Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Cookies

Gluten-free, no refined sugar, and Paleo-friendly. These Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Cookies will be your new favorite treat!

If you ask me, there’s nothing better than a warm, ooey gooey chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven. That’s something I learned that pretty early on in life courtesy of my grandma. To this day, she still makes THE BEST chocolate chip cookies that I’ve ever had. And you’ll never convince me otherwise.

That being said, those chocolate chip cookies aren’t exactly full of “wholesome” ingredients. They’re made with traditional flour, sugar, and the dreaded shortening. *shivers* The ingredients may not be nourishing, but the taste is out of this world. And when I heard that a snowstorm would be blowing into Pittsburgh, I had a STRONG craving for some chocolatey goodness.

While I definitely still enjoy a few of her amazing cookies every time I get the chance, I try not to bake with those kinds of ingredients if I can help it. After rummaging through my pantry and looking at a few different cookie recipes, I knew that I would be able to come up with something that was both delicious AND nourishing. In particular, I focused on the flours, sugar, fat, and chocolate.

Enter: Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Cookies.

The Flours

I used a mix of almond and coconut flours to keep these cookies gluten- and grain-free. I find that almond flour alone usually yields more crumbly baked goods, and I was looking for fluffy clouds of deliciousness here. Unfortunately, you can’t substitute the flours if you want this recipe to work correctly. If you just have coconut flour on hand, try my Grain Free Coconut Monster Cookies!

I love these flours because they’re made with real, whole food ingredients instead of processed wheat grains. I don’t have celiac disease, but that doesn’t mean I’m not sensitive to it. In fact, non-celiac gluten sensitivity affects more people than you probably realize. The symptoms aren’t all stomach-related, either: headaches, joint pain, and fatigue could all be signs of it. I don’t know whether or not I have this sensitivity, but by using these alternative flours, I’m protecting myself either way!

The Sugar

My grandma uses light brown sugar to give her cookies a great taste. But I wanted to use something a little more health-friendly than that: maple syrup! And I mean pure maple syrup. None of that high fructose corn syrup nonsense. (Sorry not sorry Mrs. Butterworth.)

Pure maple syrup is still sugar, but it’s unrefined. This means that it still contains plenty of minerals that your body needs to function correctly, like magnesium, potassium, and iron. And you only need a hint of it to make these cookies’ sweetness shine.

The Fat

Here’s where it gets a little hazy.

I know that butter isn’t part of a Paleo diet. It contains milk solids, after all. However, I still eat plenty of butter (and other dairy products like Greek yogurt and feta cheese) for that matter, and I’m okay with it.

This Kerrygold Irish Butter comes from grass-fed cows and is honestly one of the best tasting butters in the world to me. So when it came time to choose a fat for these cookies, I chose Kerrygold.

If you’re trying to make these cookies full-blown-Paleo style, you could always substitute coconut oil for the butter here. But if you ask me, butter is the defining taste for a great chocolate chip cookie, so I’ll still be using the good stuff.

The Chocolate

Oh lordy, the chocolate.

This is the only ingredient I had to actually go out and buy to make these babies, and I’m OH SO GLAD I did.

Eating Evolved is a company that specializes in making vegan & Paleo gluten-, dairy-, and soy-free sweets. (Yes, that’s a mouthful, but yes, it’s worth it.) They also only use organic coconut sugar to sweeten their treats, which is astounding when you really think about it.

In fact, the back of their Dark Chocolate Bar lists only three ingredients: Organic Cacao, Organic Coconut Sugar, and Organic Cacao Butter. Next time you pick up a Hershey bar, do me a favor and check how many ingredients they list. I promise it’s way more than three.

This post isn’t sponsored (although I would love if it was!), but I highly recommend using Eating Evolved chocolate in these cookies. It’s worth the extra trek to Whole Foods.

Mix all of those ingredients together with some extras like cardamom, bake, and finish with a sprinkle of pink Himalayan sea salt. All of the taste of grandma’s baking WITH all of the health you can get from a cookie. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.