It’s been well-established on this blog that I am extremely fond of peanut butter.

I like to make it myself. I also like to stir it into oatmeal for breakfast with some chocolate and call it healthy.

It also ends up in a lot of awesome bar recipes.

However, I never put much thought into all those poor, innocent souls who are allergic to peanut butter. I can’t imagine such a tragedy, but did you know that approximately three million people in the U.S. are allergic to peanuts? (Yes, I did just look that up on Wikipedia.)

Now, those people, well, I couldn’t do it. Peanut butter is easily one of my most used kitchen ingredients, next to chocolate. Usually together.

But let’s be real: they don’t have much of a choice. Even I would choose peanut avoidance over anaphylactic shock. At least now though, other nut butters are on the rise.

I do love almond butter, but its texture is less than ideal for baking. Sunbutter, on the other hand, has the same texture as peanut butter!

Sunbutter is a nut butter made out of sunflower seeds! It definitely has that earthy sunflower seed taste, and it tastes so good spread onto

English muffins, stirred into oatmeal, and oh yeah, baked into cookies.

The people over at Sunbutter don’t know me, this isn’t a sponsored post – it’s just a product I find awesome for people with peanut allergies, and considering all the peanut butter recipes I do around here, I wanted to suggest an alternative.

I know so many school are peanut-free now, because for some odd reason the amount of kids with peanut allergies is increasing over time (thanks again Wikipedia), so these cookies are perfect for lunch boxes!

You could definitely sub it in for some of my peanut butter recipes, or for this recipe, if you don’t have allergies (woohoo!) and can’t get your hands on any Sunbutter, you can definitely sub peanut butter in here.

I love the color that comes from the chocolate covered sunflower seeds, which I found at Trader Joe’s, but chocolate chips would work great here!

The cookie is chewy on the inside, with the slightest crunch around the outside. The flavor of the Sunbutter (or peanut butter, whatever floats your boat) really shines through!

Hope you enjoy!

(And back to our regularly scheduled, peanut butter filled production…)