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What I love about this recipe is that it combines three cookie jar favorites into one so you don’t have to choose: peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate chip. These peanut butter chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies are perfect for people who are explicitly in love with the chocolate and peanut butter combination. They bake up thick, chewy (thanks to the oats), and soft with slightly crispy edges (the way a cookie should be).
I think you’ll want to go ahead and start preheating your oven before you even read the rest of this post…
Key Ingredients for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies
- Peanut Butter: Use a non-natural peanut butter like Jif creamy or Skippy creamy. I don't suggest using natural peanut butter as it produces fragile and sandy tasting cookies. Crunchy peanut butter works OK, but I find the cookies taste a little dry with it.
- Oatmeal: Make sure to use regular old-fashioned rolled oats in this recipe, as opposed to instant/quick-cooking oats.
- Sugar: This recipe only uses a total of 3/4 cup of sugar (granulated and dark brown), meaning you can't reduce the sugar without seriously affecting the final structure and texture of the cookies. These cookies aren't overly sweet though, don't worry!
- Chocolate: I love using dark chocolate in cookies (and all baked goods for that matter), but since I cut back on the amount of sugar used... I went with a semisweet chocolate for this recipe. When it comes to baking with chocolate, make sure to use the highest quality one that has the fewest ingredients.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookie Recipe: Troubleshooting and FAQ
Can I Reduce the Sugar?
Unfortunately, no. It’s doing more than lending a sweet flavor. It’s actually helping to keep these cookies nice and moist and soft. If you were to reduce the amount of sugar the cookies would likely be crumbly and dry.
Can I Use Coconut Sugar instead of Brown Sugar?
Nope! These peanut butter chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies use baking soda to react with the brown sugar (which is slightly acidic, thanks to the molasses in it) to give the cookies their signature chewy texture. Unfortunately, coconut sugar doesn't have this same acidic quality; so if you use coconut sugar instead of brown sugar in this recipe, your cookies will likely be flatter and spread far too much.
Do I Have to Chill the Cookie Dough?
Yes, you MUST chill the cookie dough for at least 30 minutes. If you bake the un-chilled dough, the cookies will come out thinner and crispier. This cookie dough is a bit on the oily side before chilling and it becomes less oily as it chills.
How Can You Tell When the Cookies Are Done Baking?
Remove these cookies from the oven while they still look ever so slightly underdone in the center. The residual heat of the pan will continue to finish cooking them to soft perfection.
Help! My cookies spread way too much and look thinner than yours. What did I do wrong?
Did you skip the chilling period and bake the cookies right away? If so, that means that the dough was likely too warm; this can also happen when your butter is too softened.
Alternatively, if you chilled the cookie dough and your cookies still came out too thin, you may have an ingredients issue. It’s likely that you used way too much sugar by accidentally packing in too much in the measuring cup.
Help! My cookies came out way too puffy. What did I do wrong?
If you used cup measures as opposed to weight measures, there’s a larger chance your cookies will come out puffy. Why? As weird as this sounds, measuring cups aren't as accurate as you think. For example, somebody who scoops the measuring cup into the flour will have way more than somebody who uses a spoon to scoop the flour into the same sized measuring cup. This is why you should really be measuring by weight with a kitchen scale instead—it’s much more reliable and completely eliminates any inconsistencies.
Alternatively, if you measured your ingredients by weight and the cookies still came out too puffy, you likely let the dough chill for too long. I like to remove the cookie dough from the fridge and let them sit on the counter for about 5 minutes to allow for the dough to slightly thaw. This ensures cookies that fall flat when baking.
LOOKING FOR MORE COOKIE RECIPES?
CHECK THESE OUT!
Fudgy Brownie Crinkle Cookies
Homemade Oatmeal Creme Pies
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Macarons
Copycat Levain Bakery Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
- 115 g unsalted butter softened
- 110 g dark brown sugar
- 50 g granulated sugar
- 130 g creamy peanut butter
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 90 g old-fashioned oats
- 150 g all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
- 285 g 64% cacao dark chocolate roughly chopped
- flaky sea salt for topping
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until creamed, about 2 minutes. Add the peanut butter, egg, and vanilla and beat on high speed until well combined, about 1 minute.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until just combined. Once combined, beat in the chocolate chunks. The dough will be thick and sticky.
- Using a large (3-tablespoon) cookie scoop, drop the dough on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
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Lee
The best peanut butter biscuits ever!!! My hubby and I absolutely love them, can’t wait to make some for our grandchildren who devour peanut butter! Thanks for awesome recipe
ELLEN L
LOVED THESE!!! After seeing mention of your website in The NY Times this morning, I had to check out your site. I was planning to make the Levaine cookies, but then I came across this recipe. I used Maranantha peanut butter since that’s what I had on hand. For the chocolate, I used a chunk of Caullebaut dark chocolate. The recipe did not say when to add the flaky salt, so I added it before I refrigerated the dough. Since I prefer my cookies a little smaller, I used a 2 Tbsp scoop. I checked them at 10 min, but felt they needed the full 12 min. They were still pale and thick, but I didn’t want to over bake them. I did bang the pan on the stove afterwards to flatten them some. After tremendous self restraint, I allowed them to cool before I tasted them. HEAVEN!
Dee
Hi Mike, is the oven temp fan forced? Thank you!
Michael Johnson
Nope! I don't use a fan/convection setting for any of my bakes!
Liz
Delicious! These were a hit. Great flavor and texture, not too sweet and the salt gives a great flavor contrast
Mary Kim
This is 100% my new favorite, go-to peanut butter cookie recipe. Perfect texture, soft and chewy, and the sugar levels are well balanced with the peanut butter. I ended up using chunky peanut butter, and the stiffness led me to skip the chilling process (in my personal experience, I have trouble with having chilled cookies fail to spread and bake properly) and they baked well. However, definitely adjust to your own kitchen temp, oven reliability, personal experience, etc and trust Mike's recipe! Thank you so much for these cookies I didn't know I needed!!
Michael Johnson
So glad to hear they came out perfectly with the chunky peanut butter! That added texture was delicious, I bet! 🙂
DJ
What non nut substitute can be used instead of peanut butter?
Mike Johnson
I haven't tested it myself, but sunflower butter would probably work fine!
dots
i used quick cooking oats because that's all i had and the cookies still came out great. very good recipe, thank you.