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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.
Will the recipe work if I substitute the flour and raising agents with self-raising flour?
Hi Katherine! We haven’t tested this, and Tessa typically prefers to use all-purpose flour and add her own leavening agents, to stay in control of the levening herself. Let us know how it goes if you give this a try, though! 🙂
does the recipe make 3 giant cookies? did I miss something about the 3 ice cream scoops of dough on a baking sheet?
Hi Elise! This recipe makes about 24 cookies. I think where you got confused was the size of each cookie! The directions state to “Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a spring-loaded scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets”. The 3 is referring to 3-Tablespoon sized cookies, which should give you about two dozen. I hope that helps 🙂
Just made this and had a great time! Seems like a great intro to the baking world.
These are fantastic. Thick, chewy, and delicious, just like a cookie should be and they have just the right amount of peanut butter flavour. I didn’t melt the butter, I’m one of those weirdos without a microwave, and I was too lazy to use a pot. I just made sure I creamed the butter and peanut butter with the sugars really well. The cookies were perfect. Thank you for including weights, it makes it so much easier to measure things like peanut butter. Just plop the jar on the scale, press tare, and scoop the right amount right into the bowl. No extra dishes and no trying to scrape it out of a measuring cup!
I haven’t had peanut butter cookies in years and had a spontaneous craving. I followed the recipe to the letter, and these turned out EXACTLY how I pictured the perfect cookie in my head!
I appreciate the weight measures for dry ingredients. I have had much better results with all my baking since I started using a food scale.
Thank you for posting this! I better put the rest of the cookies away before I eat them! 🙂
Tessa, any suggestion on how to make it crispy?
Hi Charu! We have not tested this recipe to make it crispy, but I recommend checking out this Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe for tips and information about achieving a crispy cookie (all the info is in the pink tip box, above the recipe). Good luck 🙂
We love these!! Can’t wait to share with company
Holy *bleep* these cookies are so good!! They are better than my chocolate chip cookies I make which are delicious. I cut the recipe in half only because I didn’t need to bake 24 and I’m glad I did cause I’ve already eaten half and I made them yesterday
Best peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve found! I used 1/2 cup of butter flavored Crisco instead of regular butter. No need to soften. 1 cup of miniature and 1 cup of regular sized semi sweet chips. Used my cookie scoop but didnt press cookies into discs. Baked 10 min for more tender, taller cookies.
I made the batter yesterday and baked them today. The dough was not crumbly like the recipe said they’d be but they cooked up great. My husband thought there were too many chocolate chips (but I did not). I did, at his request after the first batch, add sugar to the top before they baked. That was the extra perfect topper. I really enjoyed them. Thank you!
These came out absolutely amazing. I didn’t even chill the dough or let the eggs get to room temperature. Bake them for 12 minutes and they were perfect. I don’t understand how there are negative reviews on this recipe! Perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate!
These cookies are the best peanut butter chocolate chip cookies ever. They’re soft and stay that way for days. They also freeze very well. I got a lot of compliments of these cookies on the Christmas platters.
Best Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip recipe ever!