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.
Pros: Perfect PB chocolate chip cookies.
Cons: None!
Would I make this again? I’ve always got a batch of these portioned into dough balls sitting in my freezer, ready to be baked off whenever the craving strikes.
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These Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are one of my absolute favorite desserts on the planet.
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!
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I’m actually surprised I’m not utterly sick of either of these flavors, let alone continuing to enjoy them together. I literally eat peanut butter every day. Same for chocolate. 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 thick and chewy, yet soft, and have just amazing peanut butter flavor. They are 1000% perfect with a glass of cold milk.
The best part? You don’t even need a stand mixer to make this peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe, they’re so easy.
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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!
- The high ratio of brown sugar and the extra egg yolk in this recipe help contribute 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.
- Measuring your dry ingredients accurately is one of the best ways to improve your baking!
- If You Don’t Measure Your Flour Correctly, YOU COULD END UP WITH CRUMBLY DOUGH and dry, hard cookies lacking in flavor. Just check out the image below, showing the difference between correctly and incorrectly measured chocolate chip cookies.
The Best Peanut Butter for Baking
- This recipe has been successfully tested with conventional peanut butter (Skippy) AND natural peanut butter, with reservations.
- Check out my peanut butter experiment here.
- Only use natural peanut butter if it’s VERY well stirred to be completely smooth and cohesive with no oily or dry bits.
- When it’s very smooth, natural peanut butter will yield a much more bold peanut butter flavor!
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, if you wish!
Cookie 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.
- 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
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) semi sweet 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
This recipe was originally published in 2014 and has been updated with recipe improvements and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Could you please consider making these with natural peanut butter (such as Smuckers), where the oil does separate? I ask because I do not eat the standard kind for health reasons. If not, do you have any peanut buttter cookie recipes that work well with natural pb?
I made them with Teddie natural PB and they were perfect 🙂 I chilled the dough overnight.
I made these day…well started yesterday and let the dough marinate overnight and then baked them today. They are VERY delicious!
Oh man, these look so good! I am not a baker and this had so many great tips. PS: I wish I was there to taste test.
I made these yesterday for Father’s Day! They are amazing! Thank you so much. I keep going back to your recopies over and over again. These also freeze amazing after they were baked! I did not have time to let them sit in the fridge, so what I did was made the dough, then set it in the fridge while I preheated the oven. Then popped them right in after the oven was preheated! They turned out AMAZING, THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Tessa, I LOVE cookies and desserts – do you have any keto-friendly cookies/desserts you can post? Thanks much
These cookies look delicious; how can I make them dairy free? Can I substitute the butter with coconut or avocado oil? and what ratio would you use?
Made these last night and baked 4 right away. Cabot believe how perfectly they come out of three oven… perfect color top and bottom.
The addition of the sea salt on top makes them amazing.
The only thing I wish they had more of a rich peanut butter flavor. To me the peanut butter flavor was faint. I used Jif chunky peanut butter.
My husband loved his two. He krept into the kitchen and asked if there were anymore, lol.
Hello! These look delicious and I am allergic to dairy but would love to try and make them. Would you recommend substituting the butter for margarine or shortening?
I have made other cookies with margarine in place of butter and they were fantastic. They were shortbread that called for a brick of butter. Not much of a difference in texture or taste
Hi Tessa! This is the second cookie recipe I’ve made from you, the first being the brown butter chocolate chunk cookies. Both were delicious. When making these, I used only 1 cup of brown sugar and 1/4 cup of white sugar because I didn’t want such a sweet dough. Would this have affected the texture?
I’m asking because both times I’ve made these cookies, they turned out a little cakey. Of course, that could just be because I only used AP flour. Thanks!
These. Are. Amazing. Just made a batch. Instagram photo & my own rendition of the recipe (with a shoutout/link to your page) are coming soon {check out http://www.maxandrosies.com to see!} !! Love this site so much.
So excited to make these but I don’t have dark brown sugar or molasses available where I live. Is there any other substitute you’d recommend for the dark brown sugar? (i’ve read you can use dark corn syrup but not sure which will effect the flavor the least) Thank you!
Do you think you could use a cookie cutter with this recipe? I have made these several times and everyone loves them! Having a Pirate Themed party for my son and wanted to make sword and crossbones cookies.