These zucchini oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are extra soft with chewy centers and crisp edges. Loaded with chocolate chips, each cookie is flavored with brown sugar and a hint of cinnamon. Best part of all? You can’t taste the vegetable hiding inside.
Zucchini bread & oatmeal chocolate chip cookies: two worlds beautifully collide! Consider these zucchini oatmeal chocolate chip cookies the mandatory solution to a surplus of fresh zucchini. Over the past several years, I’ve tried throwing zucchini into plenty of cookie recipes and this one is the best version I know!
Each Cookie Is:
- Soft with slightly crisp edges
- Flavored with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar
- Moist, tender, and very chewy
- Loaded with whole oats and plenty of chocolate chips
- Delicious in a totally unforgettable way (like any good version of chocolate chip cookies should be!)
Plus, should any cookies survive after a few days, they freeze and thaw like a dream. Also important to note: you cannot taste the zucchini. Vegetables have never been so sneaky.
#1 Success Tip: Blot the Zucchini
Have you ever made my brown butter pumpkin oatmeal cookies? In that recipe, we blot the pumpkin to rid excess moisture. The purpose of this is to reduce the amount of liquid in the cookie dough. Too much liquid = excess spreading and/or a cakey cookie. We’re applying the same technique here. Shred the zucchini using a box grater, then lightly blot it with a clean kitchen towel or paper towel. No need to squeeze out all the moisture; gently blotting is plenty.
You need 1 cup of shredded, lightly blotted zucchini.
Pro Tip: Shred extra to make zucchini cake or one of these 20+ favorite zucchini recipes!
Overview: How to Make Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies
After you blot the zucchini, prepare the cookie dough. The full written recipe is below, but let me walk you through the steps so I can answer any possible questions.
- Whisk the dry ingredients together. This includes oats, all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
- Beat the wet ingredients together. Cream the butter and sugars together. Beat in 1 egg, then a little maple syrup and vanilla. The maple syrup adds flavor, but it also helps the cookies spread out and crisps up the edges. You can use honey instead or you can leave it out completely. (Though I highly recommend its addition!)
- Combine the dry ingredients, zucchini, and the wet ingredients.
- Beat in the chocolate chips.
- Chill the cookie dough. Important step! The cookies will over-spread otherwise.
- Scoop & bake. I always use a cookie scoop when I make oatmeal cookies. Oatmeal cookie dough is pretty sticky and textured, so a cookie scoop is helpful. The medium size is perfect because each dough ball should be around 1.5 Tablespoons of dough.
Other Add-Ins
Though I typically use semi-sweet in these zucchini oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, you can use milk chocolate or white chocolate chips instead. Or try mini chocolate chips or chocolate chunks. For something different, try peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, or even raisins, chopped pecans, or walnuts. Some may think it’s blasphemy to replace chocolate with raisins but I’m ALL FOR IT. If you love oatmeal raisin cookies, you should definitely try raisins here or even 1/2 chocolate chips and 1/2 raisins!
One last tip: This recipe calls for room temperature butter. Remember that room temperature butter is imperative in the creaming step. If butter is too cold or if it’s melted in the slightest, it won’t properly aerate with the granulated and brown sugars in step 3. As a result, the cookies won’t hold their shape and will likely over-spread. Room temperature butter is cool to the touch and about 65°F (18°C), which might be colder than your kitchen. If you’d like to read further, I have an in-depth post about room temperature butter.
More Zucchini Recipes
- Zucchini Bread & Chocolate Zucchini Bread
- Zucchini Muffins
- Chocolate Zucchini Cake
- Zucchini Casserole
- Greek Yogurt Zucchini Bread
- Zucchini Fritters or Zucchini & Sweet Potato Fritters (a favorite!)
