Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
These chocolate chip cookie bars are made with whole wheat flour, plenty of chocolate, and walnut chunks.
Whole wheat chocolate chip cookie bars are the variation on the classic that you definitely need to make! Baking them into bars instead of individual cookies makes these one of the EASIEST baked desserts out there.
These cookie bars have a delicious nutty flavor thanks to the whole wheat, and they are delightfully crisp on the outside and chewy in the center. Adding walnuts is optional, but I honestly can’t imagine the bars without them.
Ingredients you’ll need
Here’s everything you’ll need to make these whole wheat chocolate chip cookie bars (full recipe below):
- Butter
- Light or dark brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Eggs
- Vanilla extract
- Whole wheat flour
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
- Chopped walnuts (optional)
How to make whole wheat chocolate chip cookie bars
Have I mentioned how EASY cookie bars are to make?
- Mix dough. These bars use the creaming method to combine the butter with sugars, then eggs and vanilla are mixed in, followed by the dry ingredients, and finally the chocolate and walnuts.
- Dump into pan. Add all of the cookie dough to a prepared 8-inch square pan and pat it into an even layer.
- Bake. Bake cookie bars until golden and set, about 25-30 minutes.
- Cool and slice. For sliceable bars, let them cool completely. Then, slice and enjoy!
Cookie bar baking tips
- You can use either an 8 or 9-inch baking pan. 8-inch will produce thicker bars and will need a longer baking time.
- I highly recommend lining your baking pan with parchment paper, that will make it easy to remove the cooled baked bars from the pan for easy slicing on a cutting board.
- Feel free to use your favorite chocolate chips or chunks for this recipe per your preference— milk, semi-sweet, dark, etc.
- Chopped walnuts are an optional addition, but I love the flavor combo with the whole wheat and chocolate.
- Pulling the cookie bars from the oven a little early will produce bars that are more gooey in the middle, but will set up during cooling. Letting the cookie bars bake for longer will produce bars that are thicker and lighter. These bars will be delicious either way! Ovens vary, so the baking time will vary.
- I usually let the bars cool for about 15-20 minutes in the pan until they’re somewhat sturdy, and then I transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.
- Alternative serving suggestion: Serve warm straight from the oven and scoop portions into bowls. Top with vanilla ice cream, and chocolate or caramel sauce, if desired. Yum!
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This recipe was originally published April 2013.
Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Chocolate chip cookie bars made with whole wheat flour and packed with walnut chunks.
Ingredients
- ¾ cup unsalted butter , at room temperature (169 grams)
- 1 cup packed light or dark brown sugar (213 grams)
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups whole wheat flour (226 grams)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups milk, semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips (255 grams)
- ½ cup chopped walnuts (60 grams)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Line an 8 or 9-inch baking pan with parchment paper with overhanging sides.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or with a hand-held mixer, beat the butter and sugars on medium high speed until light and creamy, about 3-4 minutes. Scrape down the bowl as needed. Add the egg and vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix until incorporated, mixture may be a little crumbly. Mix in the chocolate chips and chopped walnuts.
- Press dough into the prepared baking pan and bake until golden brown, 20-30 minutes (depending on pan size). Let cool for about 15 minutes in the pan, then lift bars out of the pan with the overhanging parchment paper and let cool completely on a wire rack. Slice into bars and serve.
- Store cookie bars in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week.
Calories: 307kcal, Carbohydrates: 38g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 16g, Saturated Fat: 8g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g, Monounsaturated Fat: 3g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 87mg, Sodium: 174mg, Potassium: 115mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 26g, Vitamin A: 357IU, Vitamin C: 1mg, Calcium: 32mg, Iron: 1mg
Have you tried this recipe?I’d love to hear about it! Leave a review below or take a photo and tag it on Instagram @completelydelicious with #completelydelicious.
These sound awesome, and I love your creaming tip! Definitely something everyone should know!
These are perfect! And thanks for the info about creaming–I always wonder that myself. 🙂
Hey, don’t give up on losing the baby weight, you will get there! I find that know if i have cream enough is when I rub the butter mix in between my fingers and there are no signs of sugar, it is ready. My only problem now is that I mix TOO much, hopeful I won’t when I try this whole meal bar.
Oh you beat me too it, I missed the rub test part! My bad
Still, thanks for the comment and input! This actually is a new tip to me so I’m excited to put it to use. 🙂
Love these! I am not the biggest fan of whole wheat flour, but I love white whole wheat flour and use that often in my baked goods for added fiber and flavor. I am definitely trying these. Beautiful pictures, as always!
Thanks Flavia! I was surprised by how little the whole wheat flour changed these cookies. Just a subtle flavor difference and the dough was a little drier. Let me know if you try them, I’d love to hear what you think!
HIGH FIVE! Woohoo! I’m so happy for you that all your hard work and mindful eating are paying off. Isn’t it the best feeling? And yes, these cookie bars do look worth breaking a diet for. I always use about 75% oat flour when I make cookies and love the taste and texture, so I am fully in favor of whole grains in dessert. Well done!
Definitely making these today! They sound and look amazing!
COME TO MOMMA! These look amazing – my hubby would never guess they’re whole wheat 😉
Awesome recipe! I love that they’re whole wheat, but don’t seem to sacrifice texture or anything. And those pictures are gorgeous! I love the wood panels in some of them.
