Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Transfer the raw nuts to a food processor and pulse until roughly chopped. If you don't have a food processor (or a high-powered blender), you can easily chop the nuts by hand using a knife and cutting board.

Mash the ripe bananas in a mixing bowl until creamy (it’s okay to leave some small chunks).

Stir in the almond butter until well-combined. Add in the chopped nuts and stir well.

If adding chocolate chips, do so now and stir until a thick gooey dough forms. This cookie dough is meant to be very sticky and won’t resemble regular cookie dough - this is normal.

Use a spoon to drop mounds of dough onto the parchment-lined cookie sheet. The cookie dough won’t spread and it will retain its shape during the baking process, so form it into the shapes you want to end up with - I stick with round cookie shapes.

Bake on the center rack of the oven for 10 to 17 minutes (I do 15), until the cookies are golden-brown and have set up. The timing is dependent on how large the cookies are. For small cookies, bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Bake larger cookies for 15 to 17 minutes.

Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for 20 minutes on the cookie sheet before digging in.