This almost-healthy chocolate chip peanut butter cookie tastes amazing and is full of whole wheat flour and oats with no butter!
Yield:
24 cookies
Prep Time:10minutes
Cook:12minutes
Tessa's Recipe Rundown...
Taste: Nutty, warm, and just sweet enough. Texture: Oh so tender and chewy. These cookies have an amazing texture (which you’d never expect from no butter and whole wheat flour). Ease: You can whip up the dough for these little delights in the same amount of time it takes your oven to preheat. Appearance: What cookie doesn’t look like it just wants you to sink your teeth into it? Pros: Super easy, even more delicious, and no guilt. Cons: Absolutely none. Would I make this again? I can’t count how many times I’ve made these cookies!
This almost-healthy chocolate chip peanut butter cookie tastes amazing and is full of whole wheat flour and oats with no butter!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ever heard the phrase “the whiter your bread, the sooner you’re dead”? I think by now most people understand that they should consume whole wheat products because they are not only healthier (they help to reduce a host of diseases) but help you to feel fuller and satisfied, leading to a healthier weight. I mean, if you think about it, white bread products have to be enriched with minerals and vitamins (on order from the U.S. government) so that we won’t began to suffer from nutrient deficiency. Why not eat something that is naturally nutritious to begin with?A few years ago when I decided to start avoiding white bread products, I started out slow. The first change I made was to switch out white flour bagels, waffles, bread, and cereal products for whole wheat ones for breakfasts everyday of the week. It was something to get used to at first but after a few weeks of consuming only whole wheat or whole grain products for breakfast, my body got used to it. So much so, in fact, that when I did eat a white flour bagel one morning after I ran out of whole wheat, I didn’t like it. It tasted bland. It also didn’t provide me with long-term fuel and satiation. A few weeks after getting used to whole wheat for breakfast, I switched to whole wheat pasta. Now, I almost exclusively use whole wheat pasta unless I’m making a recipe for a special occasion. And you know what? I rarely find myself missing white flour bread products. Even a peanut butter cookie doesn’t need white flour.
Like I mentioned in Eat Healthy Week 1, change must be gradual for it to stick. Do what I did and switch one meal of your day (like breakfast) to only incorporate whole-wheat foods. Or vow to eat whole wheat on weekdays and reserve white flour foods for special weekend occasions. Browse the pages of whole wheat cookbooks like King Arthur Whole-Grain Baking or search for whole wheat recipesonline. I love when I cook my friends and family recipes that feature whole wheat products and no one even realizes it’s whole wheat.
This recipe is a perfect example of how whole wheat and grains can be stealthily incorporated into a tasty treat. These are my go-to cookies to make when I’m craving something sweet and want it fast. I actually can’t believe it’s taken me this long to share this recipe with you guys since it’s one of my all time favorites! Make these cookies for your kids or your friends and they’ll never know they’re actually getting a good dose of whole-wheat goodness (and protein from the peanut butter!).
4.13 from 8 votes
How to make
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield:24cookies
Prep Time:10minutes
Cook Time:12minutes
Total Time:22minutes
This almost-healthy chocolate chip peanut butter cookie tastes amazing and is full of whole wheat flour and oats with no butter!
Ingredients
1cuppeanut butter
1cupbrown sugar, lightly packed
2large eggs
1/2cupwhole-wheat flour (or whole wheat pastry flour or whole wheat white flour)
1/2cupold fashioned oats
1teaspoonbaking soda
1/2teaspooncinnamon (optional)
1/2cupsemi-sweet or milk chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.
2. Beat peanut butter and brown sugar in a stand mixer or with an electric hand mixer on medium speed for 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. Mix in flour until just incorporated then mix in oats, baking soda, and cinnamon, if using. Be careful not to over-mix. Stir in chocolate chips by hand.
3. Using an ice cream scoop, drop balls of evenly sized dough onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving enough room for cookies to spread slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the tops are golden. Cool on a cooling rack. Once cooled stored in an airtight container for up to 3-4 days.
I share trusted baking recipes your friends will LOVE alongside insights into the science of sweets. I'm a professionally trained chef, cookbook author, and cookie queen. I love to write about all things sweet, carb-y, and homemade. I live in Phoenix, Arizona (hence the blog name!)
