Grandma’s Famous Breakfast Cookies Recipe

My grandma had the best oatmeal cookie recipe that made a lightly sweet breakfast cookie. Cookies for breakfast?? Yes! This breakfast cookie recipe is a yummy oatmeal breakfast cookie that is extra delicious when crumbled into a bowl and milk poured on top. This recipe breakfast cookies is the perfect grab and go breakfast idea. Loaded with the goodness of oats, raisins & walnuts, breakfast cookies are a favorite recipe at my house for generations.

Grandma’s Breakfast Cookies Recipe

The funny thing about this story is my grandma who passed down this recipe never like sweets. She never served dessert and considered anything out of the garden as “sweet enough”.

How she decided that the one time we got cookies at her house was for breakfast, I will never know! But one of the things I love about this breakfast cookie recipe is it is not very sweet and is tastily hearty. I think in many cases you can even call this healthy breakfast cookies.

Related: 50 Amazing Pancake Recipe Ideas for Breakfast

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Ingredients Needed for Breakfast Cookie Recipe

• *1 cup of butter
• **2 eggs
• 2/3 cup of milk
• ***1 cup sugar 
• 1 t baking soda
• 2 cups of flour
• 2 cups oatmeal
• ****1 cup walnuts, pecans, cashews or almonds
• *****1 cup of raisins
• salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg

*You can substitute 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce for 1/2 cup of the butter.

**You can substitute 1 mashed banana for one egg.

***You can even decrease the amount of sugar slightly if you are using applesauce or banana.

****If you leave out the nuts, increase the oatmeal by 1/2 cup.

*****You can substitute cut dried fruit like cranberries, cherries, dried apples or mixed dried fruit mixes for the raisins.

Directions to Make Grandma’s Easy Breakfast Cookies

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Step 1

In a mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter and sugar. Then add eggs and milk. You can use a stand or hand mixer for this step, or you can simply use a whisk.

Step 2

In a separate mixing bowl, stir together the remaining ingredients except the raisins and walnuts. Add the dry ingredients to the wet slowly, stirring until combined.

Step 3

Stir in the raisins and walnuts.

The dough will be quite sticky and the consistency of wet cement…I am serious.

Step 4 

Drop the cookie dough by Tablespoon-fulls onto a parchment lined large baking sheets and bake at 350 until  golden brown – about 8-10 minutes. 

Step 5

Cool the cookies on wire racks.

How to Store Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

• Store in an airtight container or ziploc bag. They will keep for up to a week if stored properly.
• Or, you can put them in the freezer where they’ll hang out happily for up to 3 months!

Additional tips for making these yummy oatmeal raisin breakfast cookies

• If you would like perfectly shaped cookies, chill the dough for one hour and roll into balls before baking.
• When baking cookies, you can bake them 2 cookie sheets at a time. Stagger each cookie sheet on a different height rack, and switch them around half-way through the baking time.
• Parchment paper on the cookie sheet cuts back on the cleaning, but be careful when placing a parchment lined cookie sheet into the oven. It’s slippery and can slide off the pan easily!
• If you don’t have parchment paper on hand, grease your cookie sheet before dropping the cookies on them.
• Add a little protein by substituting 1/2 the butter with peanut butter, cashew butter or almond butter. The taste and texture will be a little different, but yummy!
• Dairy-free butter substitutes work well in this recipe and I often pair them with applesauce for extra flavor to make this cookie recipe vegan. My favorite non-dairy milk to pour over is soy milk or coconut milk. Of course, the obvious would be oat milk! Substituting flax egg for regular eggs works too.
• A pinch of ginger is fun to add for a bit more spice. Or go crazy with substituting candied ginger pieces for a portion of the raisin amount.

How this recipe became a family favorite breakfast recipe.

We are just a wild and crazy bunch.

This recipe is from my grandmother.   It was one of the rare desserts she made except for her infamous garbanzo taffy which will NOT be appearing in a future recipe post.  

Because these oatmeal cookies aren’t very sweet, my family crumbled them up, poured milk over them, and ate them like breakfast cereal.

This oatmeal breakfast cookie recipe is also something that the boys have access to for snacks. They prefer to eat them as cookies and by the handful.

What the Best Breakfast Cookie Recipe Taste Like?

This breakfast oatmeal cookie recipe is the perfect balance of chewy and soft with a satisfying chewiness complimented by the raisins or dried fruit. The cookie’s exterior typically has a slight crispness to it, especially around the edges, offering a delightful contrast to the softer, lighter middle with notes of apple cinnamon and all things fall spice.

More Breakfast & Cookie Ideas from Kids Activities Blog

Do you have a favorite family recipe? Have you ever eaten cookies for breakfast?