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.
What Makes Cookies Chewy, Crisp, or Cakey?
My free guide reveals the ingredients and tweaks that matter.
The best part? These Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are so quick and easy to make – you don’t even need a mixer!
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!
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
The Ultimate Cookie Handbook
Learn the sweet SCIENCE of cookie baking in a fun, visual way to customize your own recipes frustration-free. Plus, my best 50+ homemade cookies!
This recipe was originally published in 2014 and has been updated with recipe improvements and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Hi Tess!
Absolutely in love with your recipes! I just wanted to ask if I can generally freeze your cookie recipes? Would that affect the cookies in any way?
Thank you!
Hi Nadia! Glad to hear you’re enjoyed our recipes! You can absolutely freeze our cookie recipes 🙂 We highly suggest “marinating” (chilling) the dough overnight if recommended in the instructions (don’t skip that step!), and then you can follow this article linked here for How to Freeze Cookie Dough and Bake from Frozen. Hope that helps!
Bottomline: I loved this!!
These cookies really turned out to be soft, chewy and chunky.
Here are my takes:
* The recipe itself is good already with a balanced flavor of peanut & chocolate chips but if you want more peanut flavor, maybe you can adjust the recipe to 1 cup P.B.
* I didn’t have the chance to chill the dough because I was too excited and hungry to try it.
* I used a 4cm diameter scooper (equivalent to 2 tbsp.) and baked it for 12 mins.
* My cookies didn’t flatten so I suggest to press the dough slightly before baking.
* By the way, I made 4 dozens of cookies with the 4cm scooper =)
Thanks so much for all of your feedback, Kayla, we appreciate it! So glad you enjoyed these cookies 🙂
I just made these and they are really good. I didn’t refrigerate them before baking because I was in a hurry. They still turned out great. Thank you for this recipe!
So glad you enjoyed them, JP!
My hubby an uncle tore them up… Thx again for a great recipe
Happy to hear they were such a hit! Thanks for the comment 🙂
These turned out perfect and I did not chill the dough, I baked them immediately. Absolutely delicious!
BEST peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I’m 13 and I made these cookies, they were AMAZING . I’ll definitely make these again. Thank you so much for this recipe.
So awesome to hear this, Izzy! Glad you enjoyed this recipe 🙂
Made it in a hot kitchen and it was so so so greasy. I rolled the cookies and plopped them onto a greased cookie sheet. Convection Bake at 375 for 13 minutes. Let cool on the sheet for 2. PERFECT.
When working in a hot kitchen, we always suggest refrigerating or “marinating” the dough before baking, which also enhances the texture and flavor of your cookies! Glad they turned out great for you though, even in your hot kitchen! 🙂
Delicious recipe and very easy to make!
Gooey liquid on the inside, hard burnt rock on the outside. I spent hours trying to find out what I did wrong just to end up with a mess and no cookies.
Oh dear god I used powdered sugar and not flour
Oh no, how frustrating! I’m so glad you were able to figure out what happened. Hopefully you try this recipe again, I bet you’ll have much better and tastier results!
I don’t taste peanut butter at all. Otherwise the cookies are delicious!
Purposely made it less sweet– used the 1 cup of brown sugar only, no granulated sugar. Turned out fine.
Also we followed the directions: flatten and then bake for one sheet, used my standard: bake and then flatten (by banging the pan on the butcher block counter) for another sheet; both were good and I think the bake-then-flatten were prettier.
So glad you enjoyed these cookies, Sue!
Tessa hit it out of the park! These ARE the best Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies….ever! My 2nd time making them and they’re perfect every time. They make up very easy with Tessa’s precise instructions and measurements. If you don’t have a food scale, do yourself a favor and invest in one! You won’t be sorry!
Thank you Tessa for your labor of love! ❤️
Thank you so much, Carol, for taking the time to write such a sweet review! I absolutely loved hearing how much you enjoy making this recipe 🙂