And if you need more summertime cookie inspiration, today’s cookies join 25+ others on my Summer Cookie Recipes collection page. 🙂
PrintZucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 14 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 35 minutes
- Yield: 2 dozen
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These zucchini oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are extra soft with chewy centers and crisp edges. You can’t taste the vegetable hiding inside! Chill the dough for at least 2 hours before baking.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (130g) shredded zucchini (lightly blotted, see step 1)
- 2 cups (170g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats*
- 1 cup (125g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed dark or light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 Tablespoon pure maple syrup*
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (180g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Lightly blot the shredded zucchini with a clean kitchen towel or paper towel. No need to squeeze out all the moisture; gently blotting is plenty. You need 1 cup (130g) of shredded, lightly blotted zucchini. Set aside until step 4. (Or cover and refrigerate for up to 1 day. It can be cold when you add it to the dough.)
- Whisk the oats, flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat the softened butter and both sugars together on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and mix on high until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the maple syrup and vanilla and mix on high until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients and the zucchini to the wet ingredients, then mix on low speed until combined. With the mixer still running on low speed, beat in the chocolate chips. Cover and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours (and up to 4 days). If chilling for longer than a few hours, allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Scoop or roll cookie dough, a heaping 1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie (I like to use this medium cookie scoop), and place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 13-14 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft. For crispier edges, bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. While the cookies are still warm, I like to press a few more chocolate chips into the tops– this is only for looks! Cookies are extra soft out of the oven, but become chewier as they cool.
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the refrigerator for 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Baked cookies freeze well up to three months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well – up to three months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Here’s how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Box Grater | Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Zucchini: I do not peel the zucchini before shredding, but you certainly can if you’d like.
- Oats: For these oatmeal cookies, I use and recommend old-fashioned whole oats, not quick or instant oats. Whole oats provide the ultimate hearty, chewy, and thick texture.
- Maple Syrup: The maple syrup adds flavor, but it also helps the cookies spread out and crisps up the edges. You can use honey instead or even molasses for a strong flavor—or you can leave it out completely. (Though I highly recommend its addition!)
has anyone tried raisins instead of chocolate chips? thank you
Hi Ben, Yes! We love these with raisins, or even 1/2 chocolate chips and 1/2 raisins!
I thought these cookies needed more sugar. They didn’t have that rich sweetness I like in a cookie. They probably are more healthy than your average cookie.
Great recipe! We love chewy soft cookies in our family. I put raisins & choc chips. Thank you.
hahaha! For me it was the cottage cheese in the lasagna…
I LOVE this recipe! The first batch disappeared before our eyes. The second batch I made with raisins. This recipe is now my go to cookie reward, thanks for sharing.
Wondering why in many of your recipes where you instruct chilling the cookie dough and then scooping it, why can’t the cookies be scooped and chilled on pans for two hours then placed on cookie sheet to bake? Cold dough is so hard to scoop as I have joint and wrist issues that make it very hard to do. Just wondering if there is some difference in pre-scooping and chilling that way.
Hi Mary, You can try but they likely won’t hold their shape without being refrigerated at all. You can refrigerate them for a shorter amount of time, roll them, and then place them back in the refrigerator to continue chilling.
Found the perfect solution. Refrigerated for 25 minutes, took them out and scooped them onto parchment lined pans, packing them close together to save space. Put them back in the fridge for 2 hours and then pulled them out to bake. Placed the chilled balls on room temperature cookie pans and baked for the required time. Perfect! Baked up thick and stayed chewy and soft for the short time they were around! These rock !!
Mary, I love your advice! I’m going to try that to make it easier for my kids.
I do this with a lot of Sally’s cookies where she recommends refrigerating the dough. Just a short time in the fridge gets it solid enough to scoop but not so hard that my wrist is struggling. Hope it works for you!
Could this be put into a pan and baked as bars instead of cookies?
Hi Karen, You can definitely use this cookie dough for cookie bars. I’m unsure of the exact bake time.
I did put the dough in a parchment lined 13 x 9 inch pan and baked it for 25 minutes. Then completely cooled and cut into bars. They were delicious.
Did you refrigerate the dough before baking?
Made these today. Baked some freezing rest of batch. Maple syrup gives them a little different flavor that we enjoyed.
These cookies were absolutely excellent! Thank you for the recipe. I think tho that I made each cookie smaller than your recipe. I like soft cookies and the 13 minutes was perhaps one minute too long. But even at 13 minutes, the cookies were excellent. And I froze some of them. Even the frozen cookies are fabulous!
