Gooey Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bars
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These gooey chocolate chip pumpkin bars are vegan, gluten-free, and perfect for the fall season! Enjoy the flavors of sweet pumpkin puree, warming spices, and pockets of melted chocolate all in one delicious bar.
This is easily my new favorite dessert for the fall season! The texture is gooey and moist while the flavor is rich with pumpkin and chocolate in each bite. It’s as if a chocolate chip cookie met a pumpkin blondie, and then combined to create the perfect autumn treat. What’s more, the recipe is completely vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free!
These chocolate chip pumpkin bars are made with:
- Oat flour
- Pumpkin purée
- Brown sugar
- Coconut oil
- Almond butter
- Warming spices
- Vanilla
How to Make Gooey Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bars
For the full recipe, scroll down to view the recipe card below.
Let’s take a glimpse into the process of creating these vegan and gluten-free gooey chocolate chip pumpkin bars. It’s quite straightforward and easy to follow.
- Combine dry ingredients.
- Combine wet ingredients.
- Fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Fold in chocolate chips.
- Spread batter into an 8×8-inch pan.
- Bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees F.
- Allow the bars to cool completely before slicing and serving.
Kaylie’s Tips:
- Allow the bars to cool completely before slicing and serving.
- Be delicate with the bars. As the name suggests, these gooey chocolate chip pumpkin bars are seriously moist and ultra gooey! Due to their softness, make sure you handle them gently.
- Use parchment paper. It is always best to line your 8×8-inch pan with parchment paper to prevent the batter from sticking. This makes it much easier to remove the bars from the pan, and the clean-up process will be effortless.
- You can substitute 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice to replace the cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice.
- I recommend serving these bars with a cold glass of almond milk or you favorite type of dairy-free milk.
More vegan fall dessert recipes
- Vegan Pumpkin Bread
- Vegan Oatmeal Cream Pies
- No-Bake Pecan Pie Bars (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
- Vegan S’mores Bars
- Pecan Pie Bliss Balls
- Chocolate Chip Banana Blondies (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
More healthy recipes with pumpkin
- Pumpkin Energy Balls
- Vegan Pumpkin Pasta
- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
- Pumpkin Pie Smoothie Bowl
- Pumpkin Hummus
If you try these Gooey Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bars, please let me know your thoughts by leaving a rating and comment below! Ready for more? Subscribe to my newsletter or follow along on Instagram and YouTube!
Print
Gooey Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bars
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 16 bars 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Gooey chocolate chip pumpkin bars are vegan, gluten-free, and an easy fall dessert recipe! These healthy cookie bars are loaded with pumpkin, chocolate chips, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Made with plant-based ingredients like oat flour, coconut sugar, and coconut oil. It’s an essential treat for fall baking! #pumpkin #pumpkinpie #vegandessert #fallbaking #falldessert #pumpkinspice #glutenfreedesserts #healthydessertrecipes #chocolatechipcookies #cookierecipes #dessertrecipe
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups oat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/8 tsp allspice
Wet Ingredients
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled
- 1/4 cup smooth almond butter
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Add-Ins
- 1 cup vegan chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Line an 8×8 pan with parchment paper.
- Measure 1/2 cup solid coconut oil. Add the oil to a bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds or until completely melted. Set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Whisk together.
- In a separate large bowl, combine all wet ingredients. Whisk together until thoroughly mixed.
- Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix just until a cookie dough consistency is formed. Then, fold in the chocolate chips.
- Spread the batter into the pan.
- Bake for 35 minutes.
- Allow the bars to cool completely before slicing and serving.
Notes
- Be delicate with these bars. They are extra gooey and will break apart if you do not let them cool completely before serving.
- You can substitute 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice to replace the cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 bar
- Calories: 280
- Sugar: 21g
- Fat: 15g
- Saturated Fat: 9g
- Carbohydrates: 35g
- Fiber: 3g
- Protein: 5g
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Hands down one of the best dessert recipes I have found on Pinterest. I only have natural peanut butter, not almond, and it is still delicious!
