Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies
These chewy peanut butter cookies are soft and very peanutty, with white chocolate chips and an extra handful of chopped nuts. These are the old-fashioned chewy peanut butter cookies you’ll remember from childhood and ones you’ll return to repeatedly.
If you like soft, chewy peanut butter cookies with chunky bits of peanuts and candy chips, you’ll love this old fashioned peanut butter cookies recipe.
With more than 50 cookie recipes on this site (including two more peanut butter cookie recipes: Maida Heatter’s Peanut Bars and Fluffernutter Ritz Cracker Cookies), you can believe that this one is a classic, and you’ll want to keep it in your files.
Table of Contents
Why you’ll love this recipe:
- It uses everyday ingredients you’ve probably got on hand.
- Making the cookie dough takes only 15 minutes, and 10-12 minutes to bake a batch. No need to chill the dough.
- You make these peanut butter cookies with brown sugar and honey to make them soft and chewy with a more complex flavor than plain sugar alone.
- They’ve got enough salt to be noticeable, which adds an irresistible yin/yan, you’ll love.
- They’re great for holiday cookie swaps, bake sales and lunch boxes.
- This recipe makes a smaller, more manageable batch, but the recipe can easily be doubled.
Ingredients:
- Sugar – Granulated sugar adds sweetness and volume to the cookies.
- Brown Sugar – Brown sugar adds a molasses quality as well as chewiness to the peanut butter cookies. I used light brown sugar. Dark brown sugar would give them a more prominent molasses flavor.
- Butter – I use unsalted butter because different manufacturers will add differing amounts of sodium. To have more control over the outcome, I prefer unsalted.
- Peanut Butter – I used Jif extra crunchy, but other brands like Skippy or Peter Pan work well too. You can use smooth, chunky or natural peanut butter, depending on your tastes.
- Honey – to make chewy peanut butter cookies, instead of crunchy. It also helps to add moisture and a more complex sweetness. Since honey is an acid, it reacts with baking soda to give the peanut butter sugar cookies a slight lift.
- Egg – makes the cookies soft and tender.
- Vanilla – for extra flavoring.
- All-Purpose Flour – I use King Arthur’s unbleached all-purpose flour.
- Baking Soda – a leavening agent that reacts with an acid (honey) when heated.
- Salt – I recommend plain iodized salt, not kosher salt for this recipe.
- White Chocolate Chips – adds sweet candy-like bits that don’t detract from the peanut butter flavor.
- Dry Roasted Peanuts – optional, but good. Especially if you’re a crunchy peanut-lover
- Sparkling Sugar – optional, but adds a shimmer and a crackly texture.
Step by step directions:
- In a small bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside.
- Use a hand mixer to beat the butter, peanut butter, sugar, brown sugar and honey until well combined.
- Add the egg and vanilla and continue to beat until the mixture is blended.
- Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until just combined.
- Stir in the white chocolate chips and chopped peanuts.
- Use a tablespoon or cookie scoop to portion the dough into rounded spoonfuls.
- Use the tines of a fork to create the classic crosshatch pattern on top of the cookies, then sprinkle with sparkling sugar (if using).
- Bake for 5 minutes at 375°, then turn the baking sheet 180° and continue baking for 5-7 more minutes.
- Cool the chewy peanut butter cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to continue to cool.
Pro-Tips:
- If you plop the dough onto the cookie sheet directly from the spoon or scoop, you’ll get craggy, uneven edges. For a smoother, more uniform appearance, portion out the dough by the tablespoon and roll them into balls, then place the peanut butter cookie dough on the prepared baking sheet and press the hashtag (cross-hatch) mark into them with the tines of a fork.
- Press down on the dough balls with the fork until the cookies are roughly ½” thick.
- Make sure to leave at least 2-3 inches between the cookies to give them room to spread.
Variations:
- Instead of white chocolate chips, try these chewy peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips or a bar of chopped dark chocolate.
- For other mix-ins, try M&Ms or peanut M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces, or other candies.
- Dried cranberries or raisins would add additional chewiness to the peanut butter cookies.
Storage:
Keep the baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days. (Not that they’ll last that long once the rest of the house knows they’re there.
Freezing:
You can freeze these cookies in an airtight freezer-safe container for up to 2-3 months.
