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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
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
Ingredients
- ¼ 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)
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour sifted or aerated (see important note below!)
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar for coating
Instructions
Important note about properly measuring flour using measuring cups:
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
5 stars!
Thanks!
Looks delicious! Can they be frozen?
Yes, these cookies freeze well!
They are my grand daughter favorite peanut butter yummy . They don’t make to much cookies perfect !
The ad kept blocking the top of the screen. Tried to close it but the pop up will not close. So difficult and frustrating!!!
These peanut butter cookies are the best!
I used natural peanut butter and they were perfect.
Delicious and very easy!
Easy recipe! I doubled all the ingredients and they turned out really good. Great balance of peanut butter and sugar. Not too much of either. My son loved them. This will be a favorite recipe in our home!
Best peanut butter cookie recipe that I've tried. I doubled the recipe, using Kirkland Natural Creamy peanut butter, and sub'd coconut oil for the butter. Used demerara sugar in place of regular brown sugar. Also added 1/4 tsp salt as there is none in the Kirkland PB. My only regret is baking them for an extra 2 minutes. The sugars carmelized on the bottoms - not burnt, so that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I did not flatten them and used a cookie scoop to drop rounds on parchment paper lined sheets. As promised, the cookies turned out chunchy on the exterior and soft in the middle. Perfection!!!
These are very good! I didn't follow the recipe very closely for various reasons (eyeballed the butter, ran out of brown sugar, didn't have a sifter for flour) and they still turned out great! They're just like the cookie base of a peanut butter hershey's kiss cookie - without the kiss. Delightfully chewy and doughy. I might try a tad less sugar next time since I don't like anything overly sweet. If my first attempt has showed me anything, it's that this is a very forgiving and delicious recipe! Thanks!
I should also mention these take almost no time to make - great for spur of the moment sweet tooth!
Fantastic recipe! I doubled the peanut butter and halved the brown sugar amount. Turned out just the right sweetness - still flavourful but won't make you feel guilty eating them. I also did not have butter so used 1 tbsp of vegetable oil.
This was the perfect small batch of cookies! I was really happy to find a recipe that said natural PB could be used.
I baked mine for 10 minutes and got 14 cookies total. Will definitely make again!
This recipe sounds good and like something I would make but would prefer to make more cookies at one time if I am going through the trouble of mixing them up. Can I just double the recipe or what would you suggest.
I double the recipe every time I make them without any issues
Yes, you can easily double the recipe.
I loved these cookies. It’s hard to find a GOOD peanut butter cookie recipe that doesn’t call for shortening. These are moist and delicious. I used regular PB and did pack the brown sugar. I wasn’t sure about that so I did. I felt the cookies were sweet like cookies should be. And the PB flavor is wonderful. Only downside is now I’m craving them and I have to make more since I’ve eaten too many and they we’re intended as a gift.
So glad you enjoyed these cookies! Thank you for such a positive comment!
They only took 8 to 10 min. I sprinkled with red and green sugar crystals for Christmas time! They were too sticky to roll until chilled. I love these, best after cooled.
Glad you enjoyed these cookies!
I am not a baker, but after a craving for peanut butter cookies I found this recipe on Pinterest. So easy and yummy. However my batch made 9 cookies instead of 18. Maybe I made mine huge? And they were done in under 12 mins. So watch them closely. Making more right now, before the kids get home.
Glad you enjoyed the recipe!