Thanks!
Thank you so much, Mia! 🙂
made these yesterday and they tasted great, but it wasn’t gooey or moist at all 🙁 i followed the recipe exactly and cut down the baking time to 25 minutes. should i underbake them more?
Hi, Kate! Oh no, something must have gone wrong then. These bars are always very moist and gooey. Did you accurately measure the oat flour? I am guessing you accidentally packed the oat flour instead of properly spooning it into the cup. Always make sure you never pack flour when making baked goods! That’s a guaranteed way to use way too much flour and end up with dry baked goods. Instead, you should always gently spoon flour into the measuring cup & level it off with the flat backside of a knife. Other ways your bars might’ve been too dry: the brown sugar was not tightly packed, the coconut oil was not melted & measured accurately, or not enough canned pumpkin puree was used. Please let me know if these tips help you! xoxo
These are fantastic and I’ll be making them year round? Do you know if you can freeze them?
Thank you, Jill! I’m so happy to hear you loved these pumpkin bars 🙂 Yes, you should have no problem freezing leftovers. I recommend storing them in a sealed, airtight bag/container. Place a piece of parchment paper between the bars if you’re freezing several at once. That way, they won’t stick together. Enjoy! xo
hi. it’s the day after thanksgiving.. we went light on the desserts yesterday and were hoping to find a quick festive recipe for tonight… we just made these exactly according to your instructions (with one minor exception.. i didn’t have oat flour so we made some oat flour in the food processor with rolled oats. great diy oat flour) these came out delicious, gooey, chewy, and ohhh so good. we made them with the chocolate chips as suggested. they had great texture and the perfect amount of festive spice..i did NOT have pumpkin pie spice so we were really excited to find a recipe that listed the individual spices to use,. which we had!! thanks for the great recipe!
Hi, Kimberly! What a wonderful comment 🙂 I’m so happy to hear you loved these Gooey Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bars. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and continue to enjoy the rest of the holiday season! xo
Made these at 7500 ft so I needed to make some adjustments for high altitude baking, but they turned out delicious! Thanks for an amazing recipe!
Thanks, Jenny! I’m so glad you loved them! 🙂
So delicious! I added a few extra minutes to the end because they were still really gooey and they turned out perfect.
Happy you loved them, Courtney! Thank you for sharing! 🙂
Hi Kayliez can I use all purpose flour and have the same result?
Thank you
Hi, Sara! Others have had success using regular flour 🙂 Enjoy!!
This recipe is delicious!
I followed your suggestion to a comment and substituted 2 cups of oat flour with one cup of almond and one cup of all purpose flour and it turned out great and super yum! My husband and I have already gone through half of it!!!
Thank you so much, Eliane!! I’m so glad you and your husband are enjoying these pumpkin bars 🙂 Happy to hear that substitution worked well for you, too! xo
OMG I just made this again and again I was missing something essential – chocolate chips; but neither that nor the fact that I can’t eat oats deterred me, no sir I needed Gooey Pumpkin Bars. So… (I bet you hate me playing with your recipe but it was so delicious in the end and really easy).
I used Almond Flour but only 1 1/2 C because I wanted the weight to be similar to the oats plus cutting back on the amount of flour allowed me to add in 1/4 C of cocoa powder as well as another 1/4 C of tapioca to lighten it up. Then I just followed the recipe except for adding an an additional tsp of pumpkin spice and some chopped candied ginger. I just ate a quarter of a pan of the cooled brownies. I don’t think I feel so well.
Seriously just consider how easy double chocolate gooey pumpkin bars could be, I am, Must buy chocolate chips though. Oh, and easily Paleo by using Coconut Sugar.
I am happy to hear those substitutions worked well for you! 🙂
Super yummy! I made these as written except used
1/2 cup of powdered maple sugar instead of the 1 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of applesauce instead of the oil. I also added more spice . Lovely texture . I also used the mini vegan chocolate chips! So good! Had to put the leftovers in the freezer away from temptation! Ready to share with others!
