Is TikTok's Chickpea Cookie Dough Dip Actually Healthy? Here's What We Know
You can admit that when you helped make cookies as a child, you couldn't wait to taste some of the raw cookie dough. Your mother may have told you it could make you sick because it had a raw egg, but you didn't care. It tasted good. You knew you weren't the only one because chocolate chip cookie dough is now a popular ice cream flavor. These days, food manufacturers sell that raw delicacy without the egg, of course.
Rather than trust the different preservatives found in store-bought cookie dough, you can make that same cookie dough at home, thanks to the foodies on TikTok. As TikTok creator @sarahvsgmomma demonstrates in a video, her favorite recipe for a chocolate chip cookie dough dip is made with a chickpea base. As she adds the chickpeas, nut butter, ground flax, vanilla, and other ingredients, she explains that the recipe comes from the healthy dessert blogger, Chocolate Covered Katie. This recipe is approved by registered dieticians because the heart of the recipe is the nutrient-packed chickpea, per The Healthy. However, there are other healthy ingredients in this recipe worth noting.
The protein, fiber, and healthy fat of chickpeas
Chocolate Covered Katie's recipe calls for 1½ cups (or a single can) of chickpeas. One cup of chickpeas gives you 269 calories, 15 grams of protein, 4 grams of fat, 45 grams of carbs, 8 grams of sugar, and 13 grams of fiber. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the protein in chickpeas is considered "complete" because it has all of the essential amino acids. This high-fiber, low-cholesterol legume helps you feel full while managing your blood sugar.
Rather than using peanut butter for your cookie dough dip, sunflower seed butter can give you the antioxidant vitamin E to support your immune system and cellular health. Sunflower seed butter also has more heart-healthy monounsaturated fat than peanut butter and almond butter, according to the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center. You'll get plenty of magnesium, phosphorus, and manganese in this mineral-rich nut butter. The recipe suggests using oats, flax meal (ground flaxseed) or almond flour to thicken the dough. Using ground flaxseed will also give you healthy phytochemicals and omega-3 fatty acids, per the Mayo Clinic.
Choose your milk and sweetener
Depending on your various swaps, the recipe might need up to 1/4 cup of milk of your choice. If you want to make your recipe vegan or dairy-free, try adding almond milk. Unsweetened almond milk often comes enriched with vitamin D and calcium, and it's lower in calories than dairy milk.
Of course, a good cookie dough recipe will need some sort of sweetener. This cookie dough dip uses a liquid sweetener of your choice, so you have a few options. If you're not vegan, you can add a few tablespoons of honey. A vegan version could include maple syrup or agave nectar. Chocolate Covered Katie's sugar-free version swaps pitted dates for the liquid added sugar, but her original recipe used 2/3 cup of brown sugar. It's also your choice of chocolate chips, depending on how much added sugar you want in the recipe.
Although this cookie dough can be eaten raw, you can add some rolled oats, baking powder, and a little more almond milk to bake as cookies. The Healthy recommends dropping spoonfuls of the dough onto a cookie sheet and baking it at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes.