they freeze well?
Thanks!
Yes, they freeze wonderfully. I have a bunch in my freezer right now. I eat them straight from the freezer sometimes. 🙂
Easy peasy love these cookies thanks for the repost made them last year
Can you use almond flour instead of grinding your own almonds?
Hey Ashlee – I think almond meal would likely work, but maybe not almond flour because it’s so fine. In the instructions I say to pulse the almonds until it resembles a coarse meal, so we don’t want the texture to be too fine.
These no bake cookies look super amazing!!
These cookies are so delicious and easy to make. I eat then straight from the freezer. Perfect healthy snack.
Ahh yay! So glad you’re loving these cookies, Lisa! I so appreciate you making them and coming back to leave a comment + star rating. It means the world to me. 🙂
I LOVE the new version of these cookies 🙂 the dipped chocolate is a nice touch. I’ve made something similar in a ball shape. I’ll try them this way next time!
So yummy! Simple recipe. Holds together well. Perfect amount of crunch and sweetness. My husband and I have to limit ourselves to 2/day because they are THAT delicious! Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Ahh yay! That makes me so happy to hear, Stephanie. 🙂 I’m so glad these cookies are a hit! Thanks for making them and for coming back to leave a comment + star rating. I so appreciate it!
Would you recommend soaking the dates in boiling water first to make the food processor blending easier?? I find the dates are the hardest part of blend
Hey Karla! If your dates seem dry and hard you can definitely soak them beforehand, but you shouldn’t have to soak them if the dates are softer.
Can I sub peanut butter for almond butter?
Definitely! Any nut or seed butter will work. 🙂
I have made these cookies 5 or 6 times.
This time to make it easy on myself for Christmas I placed the dough in mini cupcake pan, froze for a bit and then topped with chocolate and cacao nibs. What a great treat.
Thank you EBF for creating this recipe.
You’re so welcome! I’m so glad you’re loving these cookies. 🙂
Once again, a recipe from you that is simple, yummy, and has great-for-you ingredients. Thanks for sharing! My 4 year old & I LOVE these cookies. Oh, AND they look SO pretty too 🙂
Woo!! I love hearing this, Kelsey! Thanks so much for the review. I really appreciate it!
The no-bake almond cookies look perfect. It is a delicious and easy healthy snack with high fiber and healthy fats.
Yay!! So glad you’ve been enjoying these cookies, Tasha! Thanks for the review 🙂
Could almond flour be used?