Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars made low-carb with almond flour and sugar-free sweetener. These tasty cookie bars (or keto blondies) are ideal for those following a low-carb or keto diet, and/or folks who need to watch their sugar intake.
Grain-free and sugar-free, these lumps of gooey delight really quench a cookie craving when you have a hankering for something sultry but you don’t want your blood sugar to shoot through the roof.
Bars or cookies…do you have a preference? The majority of the time, I’d be equally happy with either cookies or bars, but sometimes you just want something thick and buttery to sink your teeth into.
Enter: Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars…or Keto Blondies, depending on how you view the world.
Keto chocolate chip cookie bars are grain-free, sugar-free, and are lower in carbohydrate than your standard chocolate chip cookie bar.
Ingredients for Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars:
Butter: Butter gives these low-carb blondies that iconic cookie flavor we all love so deeply. Fat in baked goods adds flavor and helps bind everything together. If you do ghee instead of butter, feel free to make the swap for lactose-free cookie bars.
Sugar-Free Sweetener: In order to keep these cookie bars sugar-free, we use a sugar-free granulated sweetener. You have many options when it comes to sweeteners! Use your favorite granulated sugar-free sweetener, such as Truvia, monk fruit sweetener, xylitol, erythritol, Swerve, etc. My favorite zero-calorie sweetener for baking is Swerve.
Egg: Used to bind and puff these cookie bars, we just need one egg to do some heavy lifting.
Pure Vanilla Extract: Cookie bars are always made better with vanilla extract! It adds that warm and inviting flavor that you just can’t get in any other way!
Almond Flour: The base of these grain-free low-carb cookie bars is almond flour. Almond flour makes a light and fluffy treat with the perfect crisp when combined with the right ingredients! It is also full of healthy fat, fiber, and some plant-based protein. I use Super Fine Almond Flour, which ensures the texture is similar to a treat using regular all-purpose flour.
Varying brands of almond flour contain different absorbencies. If you’re finding the cookie dough to be overly dry or crumbly, add melted butter or coconut oil one tablespoon at a time until it comes together in a thick dough.
Baking Soda & Sea Salt: Used for leavening the cookie bars and holding them steadfast, we use baking soda. Sea salt makes all the flavors POP!
Chocolate Chips: Stevia-sweetened chocolate chips are the chocolate portion of these cookie bars! If you have a favorite sugar-free chocolate bar, you can chop it up and use it for chocolate chunks.
How to Make Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line an 8” x 8” baking pan with parchment paper.
Beat the butter in a stand mixer (or in a mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer) until fluffy. Add the sweetener and vanilla extract and beat until creamy until fluffy. Scrape the sides of the mixer with a rubber spatula. Add egg and beat until well combined.
Add the almond flour, baking soda, sea salt and cinnamon and beat until well-combined. Beat in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Transfer the cookie dough to the baking pan and press into an even layer. If desired, add more chocolate chips on top!
Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until edges are golden brown and the bars seem firm. I let mine go for 20 minutes, then turn off the oven and let them sit for another 5 minutes in the oven.
Note: for gooier, under-baked bars, bake for 18 to 20 minutes and for firmer bars, bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
Remove bars from the oven and allow them to cool for at least 40 minutes before slicing and serving.
Can I Replace Almond Flour with Coconut Flour?
I don’t recommend using coconut flour as a 1:1 replacement for almond flour in this recipe because it absorbs 4 times more liquid than any other flour. In order to bake cookie bars using coconut flour, you will need to follow an entirely different recipe.
If you have an allergy to almonds, you can use hazelnut flour in a 1:1 replacement in this recipe.
If you’re looking for more delicious keto dessert recipes, check out my Giant Chewy Keto Chocolate Chip Cookies, Keto Snickerdoodles, and my Espresso Keto Brownies!
My cookbook, Paleo Power Bowls, is now available! CLICK HERE to check it out. Thank you for your support!
If you make this recipe, please feel free to share a photo and tag me at @The.Roasted.Root on Instagram!
Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, or ghee, softened (not melted)
- 1/3 cup sugar-free sweetener of choice
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups Super Fine Almond Flour
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon optional
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup sugar-free chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line an 8” x 8” baking pan with parchment paper.
- Beat the butter in a stand mixer (or in a mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer) until fluffy. Add the sweetener nd vanilla extract and beat until creamy until fluffy. Scrape the sides of the mixer with a rubber spatula. Add egg and beat until well combined.
- Add the almond flour, baking soda, sea salt and cinnamon and beat until well-combined. Beat in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
- Transfer dough to the parchment-lined baking pan and press into an even layer. If desired, add more chocolate chips on top!
- Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until edges are golden brown and the bars seem firm. I let mine go for 20 minutes, then turn off the oven and let them sit for another 5 minutes in the oven. For gooier, under-baked bars, bake for 18 to 20 minutes and for firmer bars, bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
- Remove bars from the oven and allow them to cool for at least 40 minutes before slicing and serving.
Video
Nutrition
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I made these with a couple of modifications — instead of 1/3 cup sweetener, I used 1/4 granular sweetener and 1/4 cup brown sugar sweetener based on previous comments, and then I substituted half of the chocolate chips for 1/2 cup walnuts. Only took 16 minutes in the oven before turning a caramel brown over the top. This turned out amazing! I’m definitely going to make this again and again. Thank you!