These cookies look absolutely fantastic! Yum! I love that you use whole wheat and your photos are amazing! Thanks for sharing =)
Yes please!! these look divine!!!
Are these the ones I tried? SO good!!
Good for you to tackle that baby weight (though I think that you look fantastic already). These are bars that I would happily tuck into my boys’ lunch boxes.
I can just imagine the taste of these by seeing how squidgy the look on the inside, they look delicious.
I agree, a life without sweets is just no fun! So, I love that you made a chocolate chip cookie bar a tad bit healthier. They look delish!
SOOOOO, When can I come watch you bake and photograph? Seriously.
Would it be possible to use honey in this recipe instead of brown sugar? I would love to make these but I only have honey and maple syrup on hand for sweeteners.
I’m sure it’s possible, but since I haven’t tried it myself I couldn’t tell you how much to use or if other ingredients need to be adjusted. If you make it work, come back and let us know. I’m sure other readers would be interested!
I finally tried this recipe today, using a cup of honey instead of the sugars and only one cup of chocolate chips. To adjust for the honey, I turned the oven down to 350. These bars came out soooo gooey good! Definitely sweet and chocolaty enough!
Yay! So glad they worked out so well with your adjustments. Thanks the leaving the feedback!
These look delicious! I love your pictures!
I have been adding wholewheat flour to my cookies and also fruitcakes, carrot cakes and such for years, and my children have not even noticed. I buy the big bags of white wholewheat flour sold as chapatti flour in Tesco. Great stuff, and if you bake a lot, well worth it.
This is a really good recipe. FYI, I used significantly less butter & sugar and they turned out great: 2/3 cup butter, 1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar, and 1/3 cup sugar. The chocolate chips made them plenty sweet.
Glad you enjoyed them, and thank you for the feedback!
I just made these last night. I made them with dark chocolate chips and discovered that they go really well with scotch whiskey. 🙂 http://lifestooshorttoskipdessert.blogspot.com/2014/01/whole-wheat-dark-chocolate-chip-cookie.html
I’m so glad I chose to make these! For some reason I always prefer desserts made with wholewheat flour. Might have something to do with the texture it gives to the dough, but this just confirmed my obsession with wholewheat flour!
Had a lesson while making these, though, cause I didn’t use a parchment paper as stated in your instructions, and sort of turned the whole thing upside down after ten minutes, and while trying to put everything back on the right side, half of it crumbled into pieces… The other half was later cut in pretty little squares, while half of it ended up in big chunks I wouldn’t dare serving to anyone but me and my boyfriend… and there started our super saturday night project of getting rid of those ugly chunks while watching a movie. 🙂
Thanks a lot, I will make them again for sure, just might do some changes to my way of proceeding! 😉
I agree, whole wheat flour does add something special. I’m sorry to hear about your troubles getting the bars out of the pan. Parchment paper is a lifesaver, and I wouldn’t bake (almost) anything without it!
I was looking for an easy cookie recipe to make for my chocolate chip cookie loving guys (husband and sons) that wouldn’t take a lot of time, would be semi-nutritious, and that they would like when I came across this recipe.
I decided to give this one a try with a modification to make it even more heart-healthy. For the past year I have been using 1/4 cup very hot water, 1/4 cup ground golden flax seed, and 1 – 2 tbsp olive oil to make 1/2 cup as a substitution for 1/2 cup butter. This works perfectly in pastry dough (such as those for cinnamon rolls, etc), baking powder coffee cakes and cookies. This is the first recipe that called for creaming the butter and sugar that I attempted to use the substitution. It worked perfectly.
My batch turned out looking just like the photo posted and my guys say they taste perfect.
Thanks for posting this healthy sweet, Annalise, that sent me on a new journey of filling my guys’ sweets need in a healthy way that “stars” their favorite – chocolate chips.
Wow, what a great substitution! Thanks so much for leaving a comment, I’m sure my readers will love hearing about this healthier option. Glad you enjoyed the cookie bars!
Well, I was bummed that I didn’t have any walnuts but did have enough small leftover portions of sliced almonds, pecans and shredded coconut to add in and they came out great. Whole wheat has never tasted this good!
Hi! I just happened to stumble across this recipe (and planning to ray it for my school) I’m still new to the whole cooking department so please don’t mind me asking but when do I fold in the dry ingredients to the wet ones? Also, is the oven temperature in Fahrenheit degrees ? Hope you don’t mind the questions. I can’t wait to try it out! (;^^)
I just made these for my middle school daughter who was having a few friends over. I made it with whole wheat white berries that I ground. The girls said they were delicious – they didn’t have any idea they were made with whole wheat. I currently have carb sensitivities so I couldn’t try them, but if my daughter and her friends liked them, that says it all. I suppose the real test will be to see what my wife thinks – she’s pretty picky and has a sensitive palate.
The only change I made was to cook 1/2 cup of the butter in a sauce pan until it turned a golden brown to give a little bit of a toffee flavor.
Whole wheat cookies sound delicious. I always have wholewheat because I use it to make “chappatis” (flat bread) every day with our curries. Thank you ! And by the way, greetings and salaams from Pakistan!! 😀
Thanks so much to all of thes recipes I think they’re going to help me so much so I can learn my cooking thank you so much and I hope that you have the best of your day 😘😘😘😘
In Step 3 you left out adding the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. I’ll be making a batch of these in about an hour, using some unsweetened dark chocolate chips, white whole wheat flour, and almonds in place of the walnuts.