Protein cookies have become one of the hottest trends in the fitness and diet industry because they’re delicious, healthy, and full of good-for-you protein! Nearly every single health and fitness enthusiast is eating them! If you stumbled on this page, then you’re probably wondering what are some of the best protein cookies to buy and what are the best protein cookie brands.
Luckily for you, we’ve done our research (which was amazing.. because we got to eat SO MANY DELICIOUS PROTEIN COOKIES!) and can confidently recommend to you the best 5 protein cookies on the market today. Below you’ll see our table of top 5 recommendations, followed by detailed reviews on our choices.
Protein Cookie Review Center 2021
| Image | Protein Cookies | Rating |
|---|---|---|
 | #1 - Quest Nutrition Protein Cookie | 99% |
 | #2 - Lenny & Larry’s The Complete Cookie | 95% |
 | #3 - MuscleTech Soft Baked Whey Protein Cookie | 92% |
 | #4 - No Cow Protein Cookie | 91% |
 | #5 - Flex Bakery High Protein Cookies | 90% |
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Now that you’ve seen our top 5 recommendations, we’ll give you more detail on each of them, including why we liked them. When you’re ready, click the yellow button to get the best price on them!
#1 – Quest Nutrition Protein Cookie
Quest Nutrition Protein Cookies are a solid choice if you’re looking for a mass-produced, easy to find protein cookie.
They have a pretty good flavor and texture to them.
Each cookie has 250 calories, 15g protein, and 14g carbs. The cookies are slightly large than the ones you’d get from Flex Bakery. However, the increased size doesn’t nearly make up for the 2.5x increased calorie count.
They’re available in 5 flavors, ranging from chocolate chip to oatmeal raisin. Their flavor choices aren’t that great, but like McDonald’s, you know what you’re going to get when you choose your flavor.
Quest Protein Cookies are a solid choice if you’re in a time crunch and need a protein cookie asap!
#2 – Lenny & Larry’s The Complete Cookie
Lenny & Larry’s was one of the first protein cookie brands to go mainstream.
They’ve been a staple in the fitness and health industry for years. While they were one of the first to go to market, we don’t feel their product competes well enough with other bakeries that have since entered the market.
Their cookies come in 18 flavors, ranging from Peanut Butter to Chocolate Chip. Similar to Quest Nutrition Protein Cookies, you know what you’re going to get when you bite into a Lenny & Larry’s cookie.
The taste and texture is pretty good, but nothing to write home about. When you bite into one, you’ll know immediately that it’s a protein cookie. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to have a cookie, I want it to taste like a cookie!
Each vegan protein cookie has around 200 calories, 8g protein, and 33g carbs. These macros aren’t that great considering these are supposed to be healthy diet cookies. They’re pretty equivalent to a candy bar. But hey, they taste good!.
#3 – MuscleTech Soft Baked Whey Protein Cookie
MuscleTech is one of the leading protein bar manufacturers in the world. You’ll find their products in every nutrition store, convenience store, and food store. They’ve recently dug into the world of protein cookies.
While we aren’t wild about their protein bars, their protein cookies actually surprised us. They were pretty good and actually tasted like a cookie, rather than rubber. They were still incredibly sweet and gave us some stomach problems.
Each of their protein cookies has 350 calories, 16g of protein, and 49g carbs. Those macros are not good at all for a healthy, diet-conscious person. A Snickers bar has comparable macros to it!
If you’re insistent on buying MuscleTech Protein Cookies, get them on Amazon below:
#4 – No Cow Protein Cookie
No Cow is a Gluten-Free, Vegan, Non-GMO, Non-Dairy, No Sugar Added, Soy Free protein cookie. They’re geared more towards the organic, hipster crowd. With all of their promoted attributes, they’re naturally a bit more expensive than our other choices. We liken them to a product you’d find at Whole Foods.
Each of their cookies contains a whopping 240 calories, 12g protein, and 19g carbs. Again, these macros are comparable to eating a Snickers bar.
For a company that labels itself as a healthy, protein alternative with a bunch of health-conscious buzzwords, we’d expect their product to be more healthy than it is.
