Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are big, thick, chewy, and soft and loaded with peanut butter and chocolate flavor. They are outrageously good! No stand mixer required. Download my FREE Cookie Customization Guide here.
Yield:
24 large cookies
Prep Time:10minutes
Cook:12minutes
Tessa's Recipe Rundown...
Taste: Chocolate and peanut butter has been my favorite sweet combination since before I can remember! I am obsessed! Texture: Thick, chewy, soft, melty, and wonderful. Ease: Very simple. Pros: Perfect PB chocolate chip cookies. Cons: None! Would I make this again? Oh yeah. I’ve got a batch of these portioned into dough balls sitting in my freezer ready to be baked off whenever the craving strikes.
If you read Handle the Heat regularly, you likely know I adore the combination of chocolate and peanut butter.
Recently someone asked me why I loved the combination so much and I was taken aback slightly. My first thought was “well why wouldn’t I love this magic duo?” Then I realized that I’ve loved the flavors together since before I could remember. Since childhood two of my favorite foods have been chocolate and peanut butter, so it only makes sense that I absolutely adore them combined!
I’m actually surprised I’m not utterly sick of either of these flavors, let alone enjoying them together. I literally eat peanut butter everyday. I eat chocolate ALMOST everyday (like probably 360 days out of 365). And yet I’m still obsessed with the two, which is good for you because it leads me to share recipes like these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.
These cookies are ridiculously big, thick, and chewy yet soft and have just amazing peanut butter flavor. They are 1000% perfect with a glass of cold milk.
Best part? You don’t even need a stand mixer to make this peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe, they’re so easy.
Check out the notes below because I’ve tried to answer all your questions and give you a perfect understanding of how the peanut butter cookie recipe works.
How to Make Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies:
Unsalted butter – always use unsalted butter in baking, so you’re in control of the amount of salt used!
Creamy peanut butter
Granulated sugar
Dark brown sugar
Eggs
Vanilla extract
Semi sweet chocolate chips
How to Make CHEWY Cookies & Not Dry Peanut Butter Cookies!
The recipe is adapted from my Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies, a recipe I worked very hard to perfect. The high ratio of brown sugar and the extra egg yolk help contribute a rich, chewy, and thick texture with lots of flavor.
Be sure to measure your flour correctly (by weighing or with the spoon and level method) to avoid creating cakey, dense, or tough cookies that don’t spread. Measuring your dry ingredients accurately is one of the best ways to improve your baking.
Please follow the recipe as written, I craft my recipes carefully so you can have the best results possible!
The Best Peanut Butter for Baking
For best results, use a standard commercial brand of creamy peanut butter. I used Skippy for this recipe. Avoid any “natural” peanut butters where the oil separates. The dough won’t come together nicely if you don’t use commercial peanut butter with an added oil.
Which Chocolate Chips for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies?
I prefer the taste of semi-sweet chocolate chips in these cookies, but you could also use milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, or chocolate chunks. Just be sure to use the same amount as called for in the recipe.
Size and Shape
These are large chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, just the way I like ’em! I use my Handle the Heat Perfect Cookie Kit‘s large cookie scoop to form these cookie dough balls (which is a 3-tablespoon sized scoop). You can make use the medium cookie scoop in the Cookie Kit, to make 1.5 tablespoon-sized balls of dough and shave off about 2 minutes from the baking time, if you’d like.
The peanut butter in cookie recipes does prevent normal spreading. After you shape the dough into balls, flatten the balls well with the palm of your hand. This will encourage them to spread more while they bake. Don’t forget this!
Baking Perfect Cookies
I ALWAYS use a heavy duty unlined aluminum half sheet pan for baking cookies. Never use dark colored pans to bake cookies, they tend to overly brown or even burn the bottoms of the cookies. Additionally, I always use parchment paper for baking cookies. I find silicone baking mats produce less of a crunchy exterior crust and are just one extra thing to clean.
Chilling the Dough and Making Ahead
For best results, chill the dough overnight in a large bowl in the fridge. Why on earth would I recommend you delay your cookie satisfaction?
Well, chilling chocolate chip cookie dough is very similar to marinating meat – things just get so much better. The texture becomes chewier and thicker and the flavor intensifies. If you don’t have time, no worries. You can bake the dough off after it’s made.
To freeze: I like to scoop my dough balls out using a Cookie Scoop, freeze them until solid, then remove them to a ziptop bag to store in the freezer. You can defrost the dough overnight in the fridge, or for an hour or so at room temperature before baking. You can bake from frozen, but note that with this recipe the cookies won’t spread as much.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are big, thick, chewy, and soft and loaded with peanut butter and chocolate flavor. They are outrageously good! No stand mixer required. Download my FREE Cookie Customization Guide here.