Hi, Allie! So glad you enjoyed these bars! 🙂 xo
These are awesome!!! They will definitely become a staple every Thanksgiving!! I did use almond flour and all purpose gluten free flour instead of oat flour. I also made in a larger pan, a 10×10, which worked perfect.
I’m so happy you enjoyed these bars! Also glad the flour substitution worked well for you. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season! 🙂
just made these for thanksgiving and they turned out so yummy! thank you so much for sharing!!
Yay! I’m so glad you enjoyed them 🙂 I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! xo
Wow! The dough alone tastes amazing! My daughter and I are waiting for these to come out of the oven! Thank you for a great recipe💜
Hi Leslie! I’m so happy you love the recipe! I hope they are now out of the oven and being enjoyed by both you and your daughter 🙂
I’ve made these twice and substituted the 2 cups oat flour with 1 cup almond flour and 1 cup rolled oats! Delicious!!
Hi Emily! I’m so happy to hear that substitution worked well for you. And, I’m even happier to hear you enjoyed them so much that you made them twice!! 🙂
These are amazing! The only change I made was 2/3 cup coconut sugar for the brown sugar. We will make these again and again! Thank you!
So happy you enjoyed them, Marianne! I am glad that substitution worked well for you 🙂
I LOVEE these gooey chocolate chip pumpkin bars! its easy to follow the steps 🙂
Thank you, Marina! I am so happy you love them! 🙂
These are so good! I substituted 1/2 C maple for the brown sugar & they were still amazing!;) They are gooey for sure… But oh, so delicious!
Hi Erin! Thank you for leaving a comment 🙂 I am so happy you enjoyed these bars! Also, I’m glad to know the maple substitute worked well for you! xo
Would Almond flour work as a substitute for the oat flour?
Hi Anna, I haven’t tried this recipe with almond flour yet. Another reader tried traditional all-purpose flour and it worked well for them. Aside from that, no other substitutions have been tested. If you happen to try using almond flour, please let me know how it goes! 🙂 I wouldn’t recommend using only almond flour, though. You will likely have better success with 1 cup almond flour + 1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour OR oat flour OR rolled oats.
My daughter is allergic to nuts and doesn’t like sunbutter. What could I substitute for the almond butter?
Hi, Jen! Nut butter is an important ingredient in this recipe. You can either use sunflower seed butter or a sweetened tahini. Although she doesn’t like plain sunflower butter, there are all sorts of ingredients in this recipe that will likely make her enjoy the bars nonetheless (since it’s not pure sunflower butter) 🙂
I had just defrosted a jar of kabosha squash that I’d put up last year and had enough left over from a previous recpipe to go for these because they’re my favorite thing in the world. I did make just a few changes though. I can’t eat oats so I used the same amount Bob’s Paleo Flour Mix. First I should say that I’d just made pumpkin custard in my blender so I started by adding the wet ingredients thereto. When I started to pull out the coconut oil I realized I had 4 ounces of coconut butter leftover from my previous recipe so I dumped that in too (blender good); added a bit more spice because I’m addicted to spice and chopped up a bar of 70% chocolate.
I couldn’t find the chocolate in either the ingredients or the directions but it was in the title and the picture so I added those as well.
Baked per directions and have the most wonderful, quite moist, not quite gooey cakey/brownie combo which I can’t keep from inhaling. Literally.
Lovely recipe. Thank you.
Hi Laurel!
Thank you for the 5 star rating! I am so happy you were able to substitute ingredients according to your pantry/personal preference, and that it all worked out for you 🙂 I will have to try using kabocha squash and coconut butter myself. That sounds delicious!
The chocolate chips are listed in both the ingredients (last ingredient listed) and the directions (step 6). I think you may have overlooked that! xo, Kaylie
Doh!
These look fabulous – I do have some pumpkin in the fridge ready to be used! Thanks for sharing!
Hi, Katerina! Thank you so much! I hope you try them out and love them 🙂