Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Ultra peanut buttery and perfectly sweet.
Texture: Soft, tender, and slightly chewy. Perfect with a glass of cold milk!
Ease: SO simple and easy. No dough chilling required.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: These are my favorite PB cookies and they’re about to be yours, too!
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These Peanut Butter Cookies are soft, tender, slightly chewy, and packed with tons of PB flavor. These are the perfect treat if you’re totally PB-obsessed like me!
I tweaked, adjusted, and tested these cookies relentlessly until I struck the perfect balance of nutty flavor and thick, tender, chewy texture in every bite.
This is one of those classic, crowd-pleasing recipes you’ll add to your repertoire and return to again and again – especially during the Christmas cookie season!
These perfect Peanut Butter Cookies are like biting into nostalgia. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make the BEST Peanut Butter Cookies
How to Make Thick, Soft PB Cookies
- The PB: Peanut butter’s fat, protein, and oils create a thick, chewy cookie by adding richness and moisture while preventing excess spread.
- Ingredient ratios: The key to soft peanut butter cookies is the perfect ratio of PB, butter, flour, and leavening. Plus a hefty amount of brown sugar, which draws in moisture, for soft and tender cookies. Don’t reduce the sugar – learn what sugar does in cookies here.
- Measure correctly: When measuring flour, be sure to use a digital kitchen scale or the spoon & level method to prevent dry or crumbly cookies.
- Don’t over-bake. The cookies will continue to bake from the residual heat of the oven. Remove them just before they look completely done to maintain softness.
What’s the Best Peanut Butter for Cookies?
This recipe has been successfully tested with conventional peanut butter (Skippy and Jif) AND natural peanut butter. Check out our 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 bolder peanut butter flavor!
You can alternatively use almond butter at a 1:1 ratio. More on this below.
Why Do You Put a Criss-Cross Pattern on Peanut Butter Cookies?
Pressing a fork into Peanut Butter Cookies prior to baking helps flatten the cookies slightly, so they spread perfectly, bake more evenly, and brown evenly.
If we skipped that step, these cookies would be so thick that they’d barely spread, and they may not bake all the way through.
Do I Have to Refrigerate This Cookie Dough? What Does Chilling Cookie Dough Actually Do?
You do not have to chill this Peanut Butter Cookie dough for perfectly thick cookies that are full of peanut buttery flavor.
You can chill the dough for up to 72 hours if you prefer. The baked cookies become chewier and thicker, and the flavor intensifies. Learn more about why we chill cookie dough and the benefits of chilling cookie dough here!
How to Store Peanut Butter Cookies
Store cooled cookies inside an airtight container for 3 days at room temperature. Keep a tortilla in the container with the cookies to keep them soft and chewy and prevent them from drying out or getting hard as quickly.
Can PB Cookies be Frozen?
Yes! Freeze the baked, cooled cookies inside an airtight container for 1 month. Allow to defrost at room temperature then refresh in a 300°F oven for about 5 minutes, if desired.
You can also freeze the Peanut Butter Cookie dough disks (rolled in sugar and pressed with the fork) in an airtight container for up to six weeks. Allow to thaw to room temperature before baking as written. See all my tips for freezing cookie dough here!
Peanut Butter Cookies Variations & Substitutions
These cookies have endless variations, so feel free to have some fun with them!
- Almond butter: Use almond butter in place of the peanut butter at a 1:1 ratio. Our team tested this substitution successfully using Barney Butter Smooth Almond Butter. No need to adjust anything else.
- Mix-Ins: Add up to 1 ½ cups (255 grams) chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, toffee bits, toasted peanuts, or any other mix-ins you desire!
- More PB: Add an additional 1/4 cup peanut butter (so 1 cup or 270 grams in total) and increase the vanilla to 1 teaspoon to really amp up the PB flavor.
- Crunchy PB: I haven’t tried crunchy peanut butter, but it should work just fine at a 1:1 ratio.
- Bars: If you’re looking for PB bars, try my Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars, my Loaded Peanut Butter Christmas Cookie Bars, or even my Peanut Butter Stuffed Brownies.
- Make mini cookie sandwiches: Use a small 1-tablespoon size cookie scoop and bake the cookies for about 8 minutes, or until the edges are slightly browned. This makes about 30 small cookie sandwiches. Fill cooled cookies with the filling recipe below.
Peanut Butter Filling Recipe
- 1/4 cup (56 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1/2 cup (135 grams) smooth peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups (157 grams) powdered sugar, sifted
- 3 tablespoons (44 grams) heavy cream (keeps filling light, fluffy, creamy, and not as sweet)
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and peanut butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla, salt, powdered sugar, and heavy cream, and continue beating until the frosting is smooth and fluffy, about another 3 minutes.
