Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (2024)

Tessa’s Recipe Rundown

Taste: Chocolate and peanut butter has been my favorite sweet combination since before I can remember! I am obsessed!
Texture: Thick, chewy, soft, melty, and wonderful.
Ease: Very simple.
Pros: Perfect PB chocolate chip cookies.
Cons: None!
Would I make this again? Oh yeah. I’ve always got a batch of these portioned into dough balls sitting in my freezer ready to be baked off whenever the craving strikes.

How to Make Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

How to Make CHEWY Cookies & Not Dry Peanut Butter Cookies!

• The high ratio of brown sugar and the extra egg yolk in this recipe help contribute a rich, chewy, and thick texture with lots of flavor.
• Be sure to measure your flour correctly (by weighing with a digital scale, or with the spoon and level method) to avoid creating cakey, dense, or tough cookies that don’t spread.
• Measuring your dry ingredients accurately is one of the best ways to improve your baking.
• If You Don’t Measure Your Flour Correctly, YOU COULD END UP WITH CRUMBLY DOUGH and dry, hard cookies lacking in flavor. Just check out the image below, showing the difference between correctly and incorrectly measured chocolate chip cookies.

The Best Peanut Butter for Baking

• This recipe has been successfully tested with conventional peanut butter (Skippy) AND natural peanut butter, with reservations.
• Check out my peanut butter experiment here.
• Only use natural peanut butter if it’s VERY well stirred to be completely smooth and cohesive with no oily or dry bits.
• When it’s very smooth, natural peanut butter will yield a much more bold peanut butter flavor!

Which Chocolate Chips for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies?

I prefer the taste of semi-sweet chocolate chips in these cookies, but you could also use the same amount of milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, or chocolate chunks. Feel free to substitute peanut butter chips for some of the chocolate chips, if you wish!

Cookie Size and Shape

• These are large chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, just the way I like ’em!
• I use my large 3-Tablespoon cookie scoop to form these cookie dough balls.
• You can use the medium cookie scoop to make 1.5 tablespoon-sized balls of dough, if you prefer. Just shave off about 2 minutes from the baking time.
• Peanut butter in cookie recipes prevents normal spreading, so that’s why we are flattening the balls well with the palm of your hand before baking. This will encourage them to spread more while they bake.

What Type of Baking Sheet for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies?

• I ALWAYS use an unlined aluminum half-sheet pan for baking cookies.
• Additionally, I always use parchment paper for baking cookies. I find silicone baking mats produce less of a crunchy exterior crust and are just one extra thing to clean.
• Never use dark-colored pans to bake cookies, as they tend to overly brown or even burn the bottoms of the cookies.

Do I Need to Chill Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough?

For best results, chill the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie dough overnight in a large bowl in the fridge. Here’s why:

• Chilling chocolate chip cookie dough is very similar to marinating meat – things just get so much better!
• The texture becomes chewier and thicker and the flavor intensifies.
• If you don’t have time, no worries. You can bake the dough off after it’s made.

How to Make Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies Ahead

Make the cookie dough as instructed and portion out the dough balls using a cookie scoop. Place the dough balls in a single layer on a baking sheet, freeze them until solid, then remove them to a freezer bag to store in the freezer. Defrost the dough overnight in the fridge, or for an hour or so at room temperature before baking (less if your kitchen is warm). You can bake from frozen, but note that with this recipe the cookies won’t spread as much. Get all of my tips for freezing cookie dough here.