Prep time: 2 hours Cook time: 20 mins Rest time: 10 mins Total time: 2 hrs 30 mins
Servings: 7-8 large cookies
Make it Dairy-Free and AIP: Use animal fat other than ghee or butter
These chocolate chip cookies are a simple spin on the classic, using only fruit, unsweetened chocolate, and animal foods like pork and ghee.
What you need to make Animal-Based Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
- Pork rinds
- Eggs (ASHLEY20 for 20% off)
- Unsweetened chocolate
- Pitted dates
- Grass-fed ghee (or butter)
- Sea salt (ASHLEYR for 15% off)
- Vanilla extract (optional)
- Cinnamon (optional)
Equipment:
Substitutions
You can substitute the ghee (or butter) for your animal fat of choice, although I do highly recommend ghee with this recipe due to its sweet and buttery flavor. Pork cracklings can be used in the place of pork rinds.
Note: I have never tried pork cracklings in this recipe, but I think they would produce a crispier/crunchier cookie.
How to make Animal-Based Chocolate Chip Cookies
Prepare the dates.
Soak the pitted dates in water for 1-2 hours to get them soft.
Note: use 9 oz (about 1.5 cups) of dates if you like your cookies on the sweeter side, and 6 oz (about 1 cup) if you don’t want them as sweet. I used 9 oz and it was perfect for my taste.
Make the cookie dough.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a blender, grind the pork rinds into a powder and set aside.
Scoop the ghee (or butter) into a glass container (or whatever you’re using to melt it) on the stovetop. Melt the ghee (or butter) until it is liquid.
Place the melted ghee (or butter), eggs, sea salt, vanilla extract (if using), and soaked dates into your blender and blend until smooth. Add a tiny bit of water if the mixture is too firm to blend.
Move the mixture to a mixing bowl. Fold in the pork rind powder and cinnamon (if using). The dough should be thick like normal cookie dough.
If using unsweetened chocolate bars, cut them into little squares that resemble chocolate chips and fold the squares into the batter. If using regular chocolate chips, fold those into the batter.
Bake the cookies.
Place a piece of parchment paper on your baking sheet, and form the dough into cookies.
Note: these cookies do not rise or spread, so you will need to form the dough pre-baking into whatever shape you prefer them to end up in.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
Once the cookies are done, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool for about 10 minutes.
These cookies taste good fresh, but I (and my other taste-testers) all preferred them out of the fridge. Enjoy!
Store leftovers (if there are any!) in an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 days.
Tips to make the best Animal-Based Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Don’t skip on soaking the dates. It makes a big difference.
- Pork cracklings can be used in the place of pork rinds. I have never tried pork cracklings in this recipe, but I think they would produce a crispier/crunchier cookie.
- These cookies do not rise or spread, so you will need to form the dough pre-baking into whatever shape you prefer them to end up in.
A few of my other favorite sweet eats:
Jumbo Chocolate Cups with Salted Chunky Date Filling
Flourless Lemon Blueberry Muffins
Animal-Based Chocolate Chip Cookies
Animal-Based Chocolate Chip Cookies
Equipment
- Baking sheet
Ingredients
- 2.5 oz pork rinds (pre-ground)
- 2 eggs
- 3 oz unsweetened chocolate (or chocolate chips)
- 1-1.5 cups (6-9 oz) pitted dates
- 1/3 cup grass-fed ghee (or butter)
- 1/4 tsp sea salt (ASHLEYR for 15% off)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract (optional, but recommended)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
Instructions
- If you’re interested solely in the recipe, skip this bullet point and keep on reading. For those interested in sourcing nutrient-dense food, low-toxic household products, and discounts on brands that may support your AB journey, you may find value in my product guides. Head over to this page if you’d like to check them out. All are free (and always will be).
- Note: If you liked this cookie recipe, click here for more animal-based cookie recipes.
Prepare the dates.
- Soak the pitted dates in water for 1-2 hours to get them soft.
- Note: use 9 oz (about 1.5 cups) of dates if you like your cookies on the sweeter side, and 6 oz (about 1 cup) if you don’t want them as sweet. I used 9 oz and it was perfect for my taste.
Make the cookie dough.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a blender, grind the pork rinds into a powder and set aside.
- Scoop the ghee (or butter) into a glass container (or whatever you're using to melt it) on the stovetop. Melt the ghee (or butter) until it is liquid.
- Place the melted ghee (or butter), eggs, sea salt (ASHLEYR for 15% off), vanilla extract (if using), and soaked dates into a blender and blend until smooth. Add a tiny bit of water if the mixture is too firm to blend.
- Note: if you go through tons of salt in your household like we do, check out this salt purchasing hack that will save you money + make things more efficient. We started this last year, and I'm so happy we did!
- Move the mixture to a mixing bowl. Fold in the pork rind powder and cinnamon (if using). The dough should be thick like normal cookie dough.
- If using unsweetened chocolate bars, cut them into little squares that resemble chocolate chips and fold the squares into the batter. If using regular chocolate chips, fold those into the batter.
Bake the cookies.
- Place a piece of parchment paper on your baking sheet, and form the dough into cookies.
- Note: these cookies do not rise or spread, so you will need to form the dough pre-baking into whatever shape you prefer them to end up in.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
- Once the cookies are done, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool for about 10 minutes.
- These cookies taste good fresh, but I (and my other taste-testers) all preferred them out of the fridge. Enjoy!
- Store leftovers (if there are any!) in an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 days.
What I used for this recipe:
Looking for some more easy sweet eats? Try one of these recipes:
Jumbo Chocolate Cups with Salted Chunky Date Filling
Flourless Lemon Blueberry Muffins
Note: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting me!
Ashley Rothstein develops tasty, whole food, animal-based recipes that include a moderate amount of “minimally toxic” plant foods. To fix her own health issues, she bounced around between the carnivore, keto, and paleo diets for a few years. After experiencing and studying each diet philosophy, she learned she feels her best by merging the three and following an animal-based diet. As a glut at heart, she likes to channel her creativity and create meals that are healthy but also satisfy her inner gluttonous spirits.
I can’t believe these have no flour in them. They are legit choco chip cookies. I followed the recipe exactly (used the same brand of pork rinds) except I used butter instead of ghee. They are fairly soft cookies. I wonder if using ghee makes them crunchier. Anyway, I’ll definitely be making these again. Was enjoying them with my raw milk 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!!
You are legit my hero for this recipe. I’ve made these cookies 3x now and I’m about to do batch #4 (double batch to freeze half) tomorrow. These are so daggum easy it’s dangerous. Next I’m going to try the spongey cake bars with some kind of cinnamon topping. The fam had a cinnamon walnut coffee cake out for Xmas treat but I didn’t eat it… really wanted to as this used to be one of my major weaknesses… but didn’t. But now I really want something cinnamon-y.
Author
So glad you enjoyed the cookies! This is one of my favorite recipes from the blog. 🙂
I have pre-ground up pork rinds. How much do I use for this receipe? Love all the recipes I have tried from you, so far and can’t wait to try this one!!!!
Author
I’ve never measured the pork rinds post-blending, but I think a cup or so should do!
We love this recipe. We actually took the unsweetened chocolate chips and melted them down and added honey to sweeten them up carnivore style. Then let them cool and added them to the cookies. This worked out great! Thank you for the recipe, these are a new favorite in our household especially with the kids!