More Peanut Butter Recipes:
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Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 2 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons (302 grams) all-purpose flour, measured correctly
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 1/2 sticks (170 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (150 grams) light brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (200 grams) creamy peanut butter* (see notes)
- 1 large egg, at cool room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
For rolling:
- 1/3 cup (67 grams) granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar on medium-high speed until smooth and well combined, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Beat in the peanut butter until well combined. Beat in the egg and vanilla. On low speed, gradually add the flour mixture, beating until combined.
- Place the granulated sugar for rolling in a separate small bowl. Using a medium spring-loaded cookie scoop, form the dough into 1 1/2 tablespoon rounds. Roll between your palms to smooth, then roll in the granulated sugar before placing on the prepared baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Slightly flatten the dough by pressing the back of a fork into each ball of dough twice, to create a criss-cross pattern.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are slightly browned. Let cool on baking sheets for 10 minutes before removing the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
This recipe was written in 2019 and has been updated with additional tips and recipe improvements. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Made these this morning and not only are they delicious, they’re a great looking cookie as well. My husband already ate six of them!!! I followed the directions exactly, including weighing my ingredients, and used Jif creamy peanut butter. Thanks for a great recipe!
I didn’t listen and used crunchy kraft pb and the recipe still work perfectly, these are so good, crunchy outside and chewy inside. Easy to whip up on a weekday.
These cookies aren’t great. Mine came out dry and lacking flavour. I carefully measured my ingredients and used Jif peanut butter. I made them to take to a group function, and they were disappointing. I would not make them again.
Hi Noni! I’m sorry to hear these cookies did not turn out as they should. In case you’re interested in troubleshooting at all, I have a couple of ideas as to what may have gone wrong here. You said you measured your ingredients carefully, but are you weighing your ingredients? Weighing vs. measuring by volume can have a huge impact on your baked goods. It’s so easy to over or under-measure ingredients, especially flour, when measuring by volume – and too much flour is the #1 reason for dry cookies! Tessa talks about how to measure ingredients for best results in this article here. If these cookies just didn’t have enough PB flavor for you, I highly recommend trying out Tessa’s Giant Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies – there’s a TON of delicious PB flavor in those cookies! Happy baking
Excellent! Easy peasy…also easy to eat too many! They are perfect! Not too hard, not too sweet, not too peanut buttery…everything just right! It is a new “go to” cookie recipe. Thanks!
I made these today and while the taste is a perfect peanut butter flavor mine came out quite dry. I am unsure why that is – maybe too much flour? I followed the directions to a T. Next time I will weigh out ingredients and see if that makes a difference. My son absolutely love them.
Hi Lauren! I can almost guarantee there was too much flour in there if these cookies seemed too dry. When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to accidentally add too much flour! Tessa talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time, in this article here! I’m glad your son loved them regardless! 🙂
Hey, these cookies look absolutely amazing and I am planning to make them this Christmas as part of my cookie box. How long will they keep in an airtight container? Thanks
Hi Stella! These cookies will stay fresh for about 3 to 5 days in an airtight container. Keep a piece of bread or a tortilla in the container to keep them softer for longer 🙂 Happy baking!
Made these today and I can honestly say these are the best tasting peanut butter cookies I’ve had! They were so easy to make also! So so good!
Hi Lindsey! I’m so happy to hear that you loved these peanut butter cookies! Thank you so much for taking the time to let us know 🙂
Hi Tessa,
My husband just requested these Peanut butter cookies. He doesn’t eat a lot of cookies but since he asked for yours, I jumped right up & got out my butter & egg
Thanks
So happy to hear how much your husband loves this recipe, Alice!
Can I add more peanut butter to the recipe? My family wants more peanut butter flavor!
Hi Scarlett! Thanks for your feedback! You’re welcome to experiment with that, but I can’t say for sure how much as we haven’t tested it. You can also try using a different brand of peanut butter to see if that helps 🙂 Let me know how it goes!
Wow Wow wow!!! How lucky I was to find this incredible site!
After maybe ten recipes I tried I almost gave up until I found this amazing site, when I went into the site I knew it was right! The detailed explanations, unit of weight per gram is excellent !!, fine raw materials! The cookies came out just right as it should be! Chewy, excellent texture with fine taste! Thank you so much Tessa Professional!
So happy to hear that, Aviad! Thanks for taking the time to let us know, we appreciate it!
I made these last year at Christmas time. People loved them. One person who said she doesn’t usually like peanut butter Loved them.
So happy to hear they were such a hit, Lisa! Thanks for the letting us know 🙂
not enough peanut butter!…. I’ve made many PB cookie recipes and this one needed more PB. They are soft but that’s it.
I’m sorry to hear that! I’m obsessed with peanut butter and thought it was the perfect amount! I wonder if maybe it was the brand of peanut butter you used? Maybe it didn’t have as strong of flavor as what I used.