Chocolate Chip Protein Cookies

These chocolate chip protein cookies are perfectly soft and chewy with chocolate chunks and a sprinkle of salt to make them basically melt in your mouth. You’ll find lots of protein cookie recipes on my blog, but this may be my best yet.

The recipe makes 8 big ol’ cookies with 140 calories each, but I’ve included notes on making 12 smaller cookies for a great 95-calorie sweet tooth fix. I’ll walk you through the recipe from start to finish and cover ingredient modifications below. And you’ll find a printable recipe at the bottom of the post.

Chocolate Chip Protein Cookies Recipe Walkthrough

You’ll notice I used a food processor to make my cookie dough. Feel free to use a stand mixer or trusty mixing bowl and elbow grease method, though! If you’re curious about the food processor or any other tools/ingredients I use, you can find everything on my Amazon storefront.

Step 1: Cream the butter, vanilla, and both sugar substitutes together.

This process is essentially the same as my protein sugar cookies, with the only difference being the addition of Swerve brown. Similar to the sugar cookies, I used vanilla bean paste for these chocolate chip cookies, but extract will work fine.

There’s nothing fancy about “creaming” in this step. You just want a light and fluffy mixture with no lumps of brown sugar remaining.

Step 2: Add the protein powder, flour, and leavening agent before folding the chocolate chunks into the dough.

For even distribution of the dry ingredients, the recipe calls for mixing them together in a separate bowl first. But I’ll let you in on a little secret for actually reading these notes. I’ve tested these chocolate chip protein cookies with everything thrown straight in the food processor, and they turned out fine!

If you’re using a food processor, 3-4 pulses should do it. You’re not after a completed dough here—just enough to incorporate most of the dry ingredients.

Add the chocolate chunks (or your choice of chocolate chips) into the crumbly dough, use a spatula to fold everything together, and you’re ready to form your cookies!

Notice how the spatula takes the cookie dough from crumbly to smooth cookie dough with just a few passes.

Step 3: Forming Your Chocolate Chip Protein Cookies

You can get perfectly even cookies by weighing the total dough and dividing by the number of cookies you’d like to make. If you follow the recipe as written, each piece of cookie dough should weigh about 48 grams.

As always with dough, you can spray your hands with a tiny bit of cooking spray to prevent any sticking when forming the cookies.

Once formed, it’s time to bake. 7-9 minutes should do the trick. The cookies should spread a tiny bit and be slightly brown around the edges but soft and almost gooey in the very center. They’ll continue to firm up as they cool so don’t over bake.

Ingredient Notes

Cookie recipes can be tough to make ingredient substitutions in since you’ll need to handle the dough. Not to mention, using the wrong protein powder or sweetener could create dry or tough cookies. So if at all possible, stick to the script.

Protein Powder

For the protein powder, I used PEScience Select, which is a blend of whey and casein. If you’re using a whey-only protein, you may need to use a bit more protein or flour to make up for the lack of casein.

As a side note, you can use my affiliate discount code mason to save 10% on PEScience products. You can even order single serving or 5-serving samples to try these cookies or other recipes like:

• No Bake Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake
• Oreo Cake
• Peanut Butter Cookies
• White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

Sugar Substitutes

I use Swerve in nearly all my dessert recipes. They make zero-calorie sugar substitutes that taste and measure just like real sugar.

If you’re using another sweetener, be sure it can substitute 1:1 for sugar. This includes the weight. If you use a super concentrated sweetener, you’ll likely end up with sticky cookie dough that can’t be handled.

Okay, you should be good to go! If you have questions about these chocolate chip protein cookies, leave a comment or join my Facebook group and ask there! 

4.67 from 117 votes

Servings: 8 Cookies

Chocolate Chip Protein Cookies

By Mason Woodruff

Soft chocolate chip cookies made with protein powder, chocolate chunks, and mix of granulated and brown sugar substitutes.

Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 10 minutes mins

Total: 20 minutes mins

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Ingredients

• ▢ 2 scoops, 62g Vanilla Protein Powder*
• ▢ 1/2 C 60g All Purpose Flour
• ▢ 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
• ▢ 1/2 C 112g Light Butter
• ▢ 1/4 C 48g Swerve Granular
• ▢ 1/4 C 48g Swerve Brown
• ▢ 1 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste, or extract
• ▢ 1/4 C 48g Chocolate Chunks
• ▢ 1/4 tsp Kosher Salt

Instructions 

• Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Mix the protein powder, flour, and baking powder together in a small bowl. Set aside.
• Add the light butter, Swerve brown, Swerve granular, and vanilla bean paste to a food processor, stand mixer, or large bowl. Mix until light and fluffy.
• Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix until a crumbly dough begins to form. (I used 4 pulses in the food processor.)
• Remove the blade from the food processor and add the chocolate chunks. Use a rubber spatula to bring the dough together into one large ball.
• Divide the dough into 8 pieces and press between your palms to flatten. Place the cookies on the parchment paper, sprinkle with salt, and bake for 7-9 minutes until the cookies are still slightly soft in the center. Transfer to a wire rack to cool the cookies.

Notes

*I used PEScience Select protein powder.

**Swerve sweeteners are erythritol-based sweeteners that taste and measure just like sugar. If you're using another sweetener, make sure it's a 1:1 substitute for granulated and brown sugar, respectively.

Nutrition Information Notes

• Each chocolate chip protein cookie has 4 Smart Points.
• If you make 12 smaller cookies, each cookie has 95 calories, 4.7g protein, 6.8g carbs, 5.5g fat, and 3 Smart Points.
• Nutrition facts do not include any carb content from the zero-calorie Swerve sweeteners.

Nutrition

Serving: 1Cookie, Calories: 143kcal, Carbohydrates: 10.1g, Protein: 7g, Fat: 8.3g

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