Chocolate banana macaroons are a fun and fruity take on classic coconut macaroons. One ripe banana and a few tablespoons of mini chocolate chips help add the perfect amount of sweetness to these cookies.

The first of undoubtedly many humbling homeowner experiences happened recently. Up until this past weekend, I thought Sherwin-Williams was called Sherman-Williams. Maybe that tells you a little bit about my (not-so) extensive painting experience. Eeesh!

From starting out thinking we were just painting the kitchen/dining room, it turned into also painting the living room to the master bedroom to the hallway to the whole house. Trim and all. And maybe the bathroom cabinets (but my husband doesn't know about that one yet). 😉

Thankfully he's the opposite of me when it comes to tedious projects. He's all about researching the best paint brushes and perfecting his spackling technique while my attention span maxed out at five minutes and I've moved on to baking a batch of cookies. And in this instance the cookies in question are chocolate banana macaroons.

Macaroons are one of my favorite cookies to make, and they're my go-to even when I'm not making something sweet for the blog. They're incredibly easy, come together in the food processor, and only require six ingredients.

Recipe ingredients

Sweetened coconut flakes are the shining star in this recipe. Besides coconut being a critical flavor in macaroon cookies, they provide nearly all of the requisite sweetness as there isn't any additional sugar added. One ripe banana provides the rest of the sweetness and the important banana flavor.

Egg whites provide the binding structure here, with vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, and mini chocolate chips rounding out this simple ingredients list.

While lots of my recipes have wiggle room to zhush the ingredients to how you like them, this one is fairly rigid. I don't recommend subbing in unsweetened coconut as we need the sweetness here. You could technically omit the chocolate chips if you want, but where's the fun in that??

Simple steps

These chocolate banana macaroons begin by whizzing the flaked coconut in the food processor until it's in small pieces. This will help the mixture stick together better than it would leaving it in longer shreds.

Then to the bowl of the food processor add (most of) the rest of the ingredients: the banana, egg white, vanilla extract, and salt. Pulse and process until everything is combined, then carefully remove the food processor blade before stirring in the chocolate chips.

Densely pack the mixture into a cookie scoop and arrange macaroons on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 21-24 minutes, or until the edges and tops are looking golden brown and toasty.

Related recipes

I cannot get enough of the chai flavoring in these vanilla chai macaroons. This version leaves the coconut shreds long with vanilla bean flecks throughout. These warmly-spiced cookies are on my Christmas dessert list.

And for a coconut cookie in a slightly different way, these toasted coconut cookies come together in one bowl for an easy and super chewy cookie recipe. I love the touch of almond flavoring here.

Recipe notes

Be sure to use sweetened flaked coconut (sometimes called "snowflake" coconut) and not unsweetened coconut as it provides nearly all of the sweetness here.