Perfection!
So happy to find a great recipe that uses zucchini in cookies! I halved the sugar and chocolate chips, added walnuts and they still tasted great with a wee bit of sweetness. I’m eating one right now with my morning tea and it tastes delicious. Thank you.
Love these cookies! I added a tablespoon of chia seeds because I had them. I made three recipes because I needed to use up a large zucchini. I’ve refrigerated the dough and froze some to make in smaller batches. Let’s just say I’ve eaten as much dough (the raw eggs haven’t killed me yet) as baked cookies! So good!
I made this as a bar cookie. I refrigerated the dough about 75 minutes & baked it for 30 minutes. It’s very good but a little dry & crumbly. Any idea why?
Hi JoAnn, I’m going to assume the cookie bars were overbaked. I haven’t tried this recipe as a cookie bar before so I’m unsure of the best bake time. You could also try adding 2-3 extra Tablespoons of butter to the recipe to help the dough stick together a little more– this should help prevent all the excess crumbling in your cookie bars.
Could I make these as a bar cookie in a 13x9x2 pan? Thanks!
Hi JoAnn, You can definitely use this cookie dough for cookie bars. Yes, a 9×13 inch pan would be best. I’m unsure of the exact bake time.
These are absolutely delicious! I had lots of zucchini and thought, why not give it a try? The cookies came out just like in the pictures. I had bittersweet chocolate chips in my pantry, so I used those instead of semisweet, and it was spot-on.
I see you used green zuchinni…..will I get the same results if I used yellow zuchinni
Yellow zucchini would work great, Sandra!
Can you use “fake” maple syrup or maple extract instead of real maple syrup?
Hi Cathy, the maple syrup adds flavor, but it also helps the cookies spread out and crisps up the edges. Using maple extract would add flavor but wouldn’t help the cookies spread. We haven’t tested the recipe with maple extract- I’d start with 1/2 – 3/4 teaspoon. Yes, you could “fake” maple syrup, honey, or even molasses for a strong flavor– or you can leave it out completely.
Hi Sally I’ve got a loaf of Greek yogurt zucchini bread in the oven right now. My kitchen smells wonderful as it is baking. I do have a question about substituting coconut sugar for white sugar in the cookie recipe.
Hi Linda, I haven’t tested this recipe using a blend of brown sugar and coconut sugar, but let me know if you do. Oatmeal cookies are a little more forgiving, so it may work just fine.
Thanks for getting back to me. I will be making these as soon as I get some more zukes. I will let you know for sure if I use sugar . PS your recipes are awesome.
These are great! I used the honey substitute.
Love these cookies!!
Can you use frozen zucchini?
Hi Judy! I haven’t tried these using frozen (or thawed) zucchini before, but I fear it’s much too wet for this cookie dough. If anything, thaw the zucchini and squeeze the moisture out before using. Let me know how it goes!
Excellent results!! When I made the recipe last time I had too much zucchini, so I froze 1 3/4 cups.
So I unthawed it and squeezed all the water out and used all of the 1 3/4c, but this was a lot less after water was gone 🙂
Worked super!! And I love all your recipes that I have tried, they are excellent and always turn out!
So thank you!!
These smelled terrific while cooking, but spread a lot! I baked them for about 20 minutes and they were still falling apart. Oven temperature was spot on too. I did blot the zucchini and as a previous commenter stated, the dough didn’t firm up when refrigerated. I didn’t want to add more flour. Next time, I will have to squeeze the zucchini. I never have any problems with Sally’s recipes either.
Hi Theresa, thank you so much for trying these cookies. The zucchini may simply have been too wet– removing more moisture will definitely be helpful for next time. Regardless, I appreciate the feedback!
Excellent results! When I made the recipe last time I had too much zucchini, so I froze 1 3/4 cups. So I unthawed it then squeezed all of the water out and used the whole thing and it worked!
All your recipes that I have tried are just excellent!! Thank You
Zucchini bread has always been one of my favorites. I have never had zucchini cookies until now. Awesome recipe. My husband loved these as well. He was surprised since he isn’t a big zucchini fan. Thanks!
