Grain-free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
I’ve been holding out on you guys! Sorry about that. It never occurred to me that I’d miss posting my very favourite peanut butter cookie recipe altogether – one I’ve been making for decades, pre-blogging and writing cookbooks. Like, forever ago.
You may know this magic peanut butter cookie dough formula, but in case you don’t, here it is: 1 1/2 cups peanut butter, 1 cup sugar and 1 egg. That’s it. It doesn’t sound as if it will remotely work, but it does. The mixture is soft and goopy at first, but as you stir it firms up into a stiff enough dough to roll into balls. With no flour – of any kind – the peanut butter taste is forefront, and the texture is smooth and sandy. I’d say they melt in your mouth if it wasn’t such a cliché.
Because peanut butter and chocolate are best pals, I added a handful of chocolate chips to this batch. You could add chopped salted peanuts, or chocolate covered peanuts, or really anything you think would be delicious wrapped in a peanut butter cookie. Beyond that, the drill is the same: roll balls, press down with a fork, bake until pale golden around the edges. These are fragile when they first come out of the oven, so leave them on the sheet for a few minutes before using a thin spatula to move them off. (Or let them cool on the sheet – whatevs.)
Whatever you do, just make sure you have plenty of cold milk on hand when they come out.
Grain-free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat the oven to 350F. In a medium bowl, stir together the peanut butter, sugars and egg. If you like, add chocolate chips too - and stir until well blended and thick enough to roll into balls.
Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and place on a parchment-lined or ungreased baking sheet. Press down on each cookie with the tines of a fork. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until pale golden around the edges.
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350F. In a medium bowl, stir together the peanut butter, sugars and egg. If you like, add chocolate chips too - and stir until well blended and thick enough to roll into balls.
Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and place on a parchment-lined or ungreased baking sheet. Press down on each cookie with the tines of a fork. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until pale golden around the edges.
Um…adding chocolate covered peanuts is the best idea ever! I’m so trying that later this week.
You know what I’m going to say, right? HOW CAN I MAKE THESE VEGAN? I think I’m going to try with a flax or chia sub, and see if it works. It might be sketchy, and yet it might be amazing.
Why have a never ever added chocolate chips to PB cookies?! Brilliant. Great recipe Julie!
Wonder if this would work with almond butter? Did you use commercial peanut butter (eg. Skippy) or natural peanut butter (with no added sugar)?
thumbprints for jam or jelly? just a thought…
I’ve been making a similar recipe. Going to try to lower sugar. LOVE the idea of chocolate covered peanuts!
Amber – I generally use the smooth commercial stuff, because I love it! But I have used all-natural in the past and it works well too – they have an even finer, sandier texture. Try them with almond butter – I’m curious how they’d turn out!
LOVE this recipe. Plus, you’ve just reminded me that it’s been far too long since I baked a batch of peanut butter cookies!
I was trying to make this with some natural peanut butter that was just a little too tough to stir to a smooth consistency, so I blitzed the whole mess in the food processor. Voila! Peanut butter cookie dough in 20 seconds or less! These rock.
So awesome to hear Liz!
I love this recipe!! It’s the most peanut butter-y of all the peanut butter recipes out there.
Thanks so much for this recipe Julie! I have made these cookies twice now and they are the best peanut butter cookies I have ever made. I really had doubts because of how few ingredients there are, but I decided to try them anyways. So glad I did. I used mini semi sweet chocolate chips and they were just perfect.
I found this recipe in the Calgary Herald one day, but noticed that the ingredients call for one egg, and your instructions say “stir together the peanut butter, sugars and egg WHITE”. That’s actually why I searched online and so glad I found your website! Based on the recipe above, we will use the whole egg!
thanks for putting all of your great recipes out there for us.
Corinne – yes! I used to use just an egg white, and now I use the whole egg. Sorry for the typo!
If I use half the amount of the sugar, will I need to add something else to make the dough less wet and will it still work? Has anyone tried this? I like to use less sugar in my baking if I can.