Chewy, gooey, chocolate-loaded gluten-free blondies made with one bowl in under an hour. Dairy-free & nut-free options included!
Find more healthy brownie and bar recipes here including these healthy chocolate rice crispy treats!
It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of anything resembling a chocolate chip cookie including gluten-free chocolate chip cookie bars – aka blondies.
Previously on TBG I've shared recipes for gluten-free congo bars with coconut and rum, lime & white chocolate blondies in my book Alternative Baker, and coconut flour blondies in GFF Magazine. But today I'm sharing a classic gluten-free blondie recipe that's adaptable to whatever ingredients you happen to have on hand.
These gluten-free oat flour blondies are:
- soft & chewy
- loaded with gooey melted chocolate
- not too sweet
- very addicting
- easy to make
- made with whole grain flour & no xanthan gum
- free of gluten, and optionally dairy-free and nut-free
With these gluten-free chocolate chip blondies, you get all the addictive salty / sweet / butterscotch notes of my favorite gluten-free chocolate chip cookies without having to worry about scooping, shaping, or spreading. They're so easy to make and even easier to nom. I hope you enjoy!
What are blondies?
Sometimes called blondie brownies, blondie bars, or cookie bars, blondies are essentially chocolate chip cookie dough baked in a pan and cut into squares or rectangles. Sometimes they don't contain chocolate at all, while others use white chocolate or butterscotch chips.
Blondies aren't just brownies without the cocoa. They actually predate brownies, with references from the late 1800's, while brownies weren't invented until 1905. (Thanks Wikipedia!)
My Fave GF Blondie Recipe
I originally adapted these gluten-free blondie bars from Cook's Illustrated, which got the ratios of flour, butter, eggs, and brown sugar just right. I've tweaked and tweaked the formula over the years and ended up with these ultra-satisfying gluten-free cookie bars.
The result? Chewy brown sugar-laced dough doused with vanilla, a good hit of salt, and loads of dark chocolate chunks. GF blondie bliss.
GF Blondies Ingredients & Substitution Suggestions
Just a handful of pantry-friendly ingredients make up these gluten-free cookie bars.
- Gluten-free flours: A blend of sweet rice, oat, and tapioca flours give these bars the texture of a wheat flour blondie. Sweet rice flour and tapioca add sticky chewiness, while oat flour helps fluff them up, adding some nutty notes too. You could try using Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 GF AP flour in place of all of the flours by weight. Or swap out the oat flour for teff, buckwheat, or almond flour to play up the earthy flavors. For a grain-free option, try using cassava flour and tiger nut flour in place of the sweet rice and oat flours.
- Brown sugar adds toffee notes to the batter. I prefer organic dark brown sugar for the most flavor, but any brown sugar will work. If you're avoiding refined sugar, you can use coconut sugar subbed by weight.
- Oil or melted butter moisten the dough. Choose melted butter or neutral oil (such as grapeseed, avocado, or sunflower oil) for a classic flavor. Or add a flavor boost with nut oil (toasted hazelnut, walnut, pecan, or peanut). Or get sophisticated with olive oil. The blondies here were made with roasted hazelnut oil.
- Egg and baking powder fluff up the batter. If you need to ditch the egg, try 3 tablespoons aquafaba, or 1 tablespoon flax meal mixed with 3 tablespoons water. (I haven't tested these, so please let me know if you experiment!)
- Vanilla and salt sharpen the flavors. I like to add flaky salt to the tops as well for salt cronches.
- Lots of bittersweet chocolate chunks add earthy flavor. I prefer dark chocolate with at least 70% cacao mass, and I like to chop up my own chocolate. But feel free to use any chocolate bars, wafers, or chips that you love. Dark milk chocolate or good-quality white chocolate, or any combination thereof, will also work beautifully.
- Nuts of your choice make these extra chonky. Here I used toasted hazelnuts to complement the hazelnut oil, but toasted pecans are the classic choice. Or omit the nuts altogether for nut-free blondies.
How to Make Gluten-Free Blondies
This recipe could hardly be simpler to make in under an hour. It makes an 8-inch pan of blondies, serving 12.
Blondies Without Butter
I made these gluten-free dairy-free blondies with oil instead of butter and it works beautifully. I originally used roasted hazelnut oil when I developed the recipe for an IG post with La Tourangelle. But these work just as well with the traditional melted butter. Or for extra flavor, brown the butter with vanilla bean first like in my gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars for All
These easy gluten-free blondies can be in and out of the oven in under an hour, and they'll handily satisfy your fiercest chocolate chip cookie cravings. Their portable shape makes them good for sharing. Here are a few suggestions for how to blondie:
- Try some of the variations in the recipe card below: change up the oil or butter, play with different types of chopped chocolate or nuts, or try some of the ingredient swaps suggested.
- Top warm blondies with ice cream and vegan tahini hot fudge sauce for a decadent blondie sundae.
- Bring them on a hike, picnic, or pot luck.
- Bake a batch for a friend or neighbor.
- Bake blondie batter in a skillet for a gluten-free chocolate chip skillet cookie. Top with ice cream and attack with spoons.
However you make them, I hope you love this gf blondie recipe as much as we do!
Bojon appétit! For more Bojon Gourmet in your life, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest, purchase my gluten-free cookbook Alternative Baker, or subscribe to receive new posts via email. And if you make this gluten-free blondie recipe, I’d love to know. Leave a comment and rating below, and tag your Instagram snaps @The_Bojon_Gourmet and #bojongourmet.
