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 large 3-Tablespoon cookie scoop to form these cookie dough balls (which is a 3-tablespoon sized scoop). You can make use the medium cookie scoop 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!)
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— February 8, 2023 at 12:35 pm
Hi Elise! This recipe makes about 24 cookies. I think where you got confused was the size of each cookie! The directions state to “Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a spring-loaded scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets”. The 3 is referring to 3-Tablespoon sized cookies, which should give you about two dozen. I hope that helps 🙂
These are fantastic. Thick, chewy, and delicious, just like a cookie should be and they have just the right amount of peanut butter flavour. I didn’t melt the butter, I’m one of those weirdos without a microwave, and I was too lazy to use a pot. I just made sure I creamed the butter and peanut butter with the sugars really well. The cookies were perfect. Thank you for including weights, it makes it so much easier to measure things like peanut butter. Just plop the jar on the scale, press tare, and scoop the right amount right into the bowl. No extra dishes and no trying to scrape it out of a measuring cup!
I haven’t had peanut butter cookies in years and had a spontaneous craving. I followed the recipe to the letter, and these turned out EXACTLY how I pictured the perfect cookie in my head!
I appreciate the weight measures for dry ingredients. I have had much better results with all my baking since I started using a food scale.
Thank you for posting this! I better put the rest of the cookies away before I eat them! 🙂
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— January 20, 2023 at 2:05 pm
Hi Charu! We have not tested this recipe to make it crispy, but I recommend checking out this Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe for tips and information about achieving a crispy cookie (all the info is in the pink tip box, above the recipe). Good luck 🙂
Holy *bleep* these cookies are so good!! They are better than my chocolate chip cookies I make which are delicious. I cut the recipe in half only because I didn’t need to bake 24 and I’m glad I did cause I’ve already eaten half and I made them yesterday
Best peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve found! I used 1/2 cup of butter flavored Crisco instead of regular butter. No need to soften. 1 cup of miniature and 1 cup of regular sized semi sweet chips. Used my cookie scoop but didnt press cookies into discs. Baked 10 min for more tender, taller cookies.
I made the batter yesterday and baked them today. The dough was not crumbly like the recipe said they’d be but they cooked up great. My husband thought there were too many chocolate chips (but I did not). I did, at his request after the first batch, add sugar to the top before they baked. That was the extra perfect topper. I really enjoyed them. Thank you!
These came out absolutely to die for. I didn’t even chill the dough or let the eggs get to room temperature. Bake them for 12 minutes and they were perfect. I don’t understand how there are negative reviews on this recipe! Perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate!
These cookies are the best peanut butter chocolate chip cookies ever. They’re soft and stay that way for days. They also freeze very well. I got a lot of compliments of these cookies on the Christmas platters.
My daughter made these (and attached a copy of your recipe) for her 4-H baking contest. She won first place! They are delicious. We love how they still taste mostly like chocolate chip cookies but with a hint of peanut butter.
Made these last night and they’re delicious! Texture is on point! I used 1c semisweet chocolate chips and 1c pb chips. Still a bit too sweet though and masks the pb flavor so I will reduce sugar next time. Thanks for a great recipe!!
Great recipe! My only problem is that there is NO NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION. My husband is a diabetic & that info would help tremendously in helping to keep his glucose levels more even.
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— December 21, 2022 at 2:50 pm
Hi Donna! I’m sorry, but we don’t calculate nutritional information because we believe desserts should be an indulgence. We realize there are reasons, such as your husband’s, why this can be important to calculate, but online nutritional calculators should be able to assist you with this. Happy baking 🙂
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— February 8, 2023 at 1:08 pm
Hi Christine! Yes, you can use light brown sugar, but the cookies won’t be quite as moist as if you use the dark brown sugar. The extra molasses content in dark brown sugar brings extra moisture to the cookies, as well as a deeper butterscotchy flavor. Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try 🙂
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— December 19, 2022 at 12:37 pm
Hi Carly! I hope I’m understanding your question correctly. We typically use a small silicone spatula and/or a spoon to remove the peanut butter from the jar and either weigh it (our preferred method – it’s more precise and, bonus!, fewer dishes!) or to a measuring cup to gauge the volume, and then spoon/scrape it all into the bowl with the other ingredients when needed. I hope that helps! Please feel free to reach back out if I misunderstood your question!
