I’ve Got a Pantry Full of Healthy Junk, and I Want Cookies!

Tahini Cookies.


This recipe literally came from two jars sitting side-by-side in my pantry: tahini and Nutella. Before I made these cookies, I’d never used either one. The tahini was purchased as part of my initial “pantry-stocking” when I became a vegetarian. The Nutella? I had a coupon and it was free. To the left of these jars, on the same shelf, was a bag of muesli. Voilà! A cookie was born!

This cookie doesn’t necessarily require strict adherence to the following recipe. Adding and subtracting a little will change the density of the cookies—a little more tahini and Nutella and the cookies flatten quite a bit; more oats and these puppies stay put. Whatever happens (as long as you don’t burn them) they are too good to share. I’ve made these twice for one of my best girlfriends and she hides them from her family as if she’s Gollum with Precious. She also has a name for these cookies, which I can’t quite post here in its entirety. Suffice it to say these cookies have a nice fiber-y effect.

I double the following recipe. When the cookies are cooled put them in an air-tight container. They’re better the next day.



6 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons Nutella (vegan recipe for Nutella available here)
½ cup honey (or agave to veganize)
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1½ cups quick cooking oats or muesli (increase to 2¼ cups for denser cookies)
¾ cup trail mix of your choice. (I used Whole Foods’ deluxe trail mix from their bulk bins. It has mixed nuts, seeds, dried fruit, oats and chocolate chips)



1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Cover cookie sheets with parchment paper (in my step-by-step picture I only greased the cookie sheets, but the bottoms of that batch burned quickly).
2. In a medium bowl, stir together all the ingredients. Decide how big you want your cookies. You can drop by tablespoon or by a ¼ cup measure. Either way, they should be 2” apart.
3. Bake for no more than 8 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are slightly brown. You might want to do a test cookie to determine how long you want to bake them for; the bottoms can burn quickly.
4. Cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.