These protein sugar cookies might be my best protein cookies yet! They’re unbelievably soft and basically melt in your mouth. Each sugar cookie has 7 grams of protein, just 7 grams of carbs, and makes a great on-the-go snack or sweet tooth fix.
But enough talk. I’ll walk you through the recipe below and cover ingredient modifications (you’ll only need 6 ingredients) before the printable protein sugar cookies recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Vanilla Bean Protein Sugar Cookies Recipe Walkthrough
You’ll notice I made these cookies completely in a food processor. You can use a stand mixer or even mix by hand, though!
Step 1: Cream the butter and Swerve together.
All this means is mix the two together until light and fluffy. If you’re using light butter like the recipe calls for, it’s soft enough even straight out of the fridge this should be light work.
Real butter should be at room temp or softened first and will require a bit more work.
If you’re unfamiliar with Swerve Granular, it’s an erythritol-based sweetener that measures and tastes just like sugar. It’s my go-to sugar substitute, and I use their powdered and brown sugar versions all the time as well.
In most recipes, other sugar substitutes that measure 1:1 for sugar usually work just fine. As you’ll see in the recipe notes below, however, protein cookie recipes can be tricky when it comes to ingredient modifications. I’d encourage you to pick up some Swerve to be safe!
You can find Swerve, vanilla bean paste, the food processor, and all the other kitchen tools and staple ingredients I use on my Amazon storefront.
Step 2: Add the protein powder, flour, baking powder, and vanilla bean paste.
After you’ve creamed the butter and Swerve together, simply add the remaining ingredients and pulse in the food processor until you can form a dough. Kind of like my Greek yogurt biscuits recipe, you don’t want to pulverize the dough or you might have tough cookies.
Some crumbles are fine, and you can bring the dough together with your hands.
Can I use a different protein powder?
The recipe calls for PEScience Select, which is a blend of whey and casein protein powder. This blend makes it much thicker in consistency and hard to match with whey-only protein powder.
While you may be able to make substitutions in larger recipes like my Oreo protein cake or in no bake recipes like my pumpkin pie protein cheesecake, I’d highly encourage you to stick to the script for protein cookies.
You can buy as little as a single serving or 5-scoop serving of PEScience Select on their website. And if you decide to pick up a larger tub, you can use my affiliate discount code mason to save 15%.
Can I substitute almond flour for all purpose flour?
Similar to protein powder, small batch cookies are tricky. Since you’ll need to handle the dough to form your protein sugar cookies, almond flour will likely require more flour to make that possible.
If you need a gluten free option, others have used Bob’s Red Mill GF 1:1 flour successfully in the biscuits recipe I mentioned above. Though I haven’t tested in it cookies.
Step 3: Divide the sugar cookie dough and press into cookies.
Transfer your dough to a parchment paper lined baking sheet and divide the dough into 8 pieces. If you have a food scale and want perfectly even protein sugar cookies, I’ve included the weight of each ball in the recipe card.
If your cookie dough is sticky, you can spray your hands with a tiny bit of cooking spray to prevent sticking. You can also refrigerate or pop your dough in the freezer for a few minutes to bring the butter back up to a semi-solid state.
I used my hands to roll and press the cookies flat, but you can use the backside of a glass or smooth surface to create perfect circles. Imperfection is beautiful if you ask me, though. 😉
Sprinkle a bit of Swerve over the pressed cookies and bake. You’re done!
Final Protein Sugar Cookies Recipe Notes
You might be tempted to eat the cookie dough raw, and I can’t blame you. If you do that, however, you may want to toast the flour like in my single serving protein cookie dough recipe to kill any bacteria picked up in processing.
If you’re wondering about adding chocolate chips or other ingredients, I say go for it. My white chocolate peanut butter protein cookies use a similar dough and incorporate chocolate chips at the end when you’re forming the dough.
And when you make/love these cookies, you could cut the recipe in half and use it as the base for my slutty protein brownies. That’s a sugar cookie base topped with Oreo cookies and fudge brownies!
Okay, other than sticking as closely to the recipe as possible, I think that’s it. If you have a question about these vanilla bean protein sugar cookies, drop a comment below and I’ll help you out!
Vanilla Bean Protein Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 scoops, 62g Vanilla Protein Powder*
- 1/2 C 60g All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste, or vanilla extract
- 1/2 C 96g Swerve Granular*
- 1/2 C 112g Light Butter*
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Cream the butter and Swerve in a food processor or stand mixer before adding the protein powder, flour, baking powder, and vanilla bean paste.
- Continue mixing until a ball of dough forms. (I used 6 pulses in the food processor.)
- Divide the dough into 8 42-gram pieces. Roll each piece between your palms into a smooth ball before pressing flat into cookie shapes. (You can spray your hands with a bit of cooking spray to prevent sticking.)
- Sprinkle a pinch of granulated sugar substitute over the cookies before baking for 6-8 minutes. The cookies should be soft in the center and slightly crisp around the edges.
Me and the kids love these cookies! They are great with icing as well, either Masonfit icing or store bought. If adding icing, don’t forget the sprinkles!
Rule number one in the dessert playbook: don’t forget the sprinkles.
These are so easy and quick to make! I used a different type of vanilla protein poweder, and it worked fine. Very tasty.
Would these still work if you rolled out the dough and used a cookie cutter?
I bet they would, but I’ve not tried it. It would probably be a good idea to chill the dough so it’s easier to handle and the cookies can better keep their shape during baking.
I didn’t have light butter, so I cut the butter in half (4TB) and added 112 g of 0% Greek yogurt with the butter and sugar. Turned our great! And upped the protein. Win!
Great improvisation with the yogurt. Thanks for sharing!
I make these constantly! They’re so quick, so easy, and take ingredients that I always have on hand. Even the hubby approves! Definitely satisfies the sweet tooth, with no guilt.
These cookies were FANTASTIC. I used 40g of AP flour and 20g of Almond flour to try to cut the carbs a bit. In hindsight, I should’ve added some almond milk for more moisture (lesson learned). I also substituted stevia powder in place of the Swerve. Holy smokes these cookies were hard to just eat 1!!!
If you are losing weight around the holidays this is a great alternative to curb your sweet tooth and save you some calories!
These are a favorite! I make these for my grandson who is a Type 1 Diabetic..it’s a perfect treat that’s doesn’t spike his blood sugar!
These have changed my life! SO SO SO good. I top them with royal icing (egg white + Truvia confectioners sugar + food coloring) and sprinkles and they no joke taste like the soft lofthouse cookies you can find at the grocery store. I have made them weekly since I discovered this recipe a few weeks ago and I don’t plan on stopping. Thanks for the amazing recipes!!!
So I made these with regular butter and sugar, and vital performance protein powder. They are yummy but very soaked with butter, so I’ll have to try the light butter next time to see if these can get a more baked texture.