• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Julia's Album

I make lots of dinner recipes

  • Pasta
  • Chicken
  • Seafood
  • PRESS
  • About
  • Facebook
  • bloglovin
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
Pasta Chicken

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

Published: Jul 16, 2014 | 227 Comments

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

These easy peanut butter cookies have an amazing brownie-like texture: both chewy and soft.  The peanut butter flavor is perfectly balanced without being overpowering.

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

These are truly the best peanut butter cookies I’ve ever tried! It’s not only my opinion – everybody around me loves them too and asks for a recipe! I’ve posted about these cookies last year, and here I am writing about them again!

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

 

There is just the right amount of peanut butter in these easy peanut butter cookies: not too much and not too little. You can use a regular peanut butter, such as JiF, and you can use natural one too. You can use regular crunchy one and natural crunchy peanut butter. I’ve tried them all, and the recipe works well! If you use natural peanut butter, the cookie will come out just a little bit dryer but the difference is really hardly noticable, if you make sure to sift or aerate your flour (see the note below, under recipe instructions) – it’s very important not to overpack the flour in a measuring cup so that the cookie does not come out dry!
Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

You can definitely taste a peanut butter in this cookie, and yet it’s not like you’re eating overly rich peanut butter cookies.  That’s how I like peanut butter cookies, which is why this is the best peanut butter cookie recipe for me!

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

The seemingly unimportant step of rolling these cookies in granulated sugar right before putting them in the oven is the reason why these cookies look so pretty (almost like sugar cookies), why they are light in color and have beautiful cracks on top. Coating these peanut butter cookies in sugar before baking serves two purposes: 1) The cookies acquire lighter, much more attractive color when sugar coated. If you don’t roll these cookies in sugar, they will come out much darker, almost looking like dark peanut butter. Rolled in sugar, the peanut butte cookies come out looking like sugar cookies! 2) Rolling cookies in sugar gives them a nice soft crunch on the outside of the cookie.

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

For cookies to have that nicely rounded, puffed up shape, roll them in balls between the palms of your hands and then roll each cookie ball in sugar. If the peanut butter cookie dough is too soft for you to work with, let it chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before rolling.

The result are some of the best peanut butter cookies you’ll ever make!  Amazingly yummy cookies that are popular with kids and adults alike! They have a moist, almost brownie-like texture and only get better as the days pass by. Keep them in air-tight container and they will last you for up to 2 weeks – that is, if you’re disciplined enough not to eat them all the first day!

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

4.94 from 32 votes
Easy Peanut Butter Cookies
Print
Easy Peanut Butter Cookies
Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
15 mins
Total Time
30 mins
 

These easy peanut butter cookies have a perfect brownie-like texture: both chewy and soft at the same time.  They are not overly rich peanut butter cookies - just perfectly balanced.  These are some of the best peanut butter cookies you'll ever make!

Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Servings: 18 cookies
Calories: 83 kcal
Ingredients
  • 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter (can use natural one too)
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter room temperature (not melted - just let the butter from refrigerator sit on the counter for about an hour or so)
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour sifted or aerated (see important note below!)
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar for coating
Instructions
Important note about properly measuring flour using measuring cups:
  1. The proper way to measure flour using measuring cups is to aerate it first. This is done either by sifting flour or aerating it by fluffing it up and whisking it well, then spooning it into the measuring cup, then carefully removing any excess flour with a knife. If you just stick that measuring cup in the bag of flour and scoop some out, you will get a lot more flour than what the recipe calls for. Do aerate the flour, or you will end up with dry dough!

How to make peanut butter cookies:
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Using an electric mixer, cream peanut butter and butter in a mixing bowl until smooth. Add brown sugar; beat until combined. Add an egg and vanilla, and continue beating until creamy.
  2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder. Gradually add dry ingredients from step 2 to wet ingredients in step 1, beating on low speed.
  3. Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper or lightly greased aluminum foil. Place granulated sugar on a plate. Roll spoonfuls of cookie dough into balls, rolling each ball between your hands. Roll balls in sugar to coat them completely.
  4. Place cookie balls 2 inches apart on a prepared baking sheet. Bake until cookies begin to puff up slightly, about 12 minutes, until cookies just brown around the edges and crackle on top. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool at least 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring cookies to rack to cool completely.
Recipe Notes

Recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart.

