Soft Dog Treats Recipe

I shared plenty of homemade dog treat recipes lately. However, both, my Christmas dog treat and 3 ingredients dog treat are crunchy treats.

If your dog gets older, he may have sensitive teeth and required softer treats.

Therefore, this sweet potato cookies are perfect for your furry lover.

How To Make Soft Dog Treats

These homemade peanut butter sweet potato treats are perfect for senior dogs.

Plus, they are ridiculously easy to make.

Ingredients

All you need to make the peanut butter dog treats are:

• Natural Peanut Butter – Pick a jar with no added salt and no added oil. This adds healthy fats to your dog cookies.
• Quick Oats – It has a smaller texture than rolled oats and makes the cookies easier to chew.
• Mashed Sweet Potato Puree or pumpkin puree.
• All-Purpose Flour – This helps make the dough less sticky and easier to work with. However, don’t add too much flour, or the cookies will get harder.

Preparation

These homemade treats can be made with or without a cookie cutter. They are soft treats meaning the dough will be moist and sticky and, therefore, a little bit more challenging to cut out.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper lightly oiled with olive oil. Set aside.

Making The Dough

You have two options for making the cookie dough. You can use a food processor to pulse the oats into a thinner texture or stir all the ingredients together in a bowl.

In a large bowl, add quick oats, homemade sweet potato puree, wheat flour, and peanut butter.

Stir to bring the ingredients together into a sticky, moist cookie dough. If too moist, this will happen with pumpkin puree that contains more moisture than orange sweet potatoes.

Then, add more wheat flour, up to 2 extra tablespoons. Don’t add too much flour, or the treats will harden in the oven.

Use a tablespoon to scoop some batter, roll between oiled hands, and place on the baking sheet.

Slightly press the top to flatten. Repeat until all the cookie dough has been shaped into cookies.

Otherwise, grease two pieces of parchment paper and roll the dough between the pieces of paper. Then, use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes and place them on the prepared baking sheet.

Baking The Treats

Bake in the center rack of the oven for 10 to 12 minutes. The longer you bake the cookies, the dryer and tougher they become on the edges.

Cool down on a wire rack immediately to prevent the dog cookies from baking longer on the baking sheet. This will make the bottom more crispy.

Serving

These are healthy dog treats but still treats. Peanut butter is high in fats and calories, so you should give these as a reward for good dog behavior. This is not a dog meal.

Feel free to adapt serving size based on dog age, activity size, and breed.

Storage Instructions

Store the treats in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. Or freeze treats and thaw them in the refrigerator the day before.

Texture

They are small, soft, moist cookies packed with vegetables, proteins, and fibers from oats, and healthy fats from peanut butter.

Flavor Options

You can use this recipe to create different flavors of treats for your loved one.

The best way to alter flavor is to replace the sweet potato puree with same amount of:

• Pumpkin Puree – Peanut butter pumpkin treats is the most classic flavor for dogs.
• Mashed Potatoes
• Mashed Banana – This adds sugar to the treats, so the best is to use 1/3 cup of mashed banana and 1/3 cup of vegetable puree to keep the sugar low.

You can also flavor the treats with a pinch of cinnamon.

Add-Ons

To boost the nutritional profile of these dog treats, you can stir in some grated vegetables like 1/3 cup:

• Shredded Carrots
• Shredded Zucchini – make sure you squeeze out the water from them or the cookies get very moist and hard to shape.

Allergy Swaps

• Gluten-Free – Most of the time, dogs don’t show an allergy to wheat. However, if your dog does, try buckwheat flour. It’s a high-fiber, high-protein flour with no gluten and is safe for dogs. If you suspect a gluten allergy, use a gluten-free certified oat brand.
• Peanut-Free – You can use almond butter instead, but don’t use raw cashew butter – this is not safe for them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are my answers to your most common questions about this dog recipe.

Can I Double The Recipe?

You can double up the recipe and store leftover treats in zip-lock bags in the freezer.

Thaw the day before in the fridge before offering to your furry friend.

How Can I Make The Treats Less Soft?

You can bake the treats for longer to evaporate more moisture and harden the treats a little.

Another option is to add more wheat flour in the dough and flatten the treats into a thin disc.

The thinner, the crispier the edges will be.

Do I Need A Cookie Cutter?

No, the great thing about this soft, moist dog treat dough is that you can simply shape it into balls.

Then, flatten them with the back of a fork or slightly grease hands. You don’t need to roll and cut out as seen on the pictures.