These are without a doubt the very best version of PBCC cookies I have ever made! The recipe is perfect. The cookies are soft, perfectly sweet and salty and peanut buttery!!!
THE best peanut butter cookies ever!! I have made these several times. Every time I make these cookies, I still can’t believe how scrumptious they are!! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe!! I share all the cookies that I make with my husband’s trap shooting buddies. These cookies are they’re absolute favorite, bar none!
What an excellent cookie recipe. Best cookies I ever had so delicious and amazing texture. I highly recommend making these the whole family loved them. I don’t usually leave reviews but felt this really needed one.
Best peanut butter chocolate chip cookies ever. Seriously. These were perfect. I let the batter sit in the fridge for about 2 hours just because I had the time and they came out beautifully fluffy and thick. I wonder how they would come out if the batter sat in the fridge even longer! Anyway, thank you so much for the recipe. These are my new favorite cookies.
So good!! Although I used light brown sugar since it’s what I had on-hand. Thank you for the tip about the flour. I’m sure this will help with my regular chocolate chip cookie recipe.
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! 🙂
As a trained chef and cookbook author, I share trusted baking recipes your friends & family will love alongside insights into the science of sweets. I help take the luck out of baking so you *always* have delicious results! Learn more here.
Over 200 pages with 50+ cookie recipes that'll make
you a COOKIE PRO. Discover how to turn your biggest cookie flops into WINS by mastering the
sweet science of baking. Even learn how to customize your own recipes! Beautiful, hardcopy,
full color, photos of every recipe so you know EXACTLY how your cookies should look. Order
now to have the book delivered to your doorstep!
Do you want a more delicious life?
Instead of digging through cookbooks and magazines and searching the internet for amazing
recipes, subscribe to Handle the Heat to receive new recipe posts delivered straight to your
email inbox. You’ll get all the latest recipes, videos, kitchen tips and tricks AND my
*free* Cookie Customization Guide (because I am the Cookie Queen)!
does the recipe make 3 giant cookies? did I miss something about the 3 ice cream scoops of dough on a baking sheet?
Hi Elise! This recipe makes about 24 cookies. I think where you got confused was the size of each cookie! The directions state to “Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a spring-loaded scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets”. The 3 is referring to 3-Tablespoon sized cookies, which should give you about two dozen. I hope that helps 🙂
Just made this and had a great time! Seems like a great intro to the baking world.
These are fantastic. Thick, chewy, and delicious, just like a cookie should be and they have just the right amount of peanut butter flavour. I didn’t melt the butter, I’m one of those weirdos without a microwave, and I was too lazy to use a pot. I just made sure I creamed the butter and peanut butter with the sugars really well. The cookies were perfect. Thank you for including weights, it makes it so much easier to measure things like peanut butter. Just plop the jar on the scale, press tare, and scoop the right amount right into the bowl. No extra dishes and no trying to scrape it out of a measuring cup!
I haven’t had peanut butter cookies in years and had a spontaneous craving. I followed the recipe to the letter, and these turned out EXACTLY how I pictured the perfect cookie in my head!
I appreciate the weight measures for dry ingredients. I have had much better results with all my baking since I started using a food scale.
Thank you for posting this! I better put the rest of the cookies away before I eat them! 🙂
Tessa, any suggestion on how to make it crispy?
Hi Charu! We have not tested this recipe to make it crispy, but I recommend checking out this Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe for tips and information about achieving a crispy cookie (all the info is in the pink tip box, above the recipe). Good luck 🙂
We love these!! Can’t wait to share with company
Holy *bleep* these cookies are so good!! They are better than my chocolate chip cookies I make which are delicious. I cut the recipe in half only because I didn’t need to bake 24 and I’m glad I did cause I’ve already eaten half and I made them yesterday
Best peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve found! I used 1/2 cup of butter flavored Crisco instead of regular butter. No need to soften. 1 cup of miniature and 1 cup of regular sized semi sweet chips. Used my cookie scoop but didnt press cookies into discs. Baked 10 min for more tender, taller cookies.