Hi Sally, i follow you and love your recipes. I just made these cookies and put them in the fridge like you told us to do. I have a question about the texture. When i put the dough in the fridge the dough seems a little gooey right now. Are they suppose to be gooey at this point before getting cold. I doubled the recipe so i want them to turn out. Should i add more flour so they aren’t so gooey and they hold together. I just am a little worried that they will spread too much even after cooling. Thankyou paula
Hi Paula! The refrigerator helps firm up the dough. Since you’re working with more dough in the bowl, you may want to extend the chill time an extra hour. Did you blot some moisture out of the zucchini?
Hi, thanks for answering. Yes i blotted the zucchini. I noticed in your picture that it came together in a ball when you were ready to cook. I will leave it in the fridge longer. If i find it is still a little mushy should i add more flour or just put it back in the fridge longer. thankyou
My mom grows zucchini (as well as a plethora of other veggies) in her garden and every year she ends up with I would say 15-20 zucchini ranging in size from small to baseball bat length. She always makes and freezes zucchini bread (as well as giving some zucchini away to friends and neighbors) because WHO can eat that much?! Well I sent over your IG post about these cookies and she came over the very next day with some zucchini for me to try it out!! I have all the ingredients prepped, just waiting for my butter to soften. SO excited to try out this recipe! I’ve never been great with cookies – they always end up flat like pancakes and fused to the cookies next to them – but with your helpful tips I can bake cookies now!! (And this is coming from someone who bakes and sells macarons LOL)
I’ll give an updated comment with how these cookies turn out! I’m guessing they’ll be amazing as your recipes never steer me wrong!! Hope your pregnancy is going smooth, and you’re getting some much needed rest!
Hi Rachael, what a sweet and thoughtful comment. Thank you so much for saying hi and all the well wishes, too! Let me know how you both enjoy these!
just took them out of the oven and they really taste good. However, the first pan cooked for 15 minutes and it is still fallling apart gooey! The second pan cooked for 20 minutes and is perfect! I guess just watch your oven! (Oven thermometer registered 350)
Thank you, Sally. I really like how detailed and specific you are in your directions. I sometimes find recipes confusing (never yours) where in some instances you need to mix a lot, where other times if you overmix, the end result becomes tough. I do pay attention to instructions that specify when you should beat with a mixer, or use a whisk, or stir with a spatula, etc. Your instructions show me that you really care that what I’m making will turn out right and delicious! I appreciate it.
Oh great recipe Sally! I have made Zucchini oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and dried cranberries from Two Peas and their Pod – so good – haven’t added maple syrup before – sounds a good addition.
Wondering if you think/have tried adding grated Zucchini to any of your regular chocolate chip cookies as sometimes I just don’t feel like oatmeal cookies …but I’m wondering if adding a cup of zucchini to say your chewy CCCs will negatively affect the outcome – maybe they will be too wet or too dry? A bit hesistant to experiment with limited ingredients during this period but I maybe in future I’ll try 🙂 thanks!!
Love all your zucchini recipes especially your chocolate cake and all types of zucchini breads. Look forward to trying this recipe out in a while 🙂 best wishes!
Hi Vi Kate! You could definitely try adding shredded (and blotted) zucchini to other cookie recipes, but I would also reduce the amount of wet ingredients. It would take a little testing. I like using it in oatmeal cookies because the oats also soak up a little liquid from the zucchini (not just the flour). Let me know if you try these or any variation, though!
I just made these! Wonderful and my kids have each had two cookies! Love the addition of zucchini. I have zucchini that I needed to use and was so excited when I saw this recipe. Definitely recommend the chilling time as my cookies were perfect. Thanks sally for another awesome recipe.
How can I sub gluten-free flour and coconut oil in place of butter in this recipe? Thanks
Hi Eveline! I haven’t tested this recipe with either so I can’t say for sure or guarantee ideal results. Here are all of my gluten free recipes if that’s helpful for you.
I have a question. Is it 140 gr of zucchini before or after blotting?
After