Your favorite handful of sweet and salty trail mix combined into one amazing Paleo Trail Mix Breakfast Cookie!

Breakfast cookie Friday’s!

You say you’ve never heard of Breakfast Cookie Friday before?! Well let me tell you, dear momma, it is totally a thing. (Check out my hashtag #BreakfastCookieFriday on Instagram!).

It all began with that sweet and spunky second born that so many of us end up scrambling after!

My second threw me for a complete loop as a baby and toddler, tossing me every single opposite behavior as my mild natured first born. If you looked up “infinite energy” in the dictionary, her name and picture would be right next to it, along with the definition of “sleepless.” Breakfast cookie Friday started as a way for me to feed my non-stop, busy toddler at the end of the week when I was completely spent and awaiting the weekend reinforcements to arrive (otherwise know as…Daddy!).

Same breakfast idea, different reason…

So “breakfast cookie Friday” became a “thing” in my house to survive the inexhaustible days of the toddlerhood season of life. Today, we still enjoy our Friday breakfast cookies, but for different reasons. Now I have a houseful of 3 school-aged kids, and breakfast cookie Friday is a fun way for us to end the school week – the girls look forward to it every Friday. I set up a “breakfast bar” of sorts, with a bowl of breakfast cookies, a bowl of hard boiled eggs or container of yogurt, some hot tea, and some plates and the girls help themselves. Oh yes, dear momma…you totally have permission to eat your breakfast cookie with a cup of coffee just a little longer because the kids can do this by themselves. *cue the round of applause! *

Another breakfast cookie recipe?!

I know it. There are so many on the blog – you can use the search bar for “breakfast cookies” and find all of them. (I will also link some of them up later in this post). But yes. I did create another recipe. I was inspired by some trailmix that I started making over the summer as an on-the-go snack for the girls. They were obsessed with all the flavors, and I ended up playing around with making it in cookie form. Having a variety of different breakfast cookie options not only gives our family a change up every Friday so we don’t get bored with the same flavors, it also allows me to play around with different combos of ingredients so that my readers are able to find something that fits their unique dietary goals.

All the trailmix fun in a portable, handheld breakfast on the go!

Just think of your favorite trail mix! Think of all the fun components and flavors. Salty, sweet, crunchy, and just fun to eat! Everything from nuts and seeds, to dried fruit and crispy dried coconut, it’s really all in here!

Notes on the dried fruit

This is the super fun part to change up. Depending what you have available where you live, go for it and have some fun! I will say that in the 6 or 7 batches of these cookies that I trialed making (including lots of different dried fruit trials), chopped figs were my kids’ favorite flavor. My favorite was a toss-up between the chopped figs and dried cherries. I’m able to get dried figs at a very good price at Costco or on Amazon, so it is cost effective for me. If it is pricier where you live, then simply use some raisins – they are tasty too!

What are cacao nibs?

Essentially, raw cacao nibs are little bits and pieces from a real cacao, which are the little seeds from a cacao tree. What we know of as “chocolate” only contains a little bit of cacao plus a load of sugar. They taste “bitter” on their own, but sprinkled into a honey sweetened breakfast cookie with swirls of fig or other dried fruit, and they really taste like little chocolate bits! These little cacao nibs are packed with phyto-nutrients, and you can read more about them and their benefits here.

Other ingredient notes and swaps

*Please note it is impossible for me to trial every single ingredient possibility. I did up to 6-ish batches of these cookies with various combos and I have a few swaps to suggest. If you have dietary restrictions that are not mentioned here, feel free to ask and I can try to help.

You can swap sprouted oats for the coconut if you can tolerate grains.
If you are nut free, you can swap “seed meal” for the almond flour. Just blend up sunflower seeds super fine, but don’t take it all the way to “sunbutter.” Also, if you are nut free, you can swap pumpkin seeds for the walnuts.
There are notes right in the recipe for my egg free friends. This is one swap I am sure of because there was one day that I ran out of eggs and didn’t have a choice! I thought the fruit puree worked fantastic.
If the “heaping 1/3 cup” of raw honey scares you, remember this is divided among about 16-18 cookies depending on how big you make them. It is pretty minimal. If you prefer, you could swap the honey for coconut sugar with lower glycemic index. Keep in mind that will change the color a bit darker because of the color of the coconut sugar.

Freezer notes

One of the coolest things about Breakfast Cookie Friday, is that if you plan a little ahead, you can just pull your cookies out of the freezer for breakfast – it doesn’t get any more convenient for real food than that! Cool the cookies to room temperature before putting them into freezer bags and into the freezer. I pull them out frozen the morning of and just warm them up in the oven a little. You can leave them on the counter overnight and just eat them at room temperature too.