Gluten-Free Blondies (Soft & Chewy!)
Print Recipe Pin RecipeIngredients
- ½ cup (110 g) toasted and cooled nuts, such as pecans or hazelnuts, plus a few more for garnish (optional)
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons (115 g) dark or light brown sugar (preferably organic)
- ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons (90 ml) cooled melted butter, plant butter, or oil (sunflower, olive oil, grapeseed oil, or nut oil)
- 2 teaspoons GF vanilla extract
- ½ cup (80 g) sweet white rice flour (or AP flour such as Bob’s 1 to 1)
- ¼ cup (25 g) GF oat flour (or try teff, buckwheat, or almond flour)
- 2 tablespoons (15 g) tapioca flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup (6 ounces / 170 g) bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, plus more for garnish (or chocolate chips)
- flaky salt, for sprinkling
Instructions
- Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375ºF. Line an 8x8-inch baking pan with parchment on the bottom and sides.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the egg and sugar. Whisk in the melted butter or oil and vanilla.
- Sift in the flours, baking powder, and fine salt and stir until just combined.
- Stir in the chocolate and nuts (if using).
- Spread the batter in the prepared pan and top with more hazelnuts, chocolate, and a few pinches of flaky salt. It will seem like not enough batter, but it will puff up as it bakes.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with moist crumbs, 18-22 min. Take care not to overbake.
- Cool until warm or room temperature. Slice into bars and devour!
Trish says
A tasty recipe that’s pretty quick to come together - what’s not to like? I also used hazelnuts with dark chocolate and even though I over baked them a bit, they have gotten thumbs up reviews. I’m looking forward to trying some of your suggested variations (especially the triple chocolate one!). And maybe a bit of cinnamon or five spice? This will definitely be on my recipe rotation when I need a dessert quickly. Good job, Alanna!
Alanna says
Hi Trish! I'm so glad you like the blondies! Cinnamon or five spice both sound delicious here - please let me know if you make them that way (and send some my way!). Hope you're having a tasty weekend.
Eva says
This is so, so good! An instant favourite - putting apple pie made with your paleo pie crust on second place, and this was an instant favorite as well. I just found your website/blog a couple of weeks ago and tried those two recipes. Both definitely keepers, and I'll try lots more ... Thank you so very much for trying and testing and providing the gluten sensitive (and other) folks out there with these beautiful and supertasty recipes!
I used carob gum for the pie crust (I didn't have chia but this I had) and sweet rice flour instead of cassava (this I can't find around here) and it still worked and tasted great! Now I ran out of carob and will switch to chia - looking forward to the next pie :-)
Alanna says
Aw I'm so glad you found your way here and that you loved these recipes!! I have never even heard of carob gum before - I'll have to look into that, it sounds great! Please let me know what you try next. Happy baking!
Eva says
Thank you, Alanna! And don't bother with carob - I just tried chia and won't look back :-) Carob is a mediterranean tree and it would have been nice to have something from not too far away (seems to be Italy and Portugal mostly, so at least from the same continent ...) to work with. But 1. the pie crust was even better with chia, and 2. carob gum comes at roughly ten times the price of chia seeds, at least around here ...
Alanna says
Ah that's good to know, thank you! I'm so glad you loved the crust with the chia seed!
Elizabeth DePrimo says
The brown butter version is so good!!
Alanna says
Aw thanks for trying my recipe Liz!!
Laurel says
This is the only blondie recipe in my house since you posted it. We tend to add whatever we have on hand - lately its been pecan, dried cherry or cranberry and chocolate chips/chunks. I've been making it with my 4 1/2 year old little boy and we always laugh that there seems to be more "stuff" in them than actual batter while we are mixing them up. We've taken to calling them "The Stuff" in our house. We make them with olive oil usually and they end up with that elusive, coveted, shiny, thin brownie-esque crust on the top. A winner all around.
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
Well that all sounds absolutely divine! Haha I agree - it always seems like there won't be enough batter, but it puffs up so much in the oven, it always surprises me!
Lynn says
Looking forward to trying this. Just wondering how critical it is to use the different flours. I have almond and oat flour. Thanks!
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
Great question! I put a lot of effort into getting the best flour mix for a particular recipe. Here sweet rice and tapioca flours both add stickiness and chewiness. I think if you used just almond and oat flours the blondies would be quite crumbly and wet. That said, it's always great to experiment with what you have on hand! It's best to sub flours by weight if you have a kitchen scale. Please let me know what you try!
Joanna says
These are outrageous!
Thank you!
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
Woohoo - so glad you love them!
Rachael says
I tasked myself with making a diary free, nut free, gluten free dessert for New Year’s Eve so that everyone could enjoy. I 4xed the recipe, substituted the butter for avocado oil and the oat flour for millet flour since I couldn’t find gluten free oat flour. I baked them in 2 8x8 parchment lined pans and they came out DELICIOUS. So fluffy and addictive. You can’t even tell they are DF, NF, GF. Thank you for an amazing recipe!!
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
Hi Rachael, I'm so glad those subs worked! I loved the photo you shared on IG - the blondies looked so tall and floofy. Thanks very much for making my recipe and for the kind note and rating!
Madeline says
Wow interesting recipe! They almost seemed like brownies instead of blondies once baked because of the dark color with the sugar and alllll the chocolate ;) I wasn't mad about it! I loved the texture and these are really easy. Will definitely make these again!
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
Haha, I'm so glad you liked them! Thanks so much for the kind note and for trying my recipe :)