That sounds amazing, Janelle! I’ll have to try your same changes the next time I make the cookie bars. I appreciate you sharing your experience! xo
Hi! Love your work! 🥰 Do you think homemade date paste would work ok instead of Swerve, etc? I know it would be less Keto friendly, that’s ok with me! Thank you!!
Hi Amelia! I actually have zero experience with date paste so I’m not sure whether or not you would need to make other changes to the recipe. My guess is the slight addition of moisture would necessitate a little more flour, but it’s difficult to say without trying it myself. If you’re up for some experimentation, add the date paste (maybe 1/4 cup? 1/3 cup?), then see what the cookie dough looks like. If it seems gooey, I’d add a little additional almond flour until it resembles regular cookie dough. Hope this helps! Let me know if you try it 🙂
Was not anywhere near sweet enough. I’d either double the artificial sweetener, or add sugar free frosting to the top.
Thanks for the feedback, Sunnie. Do you mind sharing what kind of sweetener you used?
Simple and yummy recipe. They really satisfy my sweet tooth while keeping within the keto diet. I like that there are no ingredients that I didn’t have on hand. I used brown swerve.
I’m so thrilled to hear you enjoy the cookie bars, Kim! Thanks so much for sharing your experience. xo
Hello!
I was going to use This recipe to make my daughter a cookie cake…
But she’s such a choc freak….
Do you think you can maybe suggest adding a certain amount of cocoa powder to make these like a rocky road type cookie? (Well more like double chocolate) Any ideas please would be super helpful! This all looks amazing!!! Thank you! ❤️
Hi Melissa! I actually have a Keto Double Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe that may be a great fit: https://www.theroastedroot.net/keto-double-chocolate-chip-cookies/ You could double (or triple) the recipe depending on what size you’re looking for and add marshmallows. Chopped nuts work great too if she likes nuts. As an alternative, I made a Keto Brownie Cake recipe (https://www.theroastedroot.net/keto-brownie-cake/) not too long ago that she may enjoy 🙂 xo
For those who have nut allergies, can you use this recipe with sunflower flour ?
Thanks
Hi Donna! I’ve never used Sunflower flour, so I’m not sure what changes would need to be made, if any. If you’ve had success using it as a 1:1 replacement for almond flour in the past, I would say it should work great 🙂 As a side note, I have a keto coconut flour chocolate chip cookie recipe which may work better: https://www.theroastedroot.net/keto-chocolate-chip-cookies-with-coconut-flour/ You can replace the almond butter/peanut butter in that recipe with sunflower seed butter.
Oh my word! I just made these tonight and ate one warm from the oven with a scoop of carb smart vanilla ice cream. It was gooey and ooey and sweet and rich. The perfect dessert. Will definitely be making these again.
I’m so thrilled you enjoy the cookie bars, Tara! Love the idea of combining them with ice cream!
Can iodized salt be used in place of sea salt?
Hi Kalin! Yes, iodized salt works, but I’d use 1/2 the amount because it has a saltier flavor than sea salt 🙂 enjoy!
Hi. These are great but I’m trying to figure out how one serving (1 Bar) is 6 net grams of carbs. The only thing with real carbs is the Almond flour (1.5 cups = 18g net carbs + 1 egg (.4 g. carbs) divided by 16 bars = 1.15 g.
I don’t really count the choc chips with Erythritol because it’s 8g carbs (14g) – 6g fiber= 3g net carbs which is sugar alchohol from the Erythritol (which is excreted).
However, I always seem to have trouble with these calculations. Let me know where I’ve gone wrong. Thanks.
Can u use gluten flour instead of almond flour for the cookie recipe?
Hi Brenda! I haven’t tested the recipe using GF flour so I’m not sure whether or not it would be a 1:1 replacement for the almond flour. I would omit the oat fiber and try the GF Flour as a replacement for just the almond flour. Let me know how they turn out! xoxoxo
I don’t understand how the pan is an 8×8 but you can make 16 servings? I made it with a 9×9 and my square sizes are the same in the picture but only made 9 squares? If I would have used an 8×8, they would have been tiny and not the size in the picture. I wasn’t too thrilled about this because each square is more calories this way. So I had to cut them tiny tiny.
I’ve made these bars twice now. The first time I used unsalted butter. The second time I used ghee butter. Both times, the bars were crumbly and wouldn’t stick together in form. What would you suggest?
Hi Joni!
A couple of questions – what brand of almond flour did you use, and did you allow the bars to cool to room temperature after baking them?
You could try adding 2 to 3 tablespoons of coconut flour, but I’d be curious if its a difference in the brand of almond flour. I’ve found varying brands of almond flour have different absorbencies, so depending on the brand it could be that yours absorbs more. But if you used Bob’s Red Mill’s finely ground almond flour, I would say adding the coconut flour should do the trick.
Also, you could try my Keto Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe if you are open to cookies instead of bars 😀 Hope this helps!! xoxoxox
WOW! I made these last night and my husband says they are officially the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve made (and I’ve been doing all of our keto cooking for several years!). I mixed granulated swerve with brown-sugar style swerve to give it a bit of Tollhouse cookie flavor. The texture definitely improves after they have a chance to sit and firm up. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe! It was quick, easy, and made the perfect amount.
That’s so great to hear, Beth! Thrilled you and your husband enjoy them. Definitely agree regarding the texture! Cheers! xoxox