About Tessa...
I share trusted baking recipes your friends will LOVE alongside insights into the science of sweets. I'm a professionally trained chef, cookbook author, and cookie queen. I love to write about all things sweet, carb-y, and homemade. I live in Phoenix, Arizona (hence the blog name!)
I was concerned that the dough was too wet, but the cookies turned out to be really nice.
Golden brown and moist in the center. They weren’t too sweet either. I substituted a cracked up dark chocolate bar for the chocolate chips. I followed the recipe using a hand mixer. I was glad to find a recipe that uses whole wheat flour because I was out of all purpose. Thanks!
I followed the recipe exactly, using natural peanut butter, and found that the dough was very dense and hard to work with. Not sure if this is a result of using a stand mixer which may have over-mixed the dough, but I was keeping a fairly close eye out to prevent that. The cookies themselves were heavy, and chewy in the middle. My kid loved them, probably because he doesn’t usually get peanut butter cookies during the school year, but I wasn’t overly impressed. I’m debating whether I should give them another go to see if I can tweak some part of the process.
I made these and the batter was way too gummy and sticky after putting the flour in and got stuck on the mixer arma, it was so hard to mix and mold into cookies. any idea why this could have been?
Hi Tessa, I made this today and the cookies didn’t flatten at all and taste very “flour-y”. We think that’s because of the lack of butter. I wonder what makes a difference in my end product and yours. Because it looks really good in your picture!
Best. PB. Cookies. Ever! I have always liked the flavor but hated the crunch/ toffee texture. You legitimately FIXED everything that was wrong with peanut butter cookies. Thank you.
These cookies are delicious and easy. I made them with dark brown sugar and mini chocolate chips. They have a great peanut butter taste that is not dry or sticky to your mouth. They have a nice crunch with the oats and a nice finish with the mini chocolate chips. This is one recipe I will make over and over again.
Not sure what I did wrong… I followed the recipe exactly… and my cookies DID NOT spread. They look like the picture of the chocolate chip cookies that had too much flour. But, I correctly measured the flour with a spoon & leveled it off. Hmmm… wonder what happened?
Hi Dottie! These cookies don’t spread a ton in general but they should spread at least a little! If you want to make them again and prefer them thinner you might try adding a tablespoon of milk to thin out the dough since there’s no butter.
Hello! These cookies look really great, and I LOVE anything peanut butter! I was just wondering, do you think I could cut down the sugar to 1/2 cup? Or would that be too drastic? I read the comments above and you suggested applesauce, but I never have applesauce (I’ve never made it before), would honey be a bad choice to add?
Maybe I just over baked them, but all the peanut butter flavor baked out of these. The batter had so much flavor, so they ended up being a real disappointment. I guess I'll stick to the much fattier butter-filled version as a very occasional treat.
These are amazing! I made them today to make into reindeer cookies I saw on Pinterest. They're way better than expected and I bake whole grain all the time. 🙂 The texture was amazing. No nasty cakey-like-cookie-thing going on here. The only thing I did differently was to use 3/4 cup unrefined sugar and about a teaspoon of molasses. Perfect! They're my new peanut butter cookie recipe. Thanks a bunch for sharing!
The best way, IMO, to use whole wheat is to buy a grain mill and grind your wheat yourself. You get so many more of the nutrients than if you buy whole wheat flour already ground. I use hard white wheat and the taste is mild and my family almost can't tell the difference between it and all-purpose flour.
Honey – Just read your blog post, lovely! I think you're right, the agave probably created a more liquidy dough and therefor a softer cookie. You might want to increase the flour next time if you'd like something crisper! Let me know if you get better results using the brown sugar.
Believe it or not, my husband-to-be eats Nutterbutter cookies for his breakfast/mid-morning snack most days. Unbelievable, I know. I'm going to make these in the hopes that I can get him a couple of rungs up the healthy ladder!! Maybe someday he'll actually have a meal for breakfast instead of Nutterbutters and a Frappuccino! Thanks for the recipe.
Sandy – I think that would be fine! Just make sure to bring the dough down to room temperature before baking. But honestly, I wasn't exaggerating when I said the dough takes less time to make than your oven takes to preheat!
