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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.
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! 🙂
Amazingly delicious and decadent! This is now my go-to cookie recipe. I made these last night and this is one of the very best cookies I’ve ever eaten. The recipe is easy to follow, clean-up is minimal, and your preparation tips make all the difference. If ingredients are good quality and weighed, it seems foolproof: I substituted light brown sugar in place of dark; I was also 20g short on the brown sugar so I used extra granulated sugar. The cookies turned out beautifully. I can’t wait to try your other recipes!
Absolutely delicious! Made them for a family get together and every single person raved about them. I followed the recipe exactly except I mistakenly grabbed milk chocolate chips instead of semi sweet they were still over the top yummy but that did make them super sweet. I will definitely make these again and again. Excellent recipe!
Made these today with my niece (3 yrs). Very good! We used Guittard 63% extra dark chocolate baking chips and skippy peanut butter. Let the dough rest in the fridge for 1.5 hrs, rolled them out and then stuck them in the freezer on the tray while the oven preheated. Baked about 13 mins. She loves them and so do I. Thanks for the recipe!
Soooo good. I make made these for my friend’s birthday and everyone loves them. The cookies came out really thicc and they’re the perfect amount of soft and crispy.
Awesome recipe but they go down so easy. I do not recommend this if you are in any way trying to lose weight. AMAZING and super simple to make..
Thanks so much for sharing..
My two girls, ages 5 & 8, can make these cookies by themselves with the use of a digital scale (and a mom who separates the egg yolk!). Thanks for such a simple, delicious, foolproof recipe!
My son and I baked these cookies and they were delicious! Save this to favorites ❤️
Can I use 1 cup of Bread flour and 1 1/12 cups of All- Purpose flour in this recipe ? What do you think of 1 cup of chocolate chips and 1 cup of peanut butter chips ?
Hi Joseph! While we haven’t specifically tested that flour combination out ourselves, that should work just fine for slightly chewier, denser cookies that spread less when baked. The chocolate chips/peanut butter chips will also be perfectly fine, too! Let us know how you like these 🙂
These absolutely did not work for us. We measured and used Skippy peanut butter as well and the dough was crumbly. It was just OK when we balled it, it stuck together but we couldn’t push to flatten or they would fall apart. Once cooked, the texture was meh and the flavor was lacking. It just tastes like sugar and sweet without actual flavor. I usually follow my own recipes for cookies but wanted to try something new so followed this to a T. Recipe seems hot or miss. Won’t be making again
Hi Katie! Oh no, I’m sorry to hear that you did not enjoy these cookies! It sounds like something may have gone wrong in the process if these weren’t peanut butter-y and delicious! You dough sounds very crumbly and dry, which makes me think there may have been too much flour in your dough. 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! I hope you try these cookies again, Katie – they really are delcious! Happy baking 🙂
I made these and the whole family liked them. They were not overly sweet. Easy to make. Would use this recipe again.
Wonderful to hear that, Leeann!!