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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, no mixer, and ready in 30 minutes.
Why you’ll love this recipe: These are the perfect PB Chocolate Chip Cookies!
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.
The best part? These Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are so quick and easy to make – you don’t even need a mixer!
Absolutely delish!! I made them a bit larger (18 total instead of 24) and they are amazing!! I made them for Father’s Day, but the whole house approved. This is by far my favorite texture I’ve ever seen in a cookie. Perfectly crunchy on the edges, soft and chewy insides.
If you’re cookie-obsessed like me, you’ll love making cookies that’ll rival your favorite bakery (just like these!) with my second cookbook, The Ultimate Cookie Handbook: Your Guide to Baking Perfect Cookies Every Time – now available on Amazon!
Key Recipe Ingredients
Peanut Butter: I prefer natural peanut butter (well-stirred with no oily or dry bits) for a bolder peanut butter flavor, but conventional peanut butter (like Skippy or Jif) works too. Check out my peanut butter experiment here!
Dark Brown Sugar: Helps create a chewy texture and adds rich flavor. You can substitute light brown sugar if it’s all you have, but the color, texture, and flavor will be different.
Egg Yolk: The extra yolk contributes to a rich, chewy cookie.
Chocolate Chips: Semisweet is my favorite, but you can substitute milk chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate chunks, or peanut butter chips for even more peanut butter flavor.
Sprinkle of Science (open me!)
- 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 the spoon and level method) to avoid 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 showing the difference between correctly and incorrectly measured chocolate chip cookies.
- 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.
- Check out my Best (and WORST) Baking Pans article here for more details on the science of baking pans.
Although not required for this recipe, I highly recommend chilling the cookie dough for 24-72 hours before baking. You can always bake off a few cookies right away and chill the rest. Here’s why:
- Chilling cookie dough is very similar to marinating meat – things just get so much better!
- The texture becomes chewier and thicker, and the flavor intensifies. It also improves the golden brown exterior as the cookies bake, for crisp edges.
- You can either scoop first and chill (make sure to wrap in plastic) or chill the entire mass of dough, let it come to room temperature, then scoop.
- Learn more about why chilling cookie dough matters here.
Storage & Make ahead
Storing Baked Cookies: Keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Make-Ahead Dough: Portion the dough, freeze the balls until solid, then transfer them to a freezer bag for up to 6 weeks. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator or for about an hour at room temperature before baking.
Baking from Frozen: This is possible, but the cookies won’t spread as much. Get all of my tips for freezing cookie dough (and baking from frozen!) here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Peanut butter in cookie recipes prevents normal spreading, so flattening the balls with the palm of your hand before baking helps encourage them to spread more while they bake.
If you’d like an even stronger peanut butter flavor, try using very well-stirred natural peanut butter and swapping some of the chocolate chips for peanut butter chips.
I haven’t tested this, but many readers have successfully swapped in King Arthur gluten-free measure for measure or Bob’s 1 to 1 baking flour.
Yes! For about 12 medium cookies, use a medium cookie scoop to make 1 1/2-tablespoon portions and reduce the baking time by about 2 minutes.
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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.
- 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.
Notes
This recipe was originally published in 2014 and has been updated with recipe improvements and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Hi Tessa. I follow you and always read your recipes, thank you. I have made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies for years but I always use Milk Chocolate Chips! They seem to be a universal favorite. I look forward to changing it up and trying your recipe! Thanks again for your love of baking!
I was looking for a new recipe to make cookies for a function, and this was the winner. I knew anything with chocolate and peanut butter should be good, but not every recipe one finds online is a good one. Some are complete disasters, so I had no expectations and had my chocolate chip cookie recipe close by. However, these cookies exceeded my expectations. And I have high standards! Wow, these are amazing! I almost made the recipe as is. The one thing I missed was refrigerating at least 24 hours. I had to bake them after just 12 hours. I also made them much smaller getting four dozen rather than two. Baking for just ten minutes was perfect. I prefer a thicker cookie and after the first dozen baked I decided to leave the dough in balls rather than pressing down. Perfection! These delicacies are crunchy on the inside and soft and chewy on the inside with the perfect ratio of peanut butter to chocolate. The recipe is now in my binder of keeper recipes . . . and it has to be really good to make it to that special place. Thank you so much for such a great recipe!
I forgot to add, after I made a dozen balls and had them on my parchment lined baking sheet I placed the baking sheet in the freezer for ten minutes. When a tray came out of the oven the tray from the freezer went into the oven. This also helped keep a thicker cookie which I prefer.
Excellent peanut butter chocolate chip cookie with a chewy bite.
Very easy to make and so good I just love them
Unfortunately that was a bit too much flour and the cookies came out like thick blobs. 🙁
Various tweaks:
Replaced all purpose flour with equivalent grams of banana flour
Used Aldi Simply Nature organic peanut butter
Used 3/4 cup of erythritol instead of sugar
Used light brown sugar
Used 3 whole eggs
Added about 2 cups of roasted nuts, consisting of walnuts, pecans, and macadamia
Mix felt like it had more ‘mix-ins’ than probably any other recipe I’ve tried. Had to carefully ration dough to make sure chips and nuts were integrated into ball.
Made into balls and chilled for a few hours.
When I cooked them I did not squish them down. This was a mistake. About 10 minutes in they were still ball-shaped. I flattened them a bit with a fork and ended up cooking them for 16 minutes. They ended up about 3/4 of an inch thick and didn’t flatten on their own at all.
Taste isn’t that good. I think the banana flour is responsible. They aren’t sweet enough and taste a bit too much like a health cookie.
I’m sure that if the instructions are closely followed they probably turn out well, so I’ll give them 5 stars, but the version I am eating right now is about a 3.
Best cookies recipe ever, for PB and chocolate lovers! Not overly sweet either. I made only 2 changes: light brown sugar and crunchy PB, as that it what I had it on hand. I didn’t have large cookie scoop, so got 39 cookies. Make gem- you will not be disappointed!
So delicious !
It was my first time making them and it was so much fun and easy with this great recipe.
Thank you so much!
These are amazing! The only thing I changed was I used half dark chocolate morsels which made for a nice balance. Gobbled these up for Thanksgiving and am making them again to give as gifts for Christmas!
I have made these before and I could have sworn there was bread flour listed in the recipe. Does anyone have the original recipe for the Peanut Butter Cookies?
Is it vanilla extract or a vanilla bean?
The Best cookies EVER!