Healthy holiday cookie recipes rely on nutritious ingredients instead of empty sugar calories. And at our grocery store in Vancouver, you will find many quality alternatives to the basic white sugar and white flour that go into standard cookie recipes.

Here are a few healthy recipes to try:

1. Paleo Lemon Cookies

The winter months are traditionally the time when citrus fruits ripen. For this reason, a lemony treat is always a good fit for the holiday season. In this paleo-style recipe, you will use almond flour and coconut flour instead of carb-intensive wheat flour. Maple syrup sweetens the cookie dough before you add eggs, salt, baking powder, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

Maple syrup represents a healthier alternative because it has a lower glycemic index than regular sugar and contains antioxidants. This recipe has the option of adding a sugar icing to the cookies, but they are certainly wonderful without the icing.

2. Healthy Thumbprint Cookies

Thumbprint cookies are holiday favourites because of their brightly coloured jam centers. You form the dough into balls and depress the center with a spoon to form a well. You dab jam into the wells and then bake the cookies. You can use any jam, like raspberry, strawberry, or orange marmalade.

The healthy aspect of the recipe stems from the use of whole-wheat flour that provides protein, fiber, and nutrients, and coconut sugar that contains some nutrients and is less processed than regular white sugar.

3. Rolled Sugar Cookies

People love cutting out and decorating sugar cookies for the holidays. Like many other healthy cookie recipes, this recipe leans on maple syrup instead of processed sugar. You'll use whole-wheat flour as the base for the dough so that you get the fiber and B vitamins. After making the dough, you must wrap and refrigerate it for a couple hours. Chilling the dough makes it firm enough to roll and cut. Bake the cookies and then let them cool before decorating.

Happy healthy holidays from Famous Foods

Healthy food and the holidays are not mutually exclusive. Our health foods store has meats and produce for preparing a fine holiday meal as well as many specialty baking supplies. Bake some healthy holiday cookies and shop at Famous Foods today.