Soft Peanut Butter Cookies - The Recipe Rebel (2024)

These easy Peanut Butter Cookies come together in just one bowl with simple ingredients! They’re soft and chewy and freezer friendly!

I shared this recipe first on Spend With Pennies.

I don’t know about you, but around here we love peanut butter.

We love it in our oatmeal, on our toast, in our desserts (any and all of them, please!), our Banana Cream Pie, and these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

But these easy Peanut Butter Cookies?

They’re some of our favorites.

These cookies are so easy to throw together, and you can mix them up in a variety of different ways to make them more exciting (but really, who needs to detract from that glorious peanut butter?!)

How to make easy Peanut Butter Cookies:

1. Combine your butters: cream your butter and peanut butter together until smooth.
2. Add your sugars: be sure you whip your sugar in until it’s light and fluffy! It will become noticeably lighter in color and texture.
3. Beat in your eggs and vanilla — just until smooth and combined.
4. Add your dry ingredients — Don’t pack your flour in the cup! Be sure to fluff and level your flour to avoid dry, crumbly cookies! Mix until the dough comes together.
5. Bake — but don’t overbake! Overbaked cookies are dry and hard and not soft and chewy like they should be. Make sure you bake until they appear just set, even a little glossiness in the center is okay. They will continue setting up on the hot pan out of the oven. I find 9 minutes is perfect for 1″ dough balls.

Variations on these Peanut Butter Cookies:

• Can’t resist the urge to add chocolate to peanut butter? How about a chocolate drizzle! Simply melt some chocolate carefully, then pour it into a ziploc bag, snip the end and drizzle over cooled cookies.
• Stir in some chopped peanuts for a double whammy peanut butter cookie.
• Add some chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, M&Ms (oh my word, how amazing would those be??), or butterscotch chips for a new spin your family will go crazy for!

How to store peanut butter cookies:

There are two ways to store these peanut butter cookies if you happen to have leftovers that last beyond the first couple hours on the counter 😉

• Room temperature: You can store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4-6 days (they will last past that point, they just won’t be as good). The only problem with storing them at room temperature is you know they’re not going to last long! The freezer is a much safer option 😉
• In the freezer: these cookies can be frozen in an airtight container or freezer bag up to 3 months. This means you always have something delicious on hand if surprise guests drop in or you need an after school snack!

I promise, you don’t need much! Here’s what I use to make this recipe the best it can be:

• A mixer: cookie dough is a tough thing to mix by hand! I use either my KitchenAid hand mixer or KitchenAid stand mixer (what can I say, I’m loyal!) — it makes the dough come together so quickly and easily!
• Good baking sheets: dark non stick baking sheets will make your cookies brown faster, so I like to use a light or medium colored baking sheet — you can choose what you like depending on how brown you like your cookies to be on the bottom.
• Parchment sheets: Once I started using parchment paper for cookies I never went back. There’s no worrying about sticking, no scrubbing pans, and – bonus! – you can reuse parchment paper for all the cookies. Just brush it off, fold it up and stash it in a cupboard for next time.