3/4cup(202 grams) creamy peanut butter (I used Skippy)*
1/2cup(100 grams) granulated sugar
1cup(200 grams) packed dark brown sugar
2large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
2teaspoonsvanilla
2cups(340 grams) semi sweet chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
In a large heat safe bowl, microwave the butter until melted. Vigorously stir in the peanut butter into the hot butter until well combined. Stir in the granulated sugar and brown sugar until well combined. Add the eggs and yolk, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Add in the vanilla. Gradually stir in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips. Dough may be a little loose and slightly crumbly. If it's unbearably crumbly, that's likely due to the brand of peanut butter. Add 2 tablespoons milk if that's the case.
OPTIONAL: If time permits, cover the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours but no more than 72 hours. Let the dough sit at room temperature just until it is soft enough to scoop.
Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a spring-loaded scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets. Flatten dough slightly into disc shapes with your palms. Dot each disc with a few extra chocolate chips for picture-perfect cookies.
Bake for 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
*Be sure to measure your flour correctly or you may end up with super crumbly dough. Only use conventional peanut butter for this recipe with an added oil. Completely 'natural' peanut butter will result in a dry cookie.*
Course :
Dessert
Cuisine :
American
Keyword :
easy
This recipe was originally published in 2014 and recently updated with recipe improvements and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
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!)
What a disapointment. Waste of time. I even had the dough sitting in the fridge for 24 hours. They didnt taste like peanut butter, dry, no flavor, terrible after taste. Way to many chocolate chips. I needed these to give to someone and with me not having any time at all to bake anything I thought these sounded easy and have so many great reviews. False advertising. Now I have cookies that are terrible and nothing to give for a gift.
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— December 1, 2022 at 1:16 pm
Hi Dennis! Oh no, I’m sorry to hear these cookies did not turn out as you’d hoped. It’s hard to say what exactly went wrong without having baked alongside you, but it sounds like something perhaps was accidentally mis-measured, because these cookies should be deliciously peanut buttery with a great level of moistness and chewiness! How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure flour/sugar/etc and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe. Tessa talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time, in this article here! There are multiple other things that could have gone wrong, too (such as inactive leaveners, using natural peanut butter, etc), so if you wish to troubleshoot any further, please reach back out and we can try to work together to figure out what went wrong. Thanks so much for giving this recipe a try, and have a great day 🙂
Looking for yet another cookie recipe, I came across and, tried these. I always ignore Brand suggestions and used half the baking powder and substituted plain yogurt for rest. This is now my “go to” cookie recipe!
I have made this recipe and it is outstanding. I do have a question. I also made the Peanut Butter Reeses and Chocolate chip cookies which I also love. I’ve been searching through the website for the recipe .because I can’t find my copy of it. Can you tell me where I can find it. It was the one I received in a Baking School segment.
These Are an absolute favorite. Do the cookies freeze well? I need to bake 6 dozen a week in advance but not sure if they freeze good or if they will still taste just as good.
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— October 17, 2022 at 12:57 pm
Hi Joanna! We haven’t tried freezing the baked cookies, only the dough! Check out Tessa’s tips for this in the pink tip box, above the recipes! I would recommend making all your batches of dough, following Tessa’s instructions to freeze, then bake them off the day before or morning of your event. I hope that helps! 🙂
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What a disapointment. Waste of time. I even had the dough sitting in the fridge for 24 hours. They didnt taste like peanut butter, dry, no flavor, terrible after taste. Way to many chocolate chips. I needed these to give to someone and with me not having any time at all to bake anything I thought these sounded easy and have so many great reviews. False advertising. Now I have cookies that are terrible and nothing to give for a gift.
Hi Dennis! Oh no, I’m sorry to hear these cookies did not turn out as you’d hoped. It’s hard to say what exactly went wrong without having baked alongside you, but it sounds like something perhaps was accidentally mis-measured, because these cookies should be deliciously peanut buttery with a great level of moistness and chewiness! How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure flour/sugar/etc and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe. Tessa talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time, in this article here! There are multiple other things that could have gone wrong, too (such as inactive leaveners, using natural peanut butter, etc), so if you wish to troubleshoot any further, please reach back out and we can try to work together to figure out what went wrong. Thanks so much for giving this recipe a try, and have a great day 🙂
Looking for yet another cookie recipe, I came across and, tried these. I always ignore Brand suggestions and used half the baking powder and substituted plain yogurt for rest. This is now my “go to” cookie recipe!
I have made this recipe and it is outstanding. I do have a question. I also made the Peanut Butter Reeses and Chocolate chip cookies which I also love. I’ve been searching through the website for the recipe .because I can’t find my copy of it. Can you tell me where I can find it. It was the one I received in a Baking School segment.
Sweet Regards,
Linda Butler
Hi Linda! Is it these Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies you’re looking for? Let me know if that’s not the one, and I’ll try to help you find it 🙂
Amazing recipe! Wonderful cookies! A family favorite!
These Are an absolute favorite. Do the cookies freeze well? I need to bake 6 dozen a week in advance but not sure if they freeze good or if they will still taste just as good.
Hi Joanna! We haven’t tried freezing the baked cookies, only the dough! Check out Tessa’s tips for this in the pink tip box, above the recipes! I would recommend making all your batches of dough, following Tessa’s instructions to freeze, then bake them off the day before or morning of your event. I hope that helps! 🙂