This Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe is one of my favorite cookie recipes using pantry staples you probably already have sitting in the cupboard and refrigerator. They are crispy on the outside and soft and chewy and full of peanut butter flavor, you'll never buy store-bought cookies again!
They rival my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and Kitchen Sink Cookie recipes as my favorites. But you can try all 3 recipes and decide which one you like best!
For a fancier cookie recipe try my French Macaron Recipe or my French Madeleines. Both are equally delicious!
Why You'll Love This Recipe:
- The best part is they whip up so quickly and easily, no need to chill the dough either, so as soon as the craving strikes, you'll be quickly rewarded!
- They are crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside! Giving you the best of both worlds!
- They are not overly sweet and the recipe uses a little extra butter to give them a melt-in-your-mouth texture.
The Ingredients:
- The ingredients for peanut butter cookies are so basic you probably have all of them sitting in your fridge and pantry.
- Butter If you live in the states use Land O' Lakes Salted Butter. This butter is more flavorful than unsalted and will give your cookies the best buttery flavor. If you live outside the U.S. then use unsalted butter since international salted butter is pretty salty!
- Peanut Butter Read the label! Only buy peanut butter has 1 ingredient in it: Peanuts. (No added oils, sugars, or salt.) You'll get the best peanut flavor this way.
- White Sugar I use white sugar for the crispy edges around the cookie and the cross-hatch pattern
- Brown Sugar I use brown sugar for the chewy interior of the cookie
- Egg The egg will add softness and richness to the cookie
- Vanilla will sweeten the cookie and add flavor without using more sugar
- Flour I use regular all-purpose flour for this recipe
- Salt will heighten the flavor of the cookie
- Baking Soda will give your cookie a nice chewiness to it. You can swap for baking powder if you have to, but I find the texture of cookies is best with baking soda.
- Optional Chopped Raw Peanuts are a nice touch if you like a peanut butter cookie with a little bit of crunch in it. And if you have leftover peanuts you can put them to use in my Peanut Brittle Recipe, a great food gift idea for holiday gifting!
Using Natural Peanut Butter
- There can be a huge swing of variables in natural peanut butter. Some have more oil, some are harder to stir, some are creamier, some are thicker etc.
- I have tried many options and keep coming back to Trader Joe's Creamy No Salt Peanut Butter as the clear winner for this recipe.
- You can use any leftover peanut butter for my decadent Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie or my Easy Peanut Butter Sauce for Ice Cream.
- The natural peanut butter will give you a peanut butter cookie with the best peanut butter flavor.
- Be sure your butter is also very soft, this will help the peanut butter and its oil, incorporate better.
- You can choose creamy for a smoother texture or chunky for a more textured cookie.
Why do you make fork marks on peanut butter cookies?
- Peanut butter is a pretty dense ingredient. When you add it to cookie dough the cookies will bake with this density.
- Adding the criss-cross pattern or "hash marks" to your cookies allows them to bake evenly.
- This will give you a crispy exterior around the edges and a chewy interior where the hash marks are formed. Aside from being functional, it also looks pretty on the cookies as well!
- Dip your fork in flour first before making the hash marks, this will prevent your fork from sticking.
Choosing the Best Fork
- This may seem like a strange consideration, but I really love when peanut butter cookies are covered in the cross-hatch pattern, for the simple reason that you get more nooks and crannies in the cookie that way, which provides more crispy parts on top of the cookie.
- This is a wonderful contrast to the chewy interior.
- I've found regular dinner forks are not quite large enough. Their tines come up too short for a large cookie.
- So I've found vintage forks, which tend to be larger and heavier work the best!
- Or you can also size your cookie down to a smaller ball to allow your fork to reach across it.
Scooping the Dough With an Ice Cream Scoop
- Using a 2-ounce ice cream scoop will create nice rustic edges to your cookie, which again like the cross-hatching, will add more crispiness to the cookie
- It's also easier than rolling the dough into a ball by hand
- I find a cookie scoop also helps maintain the equal size of each cookie which helps them bake at the same rate and prevent any fights breaking out among the children!
How Long to Bake Peanut Butter Cookies?
- If you want a soft peanut butter cookie bake them for 13-minutes, then allow them to cool on their tray to set up even further.
- For crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside peanut butter cookie let them bake for about 15 minutes.
Storing The Cookies and Dough
- Once baked you can store the cookies in an air-tight container, they are best eaten within 3-5 days
- Or you can refrigerate the dough for up to 5 days and bake as needed
- Or you can freeze the dough in an airtight, freezer-safe container, for up to a month, and defrost it in the refrigerator overnight before baking.
More Cookie Recipes!
- Snickerdoodle Cookies
- Chocolate Hazelnut Linzer Cookies
- Easiest Christmas Cookies EVER!
- Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie
If You Enjoyed This Recipe
Please Leave a rating and review below
Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe
Yield:
12 cookies
Prep Time:
20 minutes
Cook Time:
13 minutes
Total Time:
33 minutes
Learn how to make my Best Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe. So good and easy you'll never buy store-bought again! Video tutorial follows.
