Throughout my entire childhood, my mom worked part-time, which meant that she left us at home during the summers from 7 am until 2 pm. Mom hired a baby-sitter while we were still in grade school, but once I reached middle school, she trusted us to stay by ourselves.
My younger brother and I knew how to serve ourselves breakfast—shake out the cereal box and pour in the milk—but Mom always stocked the fridge with our favorite lunch items of yogurt, bread, cheese, and lots of fruit. However, the jar of peanut butter called my name fairly loudly every once in a while, so I’d wander into the pantry and grab that instead.
On those days, lunch consisted of two things: peanut butter and crackers. I’d dip one buttery cracker into the jar at a time, scraping up at least a teaspoon of peanut butter every time. With 10-15 crackers for lunch, that really added up… And Mom had to buy a fresh jar nearly every other week!
But besides crackers, sandwiches, and toast, we didn’t really eat peanut butter any other way, including desserts. (I always preferred my cookies with lots of chocolate!) But after seeing one too many peanut butter treats on Pinterest, I decided that might need to change and set out to make these…
The Ultimate Healthy Soft & Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies! They’re soft, chewy, and have a prominent nutty peanut butter flavor, but not too much to make you feel bogged down and sluggish. With the irresistible balance of sweet and salty, these won’t last long at all in your cookie jar!
To help you understand what makes these the ultimate healthy peanut butter cookies, let’s talk a little baking science. (Or feel free to skip this section and head straight to the recipe!)
First off, the dry ingredients. I chose white whole wheat flour because it gives you the benefits of fiber and extra nutrients like with regular whole wheat flour, but it has a lighter, less wheat-y taste. Then you’ll need baking powder for rise and just a hint of salt. Most peanut butters already come salted, so adjust the amounts to suit your tastes.
The rest of the ingredients proved to be a bit trickier, so let’s move on to sugar. I started out by trying honey, but that added too much moisture to the cookie dough. The cookies spread as flat as pancakes, even with over 3 hours of chilling, and they tasted like muffins—not cookies!
I switched to brown sugar and coconut sugar next because they’re both solid sugars, so they didn’t add the same moisture. Both of these options taste exactly the same (no tropical coconut taste, I promise!), but they look a little different. The coconut sugar cookies are darker and look speckled because the coconut sugar doesn’t dissolve quite as well. But that doesn’t affect their taste or texture!
Note: Coconut sugar is clean eating friendly, while brown sugar is not.
And now for the most important part… The peanut butter! I tried making these cookies with 8, 9, and 10 tablespoons. The first batch didn’t have quite enough peanut butter flavor—just a little too faint for my tastes—but the batch with 10 tablespoons turned out a little greasier than I wanted. So to quote Goldilocks, 9 tablespoons was “just right!”
I originally tried using pure peanut butter and an egg as the fat sources, but those cookies failed the spread, even without chilling. To increase the spread, I omitted the egg yolk and added in a tiny bit of butter because butter melts when heated. The resulting cookies spread a tiny bit (think a few millimeters), so you’ll still need to flatten the cookie dough to the thickness and width that you want.
My secret to soft and chewy cookies? Slightly underbake them (not a second more than is called for in the recipe!), and leave them on the warm pan to cool for longer. This allows the centers to continue cooking all the way through without the outsides turning crisp and crunchy. The cookies will stay soft and chewy for an entire week—if they last that long!
So grab a glass of milk, your favorite jar of peanut butter, and start baking! And when you make your own, remember to snap a picture and share it on Instagram using #amyshealthybaking and tagging @amyshealthybaking IN the photo itself! (That guarantees I’ll see your picture! ?) I’d love to see your cookies and feature them in my Sunday Spotlight series!
| The Ultimate Healthy Soft & Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies | | Print |
- 2 cups (240g) white whole wheat or gluten-free* flour (measured like this)
- 1 ½ tsp (4g) baking powder
- ¼ tsp (2g) salt
- 1 tbsp (14g) unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted and cooled slightly
- 2 large egg whites, room temperature
- 2 tsp (10mL) vanilla extract
- 9 tbsp (144g) homemade creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup (192g) coconut sugar or brown sugar
- Preheat the oven to 350°F, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter, egg whites, and vanilla. Stir in the peanut butter until completely incorporated. Stir in the sugar. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated.