FAQ’s
For this recipe, the secret to chewy peanut butter cookies is the added honey and baking the cookies until about 1 minute before they’re fully done. Once baked, give the cookies a chance to cool and set.
Crumbly or dry cookie dough can result from over-mixing or too much flour or other dry ingredients. Adding a few teaspoons more butter or other liquid (like milk or honey) can remedy that.
You can use a standard tablespoon to scoop out portions of cookie dough, but for uniform cookies that will bake in the same time, I recommend a cookie scoop.
Cookie scoops come in varying sizes, holding different amounts of cookie dough. Below are the ones I use most frequently. {Note: These are affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you order something}.
Helpful Tools:
- #60 – a 2 teaspoon cookie scoop: for a 2″ diameter cookie.
- #40 – a 1½ tablespoon cookie scoop for a 2½” -3″ diameter cookie.
- #20 – a 3 tablespoon cookie scoop for a 3½”-4″ diameter cookie.
- Here is a set of all three (OXO brand).
Baking times for different sizes
Smaller cookies will bake in less time than larger ones. Here’s a guide for how long to cook these chewy peanut butter cookies.
- 2 teaspoons only takes about 6-7 minutes to bake.
- 1½ tablespoons took 10-11 minutes to bake.
- 3 tablespoons 15-18 minutes to bake.
More Cookie Recipes:
- Chocolate Mocha Pecan Chunk Cookies
- Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Pecan Sandies
- Key Lime Cookies
- Ritz Fluffernutter Cookies
More peanut butter recipes:
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Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies with White Chocolate Chips
INGREDIENTS:
- ½ cup unsalted butter 1 stick, room temperature
- ½ cup chunky peanut butter
- ½ cup light brown sugar firmly packed
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 large egg
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white chocolate chips or chocolate chips or peanut butter chips
- ½ cup peanuts coarsely chopped
- sparkling sugar for sprinkling
DIRECTIONS:
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Sift together 1½ cups all purpose flourr, 1 teaspoon baking soda and ½ teaspoon salt together. Set aside.
- Combine in a large bowl ½ cup unsalted butter, ½ cup chunky peanut butter, ½ cup light brown sugar, ½ cup sugar, and 2 tablespoons honey. With a hand mixer on medium speed, cream the butter mixture together. Add 1 large egg and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract and mix to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, slowly, until just combined and being sure not to overwork the dough.
- Stir in 1 cup white chocolate chips and ½ cup peanuts.
- Scoop the dough into rounded tablespoons and deposit 3 inches apart on the baking sheet. Create a hashtag # with a fork and sprinkle the tops of the cookies with a bit of sparkling sugar.
- Bake for 5 minutes, then shift the baking sheet 180 degrees and bake for another 5-7 until browned and crisp.
- Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring cookies to a rack to finish cooling. Keep in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
NUTRITION:
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Can these be made with smooth peanut butter and without the chopped peanuts?
Sure. Whatever your preference is.
Yum! These look amazing. Now I have to go shopping and make these peanut buttter chip cookies today!
I love peanut butter cookies, but I have never added white chocolate chips before. This is genius!!
These cookies are the best of both worlds – chocolate and peanut butter. I made them and they only lasted a day in my house! My kids went crazy for them!
Love peanut butter cookies bt the white choclate chisp is heaven I didn’tknow existed!
These cookies are loaded with peanut butter goodness. The addition of the white chocolate is a great addition.
I absolutely love the chunky bits of white chocolate and salty peanuts in these cookies.
Peanut allergy can be so tough. These cookies look like they were worth the 21 year wait.
And they didn’t last long, Christie!
I had a friend in high school who was allergic to peanuts, and when he studied abroad for a semester, the first thing his family did was run to the grocery store and load up on peanut butter! So sorry your daughter is allergic, but these cookies do look delicious!
It just shows how much we really care — that we would DENY ourselves peanut butter…
Those cookies look amazing! I love peanut cookies. We have a few family members whose kids have peanut allergies. I don’t use peanut butter often, but when they are visiting it always makes me realize how prevalent peanuts are.
I know, it can be pretty scary, right?
You can make up for all those lost years! It’s like finding a long, lost classic. They look great by the way.
Thanks, Mark! It’s been fun getting to know peanuts again!