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Soft Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies
The best chewy peanut butter cookies which have everything — a chewy texture, crisp edges, and crunchy peanuts.The perfect peanut butter cookie!
I have been on the hunt for the best peanut butter cookie recipe. Since peanut butter cookies are one of my husband’s favorite cookies, I searched in order to figure out how to make the ultimate peanut butter cookie. After many batches, we have declared a winner!
I tried all sorts of different methods and ingredients. I found that butter produced the best flavor (it truly does make everything better) so it was the perfect base. Slightly softened butter (a small indention forms when pressed but it is not melted) mixed well with the sugars.
Both brown sugar and sugar play an important role in the cookie. The brown sugar creates the chewy texture, thanks to the molasses, and the sugar creates the slightly crispy edges. I tried using all brown sugar, mostly brown sugar and a little sugar, and half and half, and the 50/50 brown sugar to sugar ratio won out.
The peanut butter is always important since it is the star ingredient. If you want the cookies to be extra crunchy, reach for crunchy peanut butter. If you want them to be mostly smooth, reach for creamy peanut butter. One of my favorite parts of this peanut butter cookie is the finely chopped peanuts added to the cookies so you get a crunch in every bite. It adds so much texture!
One note on salt…if you use salted butter, just omit the salt. There will be plenty of salt between the peanut butter, peanuts, and butter. It is best to use unsalted butter in these cookies but either will work just fine.
After rolling the dough into a ball, roll into a bowl of sugar, and then take a fork and make a crisscross pattern. Place on a baking sheet and bake just until edges start to become a light golden color. They will look slightly underbaked but will set up. They are supposed to be soft and chewy so let them continue to set up on the cookie sheet after removing from the oven.
These chewy peanut butter cookies freeze so well so keep them in the freezer for a late night craving or an after school snack for your kids. They go perfectly well with a big glass of cold milk. Just ask my husband…he’s an expert on that combo.
If you LOVE Peanut Butter, check out these recipes:
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies (Levain Bakery Copycat)
- Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Pie
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Soft Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter (softened)
- 1 cup Brown Sugar
- 1 cup Sugar (plus 2 Tablespoons for top of cookies)
- 1 cup Peanut Butter (creamy or crunchy)
- 2 large Eggs
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla
- 2 1/2 cups Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 3/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt (optional if using salted butter)
- 1 cup Roasted Salted Peanuts (ground or finely chopped to resemble breadcrumbs)
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, and sugar for 4 minutes, until light and fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl often.
- Add eggs and vanilla and beat for 1 minute longer. Fold in peanut butter.
- Stir in flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Fold in finely ground or chopped roasted salted peanuts.
- Chill dough for at least 1 hour or overnight is ideal. After chilling, preheat oven to 350 degrees.Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Roll dough into 2-inch balls. Place remaining sugar into a small bowl. Roll cookie dough balls into sugar to coat. Place on cookie sheet and press each ball twice with a dinner form to form a crisscross design.
- Bake for 10-13 minutes or until the edges become a light golden color. Do not overbake as these are supposed to be soft and chewy. Let the cookies rest for at least 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
Video
Notes
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Happy Baking, my friends!
Hi light or dark brown sugar??
Hi mimi! I use light brown sugar in this recipe however you can use dark brown sugar as well for more of a toffee taste. I hope you enjoy!
Its a bit misleading to have a 1 hour chill time and then claim it takes 20 minutes total time to make. That doesn’t even include the bake time….
Has anyone tried chilling after portioning? Would it decrease chill time needed?
They look great 👍 hope they taste even better 😉 😀
Absolutely delicious. I hand beat/whisked my ingredients and its very possible to do so. However after adding the flour, be forwarned because it DOES get hard to fold/mix after adding the flour. The flavor and ease of making is 10/10, the only problem is that the cookies take MUCH longer than 13 minutes to bake. She said the recipe makes 24 servings. I am unsure if she meant 24 cookies or 48 cookies, but I made 36. Smaller cookies do take less time to bake. After 14 minutes, they were still very much raw, not even a cookie. I set those aside and just started a new batch. 20 minutes for normal/medium-small cookies and 25 for larger cookies MINIMUM was perfect. After 20 minutes the cookies were cracking at the edges, and slightly golden brown. They were still soft/slightly underbaked as reccomended too. 24 hours later they are still soft. I was using a glass dish with parchment paper, so I am unsure if that makes a difference. I also rolled them in cinnamon sugar instead of regular sugar, which imo doesn’t really affect the flavor. Its very delicious, very easy, just needs a more accurate cooking time. I spent 2 hours baking, cooling, and transferring 3 batches, when I could’ve spent a little over an hour instead. Also before anyone asks I did cross hatch the cookies too.
Perfect PB cookie recipe! I love that is a small batch recipe as well, perfect roughly 2 dozen cookies – just enough to enjoy!
These are melt in your mouth wonderful. Great recipe I’ll make these again. Thanks for the amazing recipe.
Love these cookies. Peanuts add another level of deliciousness. Our favorite peanut butter cookie.
Excellent! Chewy with a great texture