Ingredients
- ¾ cup (180 g) of softened butter
- ½ cup (85g) light brown sugar
- ½ cup (100g) white sugar
- 1 cup (240 ml) of no salt peanut butter (only ingredient should be "peanuts". Trader Joe's Creamy No Salt Peanut Butter is my favorite for this recipe
- 1 tablespoon teaspoon (15 ml) vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 ½ cup (180 g) flour
- ½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) baking soda
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F (176C).
- In an electric mixer cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Then add the peanut butter. And mix until combined.
- Then add the egg and vanilla beat to combine. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, in thirds until everything is combined.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Then with a 2” ice cream scoop parcel out 6 dough balls. And then with a fork that has been lightly dipped in flour, create a cross hatch pattern on top of each ball, pressing dough the dough slightly at the same time.
- Bake for 13-15 mins.
- Allow to cool slightly and then transfer to a cooling rack. Enjoy!
Notes
High-quality peanut butter has one ingredient: peanuts! Avoid others with added sugar or salt. Pure peanut butter will create the best-tasting cookie!
For this recipe I prefer the Trader Joe's Creamy Peanut Butter, No Salt
Dip your fork in flour first before making the hash marks, this will prevent your fork from sticking.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 18 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 32Total Fat: 2gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 22mgSodium: 21mgCarbohydrates: 3gFiber: 0gSugar: 2gProtein: 1g
Jacqueline
Beth, Help! I've made these cookies many times but today for the first time I had a problem with the batter. When I went to scoop it onto the cookie sheet, the batter was a bit crumbly so when I unscooped the dough, it didn't stick together. Part of it crumbled. This never happened to me before. I sort of patched it together like you would a meatball and baked them anyway They tasted ok but the batter was just crumbly. As I said I've made this cookie many times (always LL butter and TJ organic peanut butter even) so I have no idea what happened,. Any ideas?
maryann
I made these and the taste was great. They had the texture of shortbread. They were not chewy. The outside was crisp. I had a hard time getting them to turn out with a uniform round shape despite using an ice cream scooper. I had another problem with the hatch pattern. I used a large fork dipped in flour but the tines stuck to the dough. The flour even stayed on the dough. Any suggestions for making the hatch marks more attractive? If I were to dampened the fork, would that help? I'd really like to perfect these cookies. The recipe yielded 24 cookies.
Rose
This was my first time making peanut butter cookies. I had some crunchy Trader Joe's salted peanut butter left so added a quarter cup of that plus the 3/4 cup of the unsalted peanut butter to equal the cup called for in the recipe and cut down on the salt. They came out perfectly! Next time I may substitute the crunchy peanut butter, as I like a crunch to my cookies. Thanks for a great recipe!
Beth Le Manach
Oh yes the crunchy peanut butter is really great! I do that too sometimes, you can also go for broke and toss in a few chocolate chips as well! 🙂 So glad they were a hit!
Jacqueline
Well here's a different experience with the same recipe. I used all the ingredients as specified except I didn't use Land of Lakes butter, just regular unsalted butter. Everything else including TJs same peanut butter was the same as the recipe (I did find some confusion re amount of vanilla. Is it 1 T? 1 tsp? or 1 T.+1tsp of vanilla) but I just went with 1 T of vanilla. I used a slightly smaller scoop so I could use my American fork ( I do have French forks but Lagiole has a design feature that I thought would get in the way). I did not have wet dough. I did not have to put it in the refrigerator. My only problem was the dough was somewhat dry, heavy. I know all flours differ so I assumed that was the issue. I baked them. They looked very good but even after they cooled, they broke when I picked them up and they tasted floury if that makes any sense. I note that when I measure 1 c of TJ's peanut butter that it used up more than 1/2 the jar but despite all the peanut butter , the flour was more pronounced than the peanut butter. I got 25 cookies from the batch. Other than the dryness of the dough, the cookies passed my husband's test and he also said he liked that they weren't too sweet. So he's happy 🙂
Jacqueline
Is it a Tablespoon or a teaspoon of vanilla????
Beth Le Manach
It's a full tablespoon 🙂 Adds more flavor than sweetness. Hope you enjoy!
cah
Not everyone has access to Trader Joe's. If they're too salty, use unsalted butter or cut the salt in half.
Kate
Idk what I did wrong but mine turned out salty can you explain because I think I did something wrong but thank you for the recipe
Beth Le Manach
Ah OK did you use salted peanut butter? That's the thing that immediately comes to mind 🙂 You should use unsalted peanut butter 🙂
Gary davis
I made your peanut butter cookies today, and followed the recipe exactly. Even with chilling the dough, it was not firm enough to work properly. The cookies spread and became quite thin for a normal pb cookie. Also very limp, not at all holding their self together. I normally have good results with you but don’t recommend this one.
entertainingwithbeth
Hmm this could be the type of peanut butter you are using. Do you remember what brand? I recommend peanut butters that only list "Peanuts" as the only ingredient. Otherwise if there are added oils, sugars etc, it can really effect the results!
Veritable Top Georgetown Tow Truck service
These look perfect for fall weather, will definitely pop these into the oven over the weekend, thanks for the great recipe!
Brian Mosser
Great job! Nothing like a classic yet delicious peanut butter cookie. I totally agree about finding a clean peanut butter too!!!
entertainingwithbeth
right?! I never started reading labels until I was a Mom and now I'm always so shocked at what some companies will put into peanut butter! LOl! Yikes!