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
Made these with whole wheat pastry flour and a dash of cinnamon and they turned out great! I was kind of worried because the dough was a little sticky. Didn’t see until now your comment about chilling—oops. But the result was delicious nonetheless!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the cookies Evan! 🙂
This looks so good and healthy! I’m pinning so I can make them later.
Thank you so much for pinning Rebecca! I can’t wait to hear what you think of the cookies! 🙂
I can’t wait to make these for my Grand babies. Their Dad is a health nut and doesn’t like them to eat too many sweets . So these sound perfect. I hope I can find the coconut sugar. I would like to make the cookies and before I bake them make a thumbprint in the middle and put a dab of grape jelly in it. Do you think this would work?
Your grandchildren are so lucky to have you Marcia! You can always substitute brown sugar if you can’t find coconut sugar. And yes, you can easily make thumbprint cookies out of this recipe! I’ve actually done that twice, both here and here. I’d recommend referring to those recipes before you begin so you know about how much time they’ll take to bake. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you and your family think of the cookies!
These look delicious!
A few (butter) questions – why does the recipe call for melted, as opposed to softened, butter? Could you brown the butter, or would that remove too much moisture? The classic pb cookies I have made typically say to cream the butter –> whisk in the pb –> whisk in the sugars for 3-4 minutes –> and then whisk in the egg and vanilla. Is there a reason this recipe is different? I love learning more about baking science, and am very curious what kind of a difference it may make!
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Meg! This recipe calls for melted butter for two main reasons: (a) it takes a lot less time to melt butter than it does to soften it {or at least remember to set out the butter so it softens far enough in advance!} and (b) melted butter often gives a more chewy texture. Because there’s enough PB in this particular recipe, you could brown the butter if you wanted without worrying about removing too much moisture, but I can’t vouch for whether browned butter would work in my other cookie recipes. I’d love to hear what you think if you try these cookies!
How do you calculate the calories for your recipes? I would like to use PB2 instead and am wondering how much that reduces the calories, but I am also curious how you calculate the calories from your ingredients. 🙂 Love your site by the way. I always make stuff for my co workers that eat supper processed junk and they don’t realize its healthy, and love the food! Haha!
I use this free nutrition calculator! I don’t recommend using PB2 in this recipe because it will alter the texture of the cookies. 🙂 I’m so glad you’re enjoying my site Lorraina — that means a lot to me!
What do you mean by “clean eating friendly”- you refer to coconut sugar vs. brown sugar.
Thanks.
I appreciate your interest in my recipe Beth! I’ve answered that question on my FAQ page here. Coconut sugar is an unrefined sweetener, like honey and pure maple syrup. 🙂 I’d love to hear what you think if you try these cookies!
I so appreciate that your recipes contain ingredients I have and give substitutions for things I don’t. These were fantastic! I added milk to reduce crumbliness but decided I really just wanted to eat them… I patted the dough into a 7×9 pan and baked for about 20 minutes. When done I pressed 24 hershey’s kisses into the top and once cooled cut them into squares. All seven of my kids LOVED them and I felt wonderful feeding them something delicious that isn’t bad for them. Thanks!
I’m so glad you and your kids enjoyed the cookies Rebecca! That means a lot to me. And thank you for your kind words about my recipes too — I’m touched! 🙂 I’m excited to hear what you and your family try next!
Crumbly and dry. After 1st batch I saw the note about adding milk. Helped with some of the dryness however the cookies have too much flower and bitter after taste of the whole wheat flour. I wanted to love this recipe but I can say I won’t try this again. Disappointing
That sounds frustrating Jess. I’d like to work together to solve your dryness issues so they don’t happen again! How are you measuring the flour, and what brand are you using? Are you using a kitchen scale or measuring cups? If using the latter, are you scooping the measuring cups directly into the container of flour? Also, what brand of PB are you using, and is it creamy or crunchy? We’ll get this sorted out for you — I promise! 🙂
I used leveled measuring cups. Frankly the flour should not matter. I used JIF creamy peanut butter (again, should not make a difference). I agree with the other comments on here, it is just too much flour. The 2nd batch I added milk and it had the correct texture but the cookies had that flour after taste.
I thank you for wanting to correct the recipe issues but this recipe is a miss for my family and myself.
We’ve discovered the issue Jess! It’s in how the flour was measured. 🙂 If the cookie dough was dry and crumbly and the cookies had an aftertaste of flour, then there was definitely too much flour in the dough. Instead of scooping the flour directly from the container with the measuring cup and leveling with a knife (which, when measured like that, you can end up with 1.5 times as much flour as when you lightly spoon and level, and that extra flour is definitely causing the issues that you’ve experienced!), then measure the flour (and cocoa powder, oats, etc!) like this: use a fork to “scoop” up flour from the container, and lightly shake the fork back and forth over the top of your measuring cup to transfer the flour into it. Once there’s a small mound of flour extending past the rim of the measuring cup, then place the flat back of a knife against the top of the measuring cup, and gently scrape it across the top to get rid of the excess flour. Never “pat” the flour down with the knife or fork. This fork method acts like a sifter (without dirtying another dish!) and guarantees you’ll add less flour to the batter, so you’ll end up with soft and chewy cookies. Does that make sense? 🙂
Given the comments about the dryness of the batter what would you suggest if I was using a premixed gluten free flour ? I think 2 cups is probably too much .
I appreciate your interest in my recipe Mel! What specific gluten-free flour blend are you using?
Hi Amy,
I just made a batch of these using cassonade sugar instead of brown sugar. They came out tasting as bland peanut butter. Where do you think I might have went wrong?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Gemma! I just want to make sure I’m fully understanding what happened. 🙂 You substituted 1 cup of cassonade sugar for the brown sugar, correct? Did you measure with a kitchen scale or measuring cups? Did you make any other substitutions, and was the texture of the cookie dough and baked cookies normal? We’ll sort this out — I promise!
I measured one cup of cassonade sugar using a measuring cup; I did not weigh it. The cookie dough was quite oily and slightly crumbly. After being baked, they were intact and not hard to bite. Thanks for your active interest in my problem, Amy.
It’s my pleasure Gemma! Can you describe in detail how you measured the flour? Did you scoop your measuring cups directly into the container of flour? And what brand of flour did you use? If the cookie dough was crumbly and the cookies weren’t sweet enough, then it actually sounds like too much flour is the issue, rather than the cassonade sugar substitute!