- Roll the dough into 24 balls, and place onto the prepared baking sheets. Flatten to the desired thickness and width. Bake at 350°F for 9-11 minutes. Cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
Whole wheat pastry flour, regular whole wheat flour, and all-purpose flour may be substituted for the white whole wheat flour.
I highly recommend using my easy homemade creamy peanut butter recipe. (It only takes 5 minutes to make!) This recipe works best with natural-style peanut butter made with just peanuts and salt. It will also work with Skippy Natural creamy peanut butter. Do not use crunchy peanut butter; the cookies won't turn out.
Coconut sugar is clean eating friendly, while brown sugar is not.
The cookies barely spread at all during baking, so flatten them to the desired thickness and width before placing the baking sheets in the oven.
The cookie dough should look crumbly when you first mix it up, but as long as you can roll it into balls without the balls falling apart, it's the right consistency! If your cookie dough is too dry to roll into balls, add milk one tablespoon at a time until the cookie dough holds together.
{gluten-free, clean eating, low fat}
View Nutrition Information + Weight Watchers Points
Amy,
Thanks for your quick reply. It was not much of a disappointment – we ate the cookies. 🙂 I weighed the flour.May be it is a quality of the flour (it was Kroger brand) ????
I have a question, what do you think if I use whole wheat pastry flour next time? Have you tried it in baking cookies? Thanks again. Larisa
You’re welcome Larisa! I generally use King Arthur or Gold Medal whole wheat flour because those are the brands I enjoy the most. Whole wheat pastry flour would definitely work too!
I have a love-hate relationship with Skippy. As a nutrition and dietetics student, I stay away from anything “hydrogenated oils”, but I just love Skippy!!! Especially on sugar or butter cookies… mmmmmmm…
Everything in moderation, right Austin? 😉
Can you use all purpose flour for these?
Yes, all-purpose flour would work just fine! I hope you enjoy the cookies Mallory!
I used whole wheat flour and measured correctly yet the dough was crumbly, I did use natural organic peanut butter so I wonder if that was the problem. So sad!
I’m sorry the cookies didn’t turn out the way you expected Victoria; that must have been disappointing. Did you use the spoon and level method or a kitchen scale for measuring the flour? And how did you measure the peanut butter? I’d like to work together to figure this out so that your next batch turns out perfectly!
Hi Amy,
Do you have any recipes using Truvia baking blends? I would like to substitute the brown sugar in this recipe with Truvia brown sugar blend but truvia recommends using half the volume that the recipe calls for. I’m wondering if the difference in bulk will affect the texture of these cookies?
Huge fan of your blog btw 🙂
Ren
I haven’t worked with Truvia’s baking blends before, but I’ve been meaning to try! The difference in volume will affect these cookies and make the dough dry and crumbly, so you’ll need to add a few tablespoons of milk to compensate. I hope you enjoy the cookies if you try them Ren!
Just made these (literally standing next to the cooling pans in my kitchen) and they are delightful. You are absolutely right, they are not as heavy as a typical peanut butter cookie, and when I put all the nutrition info together mine were just over 100 calories like yours, which is some kind of wonderful. I am now a total convert to this blog and your healthy desserts! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU 🙂
** Side note, I also had dry dough, but added three T of milk (as directed) and then just rolled up the crumblies into balls and smushed them on the pan- worked just fine!
I wish I had more stars to give!
I’m truly touched by your kind words about my blog Rennie — thank you so much!! I’m really glad you enjoyed the cookies, and I hope you enjoy the next recipe that you try just as much! 🙂
How would I adapt the recipe if I want to use whole eggs and what the the gram total be for eggs to work as I have very large eggs
You should be able to use your full egg in the recipe! If the dough feels too sticky to roll into balls when you first mix it up, then chill it for 15-30 minutes or until it has stiffened somewhat. I hope you enjoy the cookies Esteri!
These were great! We used crunchy peanut butter, so we needed to add 8 tablespoons of milk to make up the liquid. But, still wonderful!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the cookies Mariah! 🙂