Joyce- I've used 3/4 cup of sugar before with good results, however I haven't attempted anything less for fear of the cookie being rough or dry. Maybe you could try to cut the sugar to 1/2 cup then add a tablespoon (or a few) of applesauce or something to keep the moisture and consistency and to help the cookies spread when baking. Let me know if you end up trying anything!
this recipe sounds delicious!! but do you really need 1 cup of sugar? peanut butter already has quite a lot of sugar.. and with the chocolate chips, the cookies will be twice as sweet. is there any way to cut down on sugar without making the cookies dry ?
So true. To have a habit stick, start slowly. I've been incorporating whole wheat into cooking for a couple of years but only started doing it with my baking in the last few months. I've mastered the banana breads and such and the muffins….ON TO COOKIES. This post came to me in a very timely matter! Thank you for sharing. My husbands going to love these.
love this post. can't wait to try the cookies! i've been experimenting with whole wheat pastry flour lately and have had some major fails with the banana bread and sweet potato breads i tried to make, but i'm not giving up yet! haven't tried it in cookies 🙂
Also, if you're buying whole wheat products, make sure it's 100% whole wheat. There's so much out there masquerading as “healthy wheat bread” when really, it's just as enriched and unhealthy as white bread!
Of course, if you make your own, you always have a much better idea of what you're putting in your body!
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What could be the substitute for egg? We don’t eat eggs so would want an Eggless version please.
I haven’t tested this recipe without eggs, so I can’t say for sure!
I was concerned that the dough was too wet, but the cookies turned out to be really nice.
Golden brown and moist in the center. They weren’t too sweet either. I substituted a cracked up dark chocolate bar for the chocolate chips. I followed the recipe using a hand mixer. I was glad to find a recipe that uses whole wheat flour because I was out of all purpose. Thanks!
This recipe was wonderful
I’m happy to hear you enjoyed these cookies!
Can I use instant oats?
I followed the recipe exactly, using natural peanut butter, and found that the dough was very dense and hard to work with. Not sure if this is a result of using a stand mixer which may have over-mixed the dough, but I was keeping a fairly close eye out to prevent that. The cookies themselves were heavy, and chewy in the middle. My kid loved them, probably because he doesn’t usually get peanut butter cookies during the school year, but I wasn’t overly impressed. I’m debating whether I should give them another go to see if I can tweak some part of the process.
I made these and the batter was way too gummy and sticky after putting the flour in and got stuck on the mixer arma, it was so hard to mix and mold into cookies. any idea why this could have been?
So easy, my kids helped me out!
Hi Tessa, I made this today and the cookies didn’t flatten at all and taste very “flour-y”. We think that’s because of the lack of butter. I wonder what makes a difference in my end product and yours. Because it looks really good in your picture!
Can I use granulated sugar instead of brown?
Can I omit the oatmeal or just replace it with more whole wheat flour?
These are so good! I don’t usually love pb cookies as they’re a bit grainy I guess? But these are perfect.
Best. PB. Cookies. Ever! I have always liked the flavor but hated the crunch/ toffee texture. You legitimately FIXED everything that was wrong with peanut butter cookies. Thank you.
I just made these. I did cut the brown sugar to 1/2 cup and used 1/2 cup Stevia plus 1 tsp molasses. The results were phenomenal!!! Yum!
These cookies are delicious and easy. I made them with dark brown sugar and mini chocolate chips. They have a great peanut butter taste that is not dry or sticky to your mouth. They have a nice crunch with the oats and a nice finish with the mini chocolate chips. This is one recipe I will make over and over again.
Could I make these with cashew butter or pistachio butter?
Can I replace the peanut butter with butter on this recipe without changes?
Not sure what I did wrong… I followed the recipe exactly… and my cookies DID NOT spread. They look like the picture of the chocolate chip cookies that had too much flour. But, I correctly measured the flour with a spoon & leveled it off. Hmmm… wonder what happened?
Hi Dottie! These cookies don’t spread a ton in general but they should spread at least a little! If you want to make them again and prefer them thinner you might try adding a tablespoon of milk to thin out the dough since there’s no butter.