Follow Julia on Pinterest and Facebook to get more recipes and dinner ideas for your weekly meal planning!

Nutrition Facts
Easy Peanut Butter Cookies
Amount Per Serving
Calories 83 Calories from Fat 27
% Daily Value*
Fat 3g5%
Saturated Fat 1g6%
Cholesterol 12mg4%
Sodium 22mg1%
Potassium 51mg1%
Carbohydrates 12g4%
Sugar 7g8%
Protein 1g2%
Vitamin A 50IU1%
Calcium 14mg1%
Iron 0.4mg2%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Filed Under: Baking, Cookies, Dessert, Nuts, Peanut butter, Recipe Published: Jul 16, 2014 227 Comments

Follow Julia on Pinterest and Facebook to get more recipes and dinner ideas!

Please leave your comment and STAR RATING in the comments section below

Previous Post: « Strawberry and Nutella crepes
Next Post: Blueberry Greek Yogurt Cake »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dianr

    Feb 06, 2021 at 8:59 pm

    These are the best peanut butter cookies ever! I have made them several times. This will be my go to recipe for pb cookies. Thank you

    Reply
  2. Victoria

    Dec 24, 2020 at 7:50 pm

    Making these for Christmas for my family, and the recipe was nice and easy to follow, hopefully they taste as good as they look!

    Reply
    • Julia

      Dec 25, 2020 at 6:55 pm

      Victoria, I am glad you tried this recipe and found it easy! Thank you so much for your feedback!

      Reply
    • Janice Marco

      Feb 05, 2021 at 7:01 am

      So? Did you find them as terrible as I did? Wondering what your point to leaving your comment was it you didn’t follow up with the taste. Does it really matter if they are easy to make it they taste terrible? I found these didn’t have enough on and were too sweet! Ugh!

      Reply
  3. Sal Rappo

    Dec 15, 2020 at 8:14 am

    Can you add chocolate chips to this recipe?

    Reply
    • Julia

      Dec 21, 2020 at 10:29 pm

      Yes, you can.

      Reply
  4. NA

    Dec 10, 2020 at 5:33 pm

    My favorite peanut butter cookies! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • Julia

      Dec 11, 2020 at 1:24 am

      Glad you liked them!

      Reply
  5. Karen

    Nov 30, 2020 at 11:45 am

    Fabulous recipe. Made these cookies along with your pecan sandies this Thanksgiving. What a treat!

    Reply
    • Julia

      Nov 30, 2020 at 11:59 am

      Glad you liked it! 🙂

      Reply
  6. M

    Nov 29, 2020 at 8:29 pm

    5 stars!

    Reply
    • Julia

      Nov 29, 2020 at 11:40 pm

      Thanks!

      Reply
  7. Jill

    Nov 12, 2020 at 3:54 pm

    Looks delicious! Can they be frozen?

    Reply
    • Julia

      Nov 14, 2020 at 7:08 pm

      Yes, these cookies freeze well!

      Reply
  8. Colette Therrien

    Oct 08, 2020 at 1:54 pm

    They are my grand daughter favorite peanut butter yummy . They don’t make to much cookies perfect !

    Reply
  9. J

    Sep 22, 2020 at 12:43 pm

    The ad kept blocking the top of the screen. Tried to close it but the pop up will not close. So difficult and frustrating!!!

    Reply
  10. Zsofia

    Sep 21, 2020 at 1:25 pm

    These peanut butter cookies are the best!
    I used natural peanut butter and they were perfect.

    Reply
« Older Comments
Newer Comments »

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Food blog, dinner recipes, weeknight dinners, chicken dinners, pasta recipesWelcome to my blog where I share easy-to-make weeknight dinner recipes!

Join me here:

Follow Us On PinterestFollow Us On FacebookFollow Us On InstagramFollow Us On Twitter

Footer

Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Disclaimer | About | Featured On

Copyright © 2019 · All Rights Reserved · JuliasAlbum.com

FOODIE PRO THEME BY FEAST DESIGN CO. * POWERED BY THE GENESIS FRAMEWORK