Holiday Cookie Recipes for Dieters

Let's face it--the winter holidays season in the United States is all music, decorations and food. The good stuff: honey-glazed ham, candied yams, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cookies, cakes, pies, candy and fudge! It's a dieter's nightmare, especially dieters like me who just can't do without sweet treats. Well, it used to be.

Thanks to the vigilance of people who love sweets and healthy eating, we can have our (diet) cake and eat it, too. Here are some great cookie and treat recipes I have stumbled upon and tested in preparation for a healthier holiday season and beyond. Enjoy.

The 2-Ingredient Cookie
Ever since I tried this recipe a couple months ago, I make it at least once a week. It's so healthy, in fact, that I sometimes make them for breakfast. Yeah, cookies for breakfast. As a dieter, did you ever think you could have cookies for breakfast? You can find this cookie all over the Internet, but The Burlap Bag has a really great photo and easy instructions for making about a dozen cookies. You can optionally add in raisins, nuts, or other fixins'. I love them with raisins, but my husband wasn't happy until I threw in some white chocolate chips to sweeten them up. My kids love them either way.

By adding in about 50 raisins, you're looking at a recipe that only has about 42 calories and half a gram of fat per cookie. Each has about 9 grams of carbohydrates and 2.8 grams of fiber, so they're great for people with diabetes, too. (Source: MyFitnessPal Recipe Box)

Skinny Chunky Monkey Cookies
Six Sisters' Stuff offers a great Skinny Chunky Monkey Cookie that, in the end, tastes like a chocolate-peanut butter version of the 2-Ingredient Cookie above. It's all the healthy goodness that will satisfy any chocolate craving. Making about 18 cookies, each cookie is about 80 calories with only 2 grams of fat and 11 grams of carbohydrates. These values, derived from the MyFitnessPal Recipe Box, differ from those posted on the Six Sisters' Stuff blog, because they divvy this recipe up into 30 cookies. It's up to you how you want to make them.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookie
If you like peanut butter cookies, but need to cut out enriched flour for whatever reason, Celebrating Family has a delicious recipe for Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. This recipe yielded about 18 cookies for me and I ate probably half of the batch. If you like peanut butter cookies, try not to make these more than once a month. You're looking at 129 calories, 7 grams of fat and 14 grams of carbohydrates per cookie.

You can reduce calories, fat and carbohydrates a bit by swapping out the egg for a mashed banana. Be aware, however, that you will taste the banana, so you won't get that traditional peanut butter cookie taste. You can also swap out the sugar and use Splenda to cut out some carbs, but this version was a bit crumbly and dry. It just depends on what is worth it to you. Just swapping in Splenda reduces the calories to 89, fat to 7 grams and carbs to 4 grams per cookie. (Source: MyFitnessPal Recipe Box)

Flourless Brownies
Did I mention that I'm a chocoholic? Well, I am, and I can down and entire batch of brownies. Seriously. I've done it. Of course, now that I'm eating healthier and exercising to lose weight, I can't do those sorts of things anymore. So, I am so excited to have stumbled upon Homemade Mommy's Flourless Brownies recipe.

These brownies are really good. And you know what? I didn't even let them sit for the required 5 hours. It was more like a torturous half hour before I started cutting in. I made my brownies with honey instead of syrup because that's the sweetener I have around my house, but I have a feeling you'll like these treats no matter which sweetener you choose.
Making about eight brownies, this recipe is great for after-dinner family desserts. Each brownie is 155 calories, 5 grams of fat and 32 grams of carbohydrates. (Source: MyFitnessPal Recipe Box)