Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: These cookies are packed full of peanut butter flavor and plenty of gooey chocolate chips studded throughout.
Texture: Thick, chewy, soft, melty, and wonderful.
Ease: Very simple, made with pantry staples.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: These are the perfect PB Chocolate Chip Cookies!
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These Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are one of my absolute favorite desserts on the planet. I’ve always got a batch of these sitting in my freezer, ready to bake off whenever the craving strikes!
I’ve loved the flavor combination of chocolate and peanut butter since before I could remember. And these cookies showcase that combination perfectly.
These cookies are ridiculously thick and chewy yet soft, and are heavenly with a glass of cold milk.
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The best part? These Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are so quick and easy to make – you don’t even need a mixer!
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Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
How to Make CHEWY Cookies & Not Dry Peanut Butter Cookies!
- Brown sugar and an extra egg yolk help create a rich, chewy, and thick texture with lots of flavor.
- Be sure to measure your flour correctly (by weighing with a digital scale, or with the spoon and level method) to avoid creating cakey, dense, or tough cookies that don’t spread.
- If You Don’t Measure Your Flour Correctly, you may end up with crumbly dough, and dry, hard cookies lacking flavor. Just check out the image below, showing the difference between correctly and incorrectly measured chocolate chip cookies.
The Best Peanut Butter for Baking Cookies
This recipe has been successfully tested with conventional peanut butter (Skippy) AND natural peanut butter. Only use natural PB if it’s VERY well stirred with no oily or dry bits remaining. When very smooth, natural peanut butter will yield a much more bold peanut butter flavor!
Check out my peanut butter experiment here!
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 the same amount of milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, or chocolate chunks.
Feel free to substitute peanut butter chips for some of the chocolate chips for more PB-forward cookies.
Cookie Size and Shape
These are large cookies, just the way I like ’em! I use my large 3-Tablespoon cookie scoop to form these cookie dough balls.
You can use the medium cookie scoop to make 1.5 tablespoon-sized balls of dough, if you prefer. Just shave off about 2 minutes from the baking time.
Peanut butter in cookie recipes prevents normal spreading, so that’s why we are flattening the balls well with the palm of your hand before baking. This will encourage them to spread more while they bake.
What Type of Baking Sheet is Best?
- I ALWAYS use an unlined aluminum half-sheet pan for baking 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.
- Never use dark-colored pans to bake cookies, as they tend to overly brown or even burn the bottoms of the cookies.
Do I Need to Chill Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough?
For best results, chill the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie dough overnight in a large bowl in the fridge. Here’s why:
- 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.
How to Make Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies Ahead
- Make the cookie dough as instructed and portion out the dough balls using a cookie scoop.
- Place the dough balls in a single layer on a baking sheet, freeze them until solid, then place them in a freezer bag to store in the freezer.
- Defrost the dough overnight in the fridge, or for an hour or so at room temperature before baking (less if your kitchen is warm).
- You can bake from frozen, but note that with this recipe the cookies won’t spread as much.
- Get all of my tips for freezing cookie dough (and baking from frozen!) here.
More Cookie Recipes You’ll Love:
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups (318 grams) bleached all-purpose flour, measured correctly*
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup (202 grams) creamy peanut butter**
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (200 grams) packed dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 cups (340 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- 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 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 until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Dough may be loose and slightly crumbly. It will not appear like normal chocolate chip cookie dough. If it's unbearably crumbly, that's likely due to discrepancies among brands of peanut butter and if you used unbleached flour. 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 large spring-loaded cookie 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 Notes
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This recipe was originally published in 2014 and has been updated with recipe improvements and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
These cookies were loved by all. I used 1/2 white chocolate chip just because I didn’t have enough chocolate chips. It made lots and I only baked 1/2 the dough. The other half I put in an Anchor bowl in the fridge for 2 weeks and they baked just the same as the first batch. I used a cookie baller and slightly flattened them with a fork. I would have liked them more peanut butter flavour but they had such a good response, the recipe is going in my cookie file. I will make them again. Thank you
Delicious
I’ve been using less chocolate than the recipe specifies – about 200g instead of 340 – and they’re still great.
I made almost** as recipe said. They came out perfectly: a little crispy on outside, soft on inside. Loved melting butter and adding PB to it.
**almost b/c I missed “bleached” flour in ingredients. Later I saw unbleached is bad, but that’s all I have. Also only had 1.5 cups semi-sweet choc chips. I used cookie scoop then back of a spoon to flatten them b/c I don’t like to use my hands if I can help it. Despite those differences, they came out delicious.
–P.S. My cookies have come out cakey before. This time I measured flour correctly (scoop and level). Not cakey. 🙂
I just made these cookies and loved them! I was looking for a recipe that didn’t require creaming the butter and sugar and this worked perfectly!
I used natural no sugar added peanut butter.
I did replace 1/2 cup all purpose flour with 1/2 whole wheat flour which made them slightly more cakey but still very delicious. I did not refrigerate before making.
What do you recommend for substituting all or part of hte flour for whole wheat flour in cookie recipes? Is it better to weigh the flour? Can you do a 1:1 replacement or is there a better conversion?
Thanks so much for sharing your experience — we’re so happy the recipe worked perfectly for you! 🙂 We haven’t tested our recipes with whole wheat flour, so we can’t say for sure how substitutions will turn out. Generally, whole wheat flour changes the texture and taste of cookies, so rather than a 1:1 swap, starting with a smaller amount like you did is a great approach. You can then adjust the recipe from there until you find the balance you love. You might find this King Arthur Baking article on experimenting with whole wheat flour really helpful. It’s a bit older, but full of great tips for your experiments! Hope that helps!
Excellent cookies, delicious and chewy. Because I used natural peanut butter, I did chill my dough for 2 hours to minimize spreading. But the results are amazing!