2-Ingredient No-Bake Haystack Keto Cookies

Sometimes I want to bake. Sometimes I don't. These cookies are for the "don't" days. With more keto cereals and granolas becoming available online and in grocery stores, it's now possible to make these 2-Ingredient No-Bake Haystack Keto Cookies whenever I want (which is actually kind of dangerous).

Known as a "haystack cookies" or "birds nest cookies", the original version typically uses crunchy chow mein noodles and either chocolate chips or butterscotch chips (or a mix of both). Once keto cereals started appearing in my grocery store, I immediately thought about making a keto-friendly version of those haystack cookies. Yaaaasss!!!!

What Chocolate to Use

To keep things super simple, I used a sugar-free chocolate bar. That's it. Easy, right? My favorite brand is Lily's chocolate, though any sugar-free chocolate bar would work. For this recipe I used regular dark chocolate, but there are a variety of flavors available, including caramel and cookies & creme, so you have a lot of choices when determining the flavor of chocolate you want to use.

If you prefer to make your chocolate coating from scratch you could use unsweetened baker's chocolate and then add sweetener yourself (like stevia, erythritol, monk fruit, allulose, etc.), but it's just a lot of unnecessary work.

If you prefer to mix in a tablespoon of peanut butter with your chocolate, go for it! You could also add a couple drops of your favorite extract flavor and/or sprinkle some cinnamon into the mix. See below for a list of "Other Additions and Toppings".

If you wanted to experiment with the flavors, try making two or three batches with different flavors of chocolate. Some suggestions:

• Mint chocolate paired with chocolate cereal/granola
• White chocolate paired with chocolate cereal/granola
• Dark chocolate paired with vanilla cereal/granola (this is what I did)
• Caramel flavored chocolate paired with any type of cereal/granola

What Cereal To Use

I used three different types of cereal, based on what was available at my local grocery store and on Amazon. You could use cereal or granola. I used:

• Calalina Crunch - Maple Waffle flavor
• Highkey (circles) - Frosted flavor
• Highkey (crisps) - Honey Nut flavor

I kept my cereals separate so that I had three distinct types of cookies, however you could certainly mix them all together. Feel free to use two different kinds of cereal, or a mix of cereal and granola, along with any other type of additions (like nuts and seeds, see the list of suggestions below).

Which one was my favorite?

The crisps were my favorite, because it reminded me of rice crispies and gave it a really nice crunch. The little circles were the most visually appealing. The Catalina Crunch was more filling, so that was my preference if I was actually hungry. All in all, they were all good, and by the time I finished writing this blog post, they were all gone 🙂

Other Additions & Toppings

Toppings and extra ingredients are... well... extra. I didn't include of these "extras" in my recipe because I wanted to keep it simple. And also because I was lazy. However, feel free to add the following ingredients to the mix:

• Coconut flakes
• Peanut butter, coconut oil or butter (up to 1 tablespoon; you can't add too much or else the chocolate coating won't harden)
• Cocoa butter
• MCT powder
• Nuts (almond slivers, peanuts, macadamia nuts, chopped pecans, chopped walnuts, etc.)
• Seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, hemp, chia, etc.)
• Chocolate chips (sugar free, any flavor)
• Sprinkles (sugar free)
• Extracts (two drops of coffee extract would be a lovely addition)
• A pinch of cinnamon, pumpkin spice, ginger, or any other spice (these would pair nicely with white chocolate)

Note: If you add a bunch of extras, you may need to add more chocolate. Remember, the ratio is 1 cup of "stuff" (cereal and extras) to ½ a chocolate bar (1.5 oz / 42g). So if you use 1 cup of cereal, and then add another 1 cup of nuts and seeds, then you will need to use an entire chocolate bar (3 oz / 85g).

Holidays

These cookies are an easy holiday treat. Here are some suggestions:

• Halloween: dark chocolate cookies with sugar-free white frosting as eyeballs on top
• Thanksgiving: white chocolate cookies with chopped pecans, pumpkin seeds and pumpkin spice mixed in
• Christmas or Valentine's Day: white chocolate with macadamia nuts mixed in and topped with a few dried goji berries
  • Like all dried fruit, goji berries can be high in sugar if you eat too many. One tablespoon of dried goji berries has 6.5 net carbs. One tablespoon contains about 40 dried berries (I counted). Therefore, 6 dried berries = 1g net carbs. So, as long as you use 6 or less berries per cookie, and don't eat 10 cookies at once, you should be fine to sprinkle a few goji berries on top. Plus, goji berries are highly nutritious, as they are rich with antioxidants and vitamin A.
• Summertime: mint chocolate with coconut flakes mixed in

More

Hope you enjoy these no-bake keto cookies. Make sure you check out my other dessert recipes and quick & easy recipes.

📖 Recipe