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These are my favorite cookies in the world. I make them all the time! I love them so much that I even included the recipe in one of my blog posts and of course I gave you credit for them. Thanks so much for the recipe.
http://twistongrandmasrecipes.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-husband-was-on-tv-peanut-butter.html
Hello! These cookies look really great, and I LOVE anything peanut butter! I was just wondering, do you think I could cut down the sugar to 1/2 cup? Or would that be too drastic? I read the comments above and you suggested applesauce, but I never have applesauce (I’ve never made it before), would honey be a bad choice to add?
Maybe I just over baked them, but all the peanut butter flavor baked out of these. The batter had so much flavor, so they ended up being a real disappointment. I guess I'll stick to the much fattier butter-filled version as a very occasional treat.
These sound so yummy and healthy! Yay! Gonna make them very soon 🙂
I made them again and just had to come back to say that these are really extremely awesome. 🙂 Thank you so much for the recipe!
These are amazing! I made them today to make into reindeer cookies I saw on Pinterest. They're way better than expected and I bake whole grain all the time. 🙂 The texture was amazing. No nasty cakey-like-cookie-thing going on here. The only thing I did differently was to use 3/4 cup unrefined sugar and about a teaspoon of molasses. Perfect! They're my new peanut butter cookie recipe. Thanks a bunch for sharing!
Snow – You could use either! If you're using any type of natural PB just make sure that the oils are evenly distributed.
Would you recommend using natural PB for these or store-bought?
The best way, IMO, to use whole wheat is to buy a grain mill and grind your wheat yourself. You get so many more of the nutrients than if you buy whole wheat flour already ground. I use hard white wheat and the taste is mild and my family almost can't tell the difference between it and all-purpose flour.
Honey – Just read your blog post, lovely! I think you're right, the agave probably created a more liquidy dough and therefor a softer cookie. You might want to increase the flour next time if you'd like something crisper! Let me know if you get better results using the brown sugar.
This recipe is great… my only question is how did your cookies turn out so crisp looking? Mine turned out more soft. Is it because I used agave instead of brown sugar. Thanks.
See here and please let me know – http://www.honeywhatscooking.com/2011/01/peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies-no.html
Believe it or not, my husband-to-be eats Nutterbutter cookies for his breakfast/mid-morning snack most days. Unbelievable, I know. I'm going to make these in the hopes that I can get him a couple of rungs up the healthy ladder!! Maybe someday he'll actually have a meal for breakfast instead of Nutterbutters and a Frappuccino! Thanks for the recipe.
Sandy – I think that would be fine! Just make sure to bring the dough down to room temperature before baking. But honestly, I wasn't exaggerating when I said the dough takes less time to make than your oven takes to preheat!
Would it be possible to make dough ahead of time and refrigerate it for a few days before baking?
Joyce- I've used 3/4 cup of sugar before with good results, however I haven't attempted anything less for fear of the cookie being rough or dry. Maybe you could try to cut the sugar to 1/2 cup then add a tablespoon (or a few) of applesauce or something to keep the moisture and consistency and to help the cookies spread when baking. Let me know if you end up trying anything!
this recipe sounds delicious!! but do you really need 1 cup of sugar? peanut butter already has quite a lot of sugar.. and with the chocolate chips, the cookies will be twice as sweet. is there any way to cut down on sugar without making the cookies dry ?
Great recipe! I will be making these cookies :).
So true. To have a habit stick, start slowly. I've been incorporating whole wheat into cooking for a couple of years but only started doing it with my baking in the last few months. I've mastered the banana breads and such and the muffins….ON TO COOKIES. This post came to me in a very timely matter! Thank you for sharing. My husbands going to love these.
These cookies look so, so good. I never would've guessed there was something as good as whole wheat flour in them!
Anne- you bring up an excellent point! I ALWAYS read labels… you never know if those health claims on the packaging really hold up.
I've lowered the butter in making cookies, but never eliminated it.
Those look fantastic!
delicious peanut butter cookies
love this post. can't wait to try the cookies! i've been experimenting with whole wheat pastry flour lately and have had some major fails with the banana bread and sweet potato breads i tried to make, but i'm not giving up yet! haven't tried it in cookies 🙂
Also, if you're buying whole wheat products, make sure it's 100% whole wheat. There's so much out there masquerading as “healthy wheat bread” when really, it's just as enriched and unhealthy as white bread!
Of course, if you make your own, you always have a much better idea of what you're putting in your body!
You were right, I LOVE these! I will be making them very soon!