These Trail Mix Cookies are soft and chewy, sweetened with brown sugar and honey, and filled with trail mix and oats. Use your favorite combination of nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and chocolate chips to create your perfect cookie!
These cookies walk a fine line between indulgent and wholesome. Nuts, seeds, and oats make them healthier than the average cookie, but chocolate chips, brown sugar, and honey make them sweet and tasty. Enjoy these cookies for dessert, pop them in a lunch box, or enjoy as an on-the go-snack.
If you’re like us and you love lots of mix-ins in your cookies you’ll love this recipe! These oatmeal cookies are loaded with creamy, crunchy, chewy mix-ins. They are addicting.
Be sure to also try our Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies, Kitchen Sink Cookies, Oatmeal Cream Pies, or Maple Oatmeal Cookies.
Recipe overview
Start by making the oatmeal cookie dough:
- Combine dry ingredients (flour, oats, salt, baking soda).
- Beat butter brown sugar, and honey.
- Add egg and vanilla to sugar mixture.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
Once the dough is prepared you can stir in the mix-ins. I add one heaping cup of nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and chocolate chips.
Scoop the dough into 2-tablespoon balls and place on parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
Recipe tips
- Butter should be softened to cool room temperature. It should be soft but still cool to the touch. If the butter is over-softened (or beginning to melt) the cookies will spread too much in the oven.
- Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. This helps the cookies bake evenly and prevents them from spreading too much. Bonus: it also makes cleanup a breeze!
- Use a cookie scoop for evenly sized cookies. I like to make these cookies fairly large, about 2-tablespoons of dough per cookie.
- For thicker cookies leave the dough balls in mounds. For thinner cookies (pictured), lightly press down on the dough mounds before baking.
- Nestle a few extra “chips” or nuts on top of the dough balls before baking. This makes for a prettier cookie.
- Under bake the cookies. You should remove these cookies from the oven when they are just starting to turn light golden brown around the edges but they are still undercooked in the center. They should be so soft that you cannot pick them up off the baking sheet without them falling apart. They will firm up as they cool on the baking sheet.
What trail mix to use
You can use already prepared trail mix or you can use your own blend of nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and chocolate chips. Roughly chop any large nuts and avoid savory flavored trail mix.
If all of your trail mix is salted you can omit the salt in the recipe. If some components are salted (for example, I only had roasted salted pepitas), you can reduce the added salt or leave it based on your taste preferences. I like a noticeable salty-sweet balance.
Serving and storage
Serving: Serve these cookies at room temperature, chilled, or slightly warm (not too warm or they’ll fall apart).
Storage: Store tightly covered at room temperature for up to 3 days or refrigerated for up to 5 days. Cookies may be frozen for up to 3 months (double wrapped).
More cookie recipes
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Recipe
Trail Mix Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cups old fashioned rolled oats
- ¾ cups all purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt, see note
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened but still cool
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar, packed, make sure it’s fresh and soft
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 ½ cups roughly chopped trail mix, divided (see note)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a medium-sized bowl, combine oats, flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- With a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, brown sugar and honey for 1-2 minutes, until smooth and creamy. Add egg and vanilla and beat to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat until combined. Stir in 1¼ cup of trail mix.
- Scoop the dough into 2-tablespoon balls and place a couple inches apart on the baking sheets (the dough will be sticky). If the dough is too sticky you can chill it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Use the remaining ¼ cup trail mix to press some pieces onto the top of each dough ball (this makes the trail mix more visible and makes for a prettier cookie). For thinner cookies (pictured) lightly press down on the dough balls to flatten just slightly. Or leave the dough balls in a mound for thicker cookies.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are golden brown and the very center is still slightly underdone. Do not over bake, as they will finish cooking on the baking sheet. Place the baking sheets on wire racks and allow the cookies to cool completely.
Notes
- Butter should be softened to cool room temperature. It should be soft but still cool to the touch. If the butter is over-softened (or beginning to melt) the cookies will spread too much in the oven.
- Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. This helps the cookies bake evenly and prevents them from spreading too much. Bonus: it also makes cleanup a breeze!
- Use a cookie scoop for evenly sized cookies. I like to make these cookies fairly large, about 2-tablespoons of dough per cookie.
- For thicker cookies leave the dough balls in mounds. For thinner cookies (pictured), lightly press down on the dough mounds before baking.
- Nestle a few extra “chips” or nuts on top of the dough balls before baking. This makes for a prettier cookie.
- Under bake the cookies. You should remove these cookies from the oven when they are just starting to turn light golden brown around the edges but they are still undercooked in the center. They should be so soft that you cannot pick them up off the baking sheet without them falling apart. They will firm up as they cool on the baking sheet.
Nutrition
Nutritional Information is an estimate based on third-party calculations and may vary based on products used and serving sizes.
Tried this recipe?Leave a comment and rating below!Recipe updated January 2022
Morgan
This recipe doesn’t work at all for some reason they just melted and burnt ! They wouldn’t cook properly at all .
Celebrating Sweets
Hi, Morgan. After reading your comment I retested this recipe and the cookies came out fine for me. If your cookies melted, most likely your butter was too soft (possibly even beginning to melt) when you prepared the dough. Also, you used real butter, right? Not butter substitute or margarine? It should have been 1/2 cup/1 stick/8 tablespoons of butter. If they burnt your oven temp might be running high or your dough balls might have been smaller than mine and needed less cooking time. The only other factor I can think of is the trail mix that you used. I typically use a mixture of nuts, dried fruit and chocolate chips – maybe your mix had something different that might have affected the texture? I’m sorry this recipe didn’t work for you. I’ve tested it several times and I am confident that it should work as written. Thanks for stopping by.
Sonya M Fowler
Can I substitute Almond four for the white flour?
Celebrating Sweets
Hi, Sonya. That will change the texture of the cookies quite a bit. My concern is that they wouldn’t hold their shape without the wheat flour. If you’re looking to eliminate wheat flour you could sub a cup-for-cup gluten free blend. Best of luck if you give it a shot.
Prasanna Hede
OMG these are so yumm and healthy too. I want to try these!
Brian Jones
Loving all the fruits and nuts in these, I’ll choose sticky oatmeal cookies over any other cookie any day of the week 🙂
Luci's Morsels
Yum! These looks delicious and I love that each cookie delivers protein. What a great idea! Thanks for sharing! Luci’s Morsels | fashion. food. frivolity.
Michelle @ Vitamin Sunshine
These cookies look amazing, and your photos are stunning! I love Bob’s Red Mill. I live in Asia part of the year and I can get so many speciality flours and ingredients because that brand is carried all over here.
Jane
Yes! Love the look of these, they’s be just perfect when camping 🙂
Jane x
Juli
These cookies look absolutely DELISH! Your photography is stunning! 🙂 I am going to make these for my family.
Tanya
How can I make this cookie diabetic
Celebrating Sweets
Hi, Tanya. If you’re looking to reduce the sugar you can trying swapping the brown sugar for a low sugar replacement like Splenda Brown Sugar Blend. I’ve never tried it though so I can’t say for sure.
Melissa
I made these today. They turned out very yummy! Thanks for the great recipe.
Celebrating Sweets
So glad that you liked them! Thanks for stopping by!
Lannie
Can you substitute the butter for oil?
Celebrating Sweets
I would not recommend it. I think the cookies would spread way too much when they’re baking.