The cookies taste pretty good, though (and sometimes have a hint of honey). We think the texture is one of the better ones out there. Not as good as Flex Bakery, but certainly better than it’s more comparable Lenny and Larry’s.
If you’re looking for non-GMO, dairy-free protein cookies, go with these.
#5 – Flex Bakery High Protein Cookies
Flex Bakery is based out of Wallingford, Connecticut. For the last 2 years, they’ve been baking the most deliciously satisfying protein cookies. Everyone in New England has fallen in love with these amazing cookies! Here’s why:
Flex Bakery sells cookies in 9 flavors, ranging from confetti to peanut butter chocolate chip to our favorite, snickerdoodle! Snickerdoodle was the original recipe back in December 2016. Each cookie’s flavor will burst in your mouth when you bite into them. They taste just like the cookies that you’d make at home, except they’re packed with an average of 9g of protein each!
The cookies’ texture is one of their biggest selling points. Usually, protein cookies taste chalky, bland, or just leave a foul taste in your mouth. Flex Bakery’s cookies have the feel of cookies that your Grandma would make. They’re that good. You would never know that they’re incredibly good for you!
We tried them against nearly every major protein cookie on the market. None of the major mainstream protein cookies could compete!
Want to know how good FOR you these cookies are? On average, each cookie has 105 calories, 9g protein, 10 carbs, and 3 fat. Compare this to competitors, such as Buff Cookies and Lenny and Larry’s, and you’ll see how much better these are for you!
Remember, these are extremely delicious… it’ll be hard to have just one. But that’s okay! They’re low calories so it won’t matter if you sneak a second!
The thing we love most about Flex Bakery is the story of their owner, Lindsay Mongillo. Lindsay grew up in the town she sells her cookies out of. From a young age, she knew that she wanted to have her own bakery. She would drive her mother crazy, always trying to interject herself when her mother was baking. She later went on to culinary school, where she graduated with a baking specialty, with honors.
Soon after graduating, she developed a passion for powerlifting. If you’re not familiar with powerlifting, it involves an extreme amount of dedication to both training and dieting. You have to perfectly balance your calories, protein, carbs, and fat in order to have an optimal performance – much like you’ll find in any form of dieting.
This is where the idea for Flex Bakery came from.
Lindsay noticed that there wasn’t an actual healthy protein snack available for people who really, really loved cookies. She knew there were major brands out there, but they were high calorie and loaded with sugar (so that they’re addicting). Lindsay felt this was wrong and wanted to create a low calorie, high protein, low carb protein cookie. Hence, Flex Bakery was born!
If you’re looking for the best protein cookie, with the best calorie:protein:carb ratio.. and most importantly, a baker who knows everything about high-performance training and baking, then go with Flex Bakery. They’re the only protein cookies that we eat now.
We love them and know you will too!
Why you should eat protein cookies
There are several reasons why protein, in general, is so important for your body, so why wouldn’t you want to gain those benefits through a sweet treat like a protein cookie? Of course, you can get protein from plenty of other sources like chicken, canned tuna, ground turkey, and protein shakes, but let’s be honest – we all need to treat ourselves sometimes, or our diets will be miserable. That is why having a protein cookie is a great way to switch things up. You can reward yourself without going overboard since just one cookie is enough to satisfy your craving.
Protein by itself, no matter how it is consumed, is a great way to fill you up – leaving both your appetite and muscles satisfied. You’ll notice protein-based foods will fill you up and keep you full much longer than simple carbs and sugars. Many people, when looking for a quick snack on the go, grab something like crackers, chips, or even a PB&J for their kids’ lunches. Then they get home and have little to no time to cook an elaborate meal, so they throw on a pot of water for some pasta and call it a day. All these foods are simple carbs, which means they spike the body’s insulin levels very quickly, but then those levels come right back down, making you tired and hungry again. It’s a vicious cycle which, as you can imagine, leads to weight gain, lack of motivation, mood swings, and exhaustion. However, eating more protein will keep you fuller for longer, because it takes longer to digest. It doesn’t cause insulin levels to spike, either.