I made the batter yesterday and baked them today. The dough was not crumbly like the recipe said they’d be but they cooked up great. My husband thought there were too many chocolate chips (but I did not). I did, at his request after the first batch, add sugar to the top before they baked. That was the extra perfect topper. I really enjoyed them. Thank you!
These came out absolutely to die for. I didn’t even chill the dough or let the eggs get to room temperature. Bake them for 12 minutes and they were perfect. I don’t understand how there are negative reviews on this recipe! Perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate!
These cookies are the best peanut butter chocolate chip cookies ever. They’re soft and stay that way for days. They also freeze very well. I got a lot of compliments of these cookies on the Christmas platters.
Best Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip recipe ever!
My daughter made these (and attached a copy of your recipe) for her 4-H baking contest. She won first place! They are delicious. We love how they still taste mostly like chocolate chip cookies but with a hint of peanut butter.
Made these last night and they’re delicious! Texture is on point! I used 1c semisweet chocolate chips and 1c pb chips. Still a bit too sweet though and masks the pb flavor so I will reduce sugar next time. Thanks for a great recipe!!
Hi there! We are so glad you enjoy these cookies! Don’t reduce the sugar next time, though; that will do a lot more than just reduce the sweetness, as you can see in this article here! Instead, try increasing the salt a little, and use dark or bittersweet chocolate chips instead, to balance out the sweetness 🙂
Great recipe! My only problem is that there is NO NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION. My husband is a diabetic & that info would help tremendously in helping to keep his glucose levels more even.
Hi Donna! I’m sorry, but we don’t calculate nutritional information because we believe desserts should be an indulgence. We realize there are reasons, such as your husband’s, why this can be important to calculate, but online nutritional calculators should be able to assist you with this. Happy baking 🙂
Can I use regular brown sugar??
Hi Christine! Yes, you can use light brown sugar, but the cookies won’t be quite as moist as if you use the dark brown sugar. The extra molasses content in dark brown sugar brings extra moisture to the cookies, as well as a deeper butterscotchy flavor. Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try 🙂
How do you remove peanut butter with ease when using it to bake?
Hi Carly! I hope I’m understanding your question correctly. We typically use a small silicone spatula and/or a spoon to remove the peanut butter from the jar and either weigh it (our preferred method – it’s more precise and, bonus!, fewer dishes!) or to a measuring cup to gauge the volume, and then spoon/scrape it all into the bowl with the other ingredients when needed. I hope that helps! Please feel free to reach back out if I misunderstood your question!
These are without a doubt the very best version of PBCC cookies I have ever made! The recipe is perfect. The cookies are soft, perfectly sweet and salty and peanut buttery!!!
Thanks for sharing you’re recipe.
Only one comment. For me too salty so I will just leave our the added salt next time. Other than that the young people I support loved them….
THE best peanut butter cookies ever!! I have made these several times. Every time I make these cookies, I still can’t believe how scrumptious they are!! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe!! I share all the cookies that I make with my husband’s trap shooting buddies. These cookies are they’re absolute favorite, bar none!
What an excellent cookie recipe. Best cookies I ever had so delicious and amazing texture. I highly recommend making these the whole family loved them. I don’t usually leave reviews but felt this really needed one.
Wow, so thrilled to hear that, T! Thanks so much for the comment!
Best peanut butter chocolate chip cookies ever. Seriously. These were perfect. I let the batter sit in the fridge for about 2 hours just because I had the time and they came out beautifully fluffy and thick. I wonder how they would come out if the batter sat in the fridge even longer! Anyway, thank you so much for the recipe. These are my new favorite cookies.
So good!! Although I used light brown sugar since it’s what I had on-hand. Thank you for the tip about the flour. I’m sure this will help with my regular chocolate chip cookie recipe.
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! 🙂