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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.
These were wonderful! I followed the recipe ingredients to a T. I put it in the fridge for about 25 min while I washed my dishes. I used a smaller cookie scoop and flattened with my hand. 8 min in the oven. Don’t forget to flatten! They turn out gorgeous! I also chopped up a chocolate bar in lieu of a cup of chocolate chips. I also hit my pan on the counter to help them flatten a little after I took them out of the oven!
These were fine, but I don’t think I will bother again. I am a chocoholic and found waaaay too many chips. Not a whole lot of peanut flavor. I used half skippy and half Teddy’s. Getting that batter into cookie shape was a real pain – maybe would have been better if I refrigerated it for 72 hours, but let’s be real 😉
Perfection! Crispy exterior, tender creamy interior. The peanut butter flavor is not too detectable when fresh out of oven, but intensified the next day. I had King Arthur unbleached flour so I reduced it as suggested (used 314 grams). My dough was not crumbly as described so I was worried, but they turned out perfectly. Hard to incorporate all the chocolate chips so for those left behind in the bowl, I pushed them into the tops. I accidentally made 20 extra large cookies which might be why I had to cook longer: 14 minutes. They were browned on top but still seemed undercooked inside, which turned out perfect when cooled.
My family absolutely loved these cookies. I brought them to a friend’s house and she decided to make them the very next day. Thank you!!! I do think it’s key to weigh the flour if at all possible, because I can see the tendency towards the dough and consequently the cookies being crumbly. I also did put the dough in the refrigerator (as the author instructs), though I did not plan well enough ahead. LOL. I refrigerated the dough for 45 min. (vs. the 60 in the recipe) and that still seemed to do the trick.
Oops, and I forgot to say it’s also vital to follow the directions about when to take the cookies out of the oven. I would consider them to be undercooked when you actually take them out but leaving them to sit on the cookie sheet on the counter allows the additional needed time to cook, while creating pillowy soft insides.
Well? I just made these for my first time – and gave them to two families with young children. Everyone is raving about them, so they’re obviously a hit.
My family prefers smaller cookies – so,,,using only 1 – to 1 1/2 tbsp (instead of 3) yields 5 dozen cookies.
Did you adjust the cooking time since they were half the size?
I thought they’d need less time too but they were still thick and needed maybe 1 minute less. I started checking at 9 minutes.
Thank you!! You’re awesome as I’m about to bake these now!!
Let me know how you like them!!
We love this recipe. We’ve made it several times, but my wife wanted me to mix it up a bit and use crunchy peanut butter, less sugar and use the Bosch instead of hand mixing. I reluctantly agreed. The dough turned out more oily than the original recipe, but the cookies are fine. You’ll see in the photos I didn’t push the dough down enough so they’re puffier than normal, but still good. I guess some oil was released from the peanuts when mixing them harshly with the mixer – just my guess. Anyway, they still worked out well. Thanks!
Throwing these in my glass baking dish -I want bars. Hopefully they work as well as a cookie 🍪
We just tried this recipe and my wife is in love! But like others, the recipe yielded about 18 large cookies. We just couldn’t use that many chocolate chips. We tried, but just couldn’t get them all in and still get the cookies to hold together well. We did the gluten free version using King Arthur flour and they worked great – with just a hint of graininess typical of gluten free, but still very enjoyable. We are at high altitude (5000′) and added back in the reduced 2 T of flour because the dough appeared to be too sticky. We will modify the number of chocolate chips next time and maybe play with the sugar amounts – as my wife is extremely sensitive to sweet (when I didn’t think these were that sweet.)
Nice work and thanks for an excellent/keeper recipe!
We also cooked them exactly as the recipe said, 350 for 12 mins and they were perfect. That’s rare for us at high altitude.
So easy and tasty!! I’ve made them twice so far!
I have made these cookies off and on for a couple years now. (Looking at your site, it looks like I need to try more recipes). As we travel to Hawaii to see grandkids as often as we can, this recipe is super easy to make no matter where we are. The womens Ironman was happening fall of 2023 and I made cookies for a couple folks that we met at the condo to enjoy in prep for the competition. The recipe is no fail in my book. Everybody loves them. Thanks so much.
This was extremely crumbly. I added the 3rd egg white that you did not include in the recipe. Was better, but still crumbly. Took more like 20 minutes and still not brown or really done. Chocolate chips are very hard to incorporate in the cookie due to toe dough not sticking together until pressed together. You need a new recipe instead of trying to tell people what kind of flour and peanut butter to use. Will not be using this recipe again, or this site with too many annoying pop-up ads.
To be fair she does say to add in milk if it’s too crumbly. I’ve had no problems with this recipe at all and have made it for many years
I’ve made this recipe multiple times following exact instructions and my dough has never been crumbly and the cookies turn out perfectly every time. I would try again and follow the recipe to a T as it is described, use the recommended brands and measure your flour correctly.
She said add eggs AND yolk…
I just baked these exactly as written and the dough held together to the last cookie scoop. Thanks so much for the recipe. Love it.
Can you freeze these cookies if so what is the instructions.
Hi Lisa! You can find the freezing instructions just above the recipe here 🙂
Freeze the cooked cookies***
We haven’t tried that, but I’m sure they’d be fine! We personally prefer freezing the cookie dough and baking fresh for best taste and texture.