Certain protein cookies, like those made by Flex Bakery, are especially known for keeping appetites satisfied because the cookies have complex carbs, like buckwheat flour and flax seeds. A lot of the sugar is substituted with Stevia as well, adding zero calories and natural sweetness. The owner swears that one cookie alone will curb her sweet tooth craving.
Protein also helps you to both build and maintain muscle, while its amino acids aid in repairing muscle tears (the tears are a good thing, it means you’ve worked hard!) In order for the muscles to grow, they need to tear first, then repair, tear, repair… so the sooner your muscles can heal, with the help of protein, the sooner you can return to benching, squatting, and deadlifting.
While many people swear off carbs because they’re convinced they’re terrible for you, the truth is you DO need a moderate amount of carbs both before and after an intense workout. The key is moderation and timing. We earlier mentioned how terrible it is to rely on pasta for dinner and sugary quick snacks on the run, but a small amount of these simple carbs combined with mostly complex carbs are important in enhancing your workouts. Carbs create energy, which fuels you towards achieving optimal lifts, spin classes, Zumba dances, whatever it may be. Plus, after a workout is when your body is in fat-burning mode, so it’s the best time to consume carbs since they will quickly be metabolized. Try a Confetti or Snickerdoodle from Flex Bakery; the kid in you will feel truly rewarded after an intense workout.
How we chose the best protein cookies on our list
With all the different options for protein cookies on the market, at times it was hard to decide how to judge which was the best. Take a look at how we based our decision…
Freshness: Obviously nobody likes biting into a stale, dry, crumbly cookie. Flex Bakery’s cookies don’t have any added preservatives, so the best place to store them at room temperature for about a week, or in the fridge for up to a month. They freeze very well too, production has gotten high enough where a chest freezer is often used for bakery storage. Other cookies made in factories are not meant to be on the shelves for short periods, and this is why they contain preservatives. The only way any of the other protein cookies are stale is if they are opened from their wrapper and left out for a couple of days. (although some of the cookies we tried tasted stale right out of the package…they didn’t make our list that’s for sure!)
Flavor: Consumers are always looking for flavors they can rely on, like a classic chocolate chip cookie, but sometimes they crave a little something different. Our top pick, Flex Bakery, stole our hearts due to their rotational seasonal creations. Currently, Lindsay is baking her new seasonal flavor, Salted Caramel Apple Pie, utilizing fresh dried apples. She loves using the apple slicer to speed things along. Some of the runner-ups, like Lenny and Larry’s, have interesting flavors too such as Lemon Poppyseed; Quest has a Gingerbread option that is not something you’d typically see either.
Nutrition: We didn’t realize it before taking a closer look, but most protein cookies made by large manufacturers add a ton of fillers, making the carb count increase significantly. When a carb to protein ratio is 2:1 or sometimes even 3:1, we have a problem. Flex Bakery’s ratio is, on average, 1:1. This was the chef’s main goal to differentiate herself in a niche market, and we can see why it has worked!
Allergen Friendly: In the past few years, the snack market has exploded with options that fit specific dietary needs, whether it be vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, or a combination. From examining the market, gluten allergies are the most prevalent. Some cookies out there follow the trend and make sure their cookies do not contain gluten, Flex Bakery being one of them. Quest cookies brag about being gluten-free as well. Lenny and Larry’s uses soy as their form of protein – making them dairy-free by avoiding whey as the main protein source. However, their cookies do contain gluten. Each company caters to those with certain allergies, but with gluten being the most common, we had to base our decision on who caters to the gluten-free community.
Creativity: Have you ever stopped to think of all the different ways to eat a cookie? You’d be surprised, especially after the ideas Lindsay at Flex Bakery gave us. We did try these ideas with the other companies’ cookies, but nothing compared. For example, if for whatever reason you’re bored of eating a cookie the normal way, you can throw it in a protein shake. Just blend your protein shake by itself first with a blender (we like these) and continue by crumbling up a Flex cookie on top. Quickly blend again, and you’re done! You can also use Flex cookies to put on top of oatmeal, Greek yogurt, or whatever else your imagination comes up with. Other cookies did not break apart as easily into the tiny crumbles, nor did they taste very good as a topping.
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