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
You claim these cookies are healthy but they have a large amount of sugar in them. I reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup. I find Americans tend to like everything incredibly sweet.. Much less sugar works for me. I should also mention that white whole wheat flour is not available in other countries such as mine, Canada.
Whole wheat pastry flour is a great substitute for white whole wheat flour Linda! Most of my Canadian readers are able to find that option. 🙂
Amy,
I tried this recipe with natural peanut butter (Wild Friends) and at first the “batter” was dry and crumbly. I also used only 1/2 cup of coconut sugar since my peanut butter was flavored (sugar cookie flavor) and sweet. I’ve been making a lot of fat free and low fat meals and treats lately and scrambled for a way to get my batter to the correct consistency. I couldn’t tell you how much of the ingredients I added because I don’t measure (a method my grandmother used), but I added honey flavored fat free Greek yogurt, an additional egg white, and about another teaspoon of baking soda until my batter was the consistency of regular peanut butter cookie dough. Success! I baked a dozen cookies, tried one and decided that the dough needed more sugar. I dumped about another 1/4 cup plus some of brown sugar into the dough, mixed it in, and baked the rest of the cookies. Absolutely delicious!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the cookies Teresa! The lack of coconut sugar is what initially caused the dough to be so dry and crumbly. If you use the full amount (and your sugar cookie flavored PB probably doesn’t have enough sugar to need to omit so much coconut sugar!), then the dough should be the correct consistency without the Greek yogurt and egg white. With my low-fat baking recipes, it’s incredibly important to measure ingredients precisely and correctly because their amounts are so delicately balanced. With traditional full-fat and indulgent recipes, it’s possible to still get the same results without precise measurements because there are certain ingredients (like fats!) that are added in excess of the required amount to achieve the correct texture. Does that make sense? 🙂
How well would these work as a bar cookie? I am far too lazy to make drop cookies when a half sheet pan can bake an entire batch in one go.
They’d work really well as bar cookies! When intense cookie cravings come around, I totally understand feeling lazy — and not wanting to wait that long for cookies! 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of them Kyle!
Should the brown sugar be packed or loosely measured for this recipe?
Lightly packed! Unless otherwise stated, brown sugar should be packed in all of my recipes. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear what you think of these cookies Allison!
I ended up making them with coconut sugar. I had to add 2 tablespoons of milk (I use almond) to moisten the dough. I baked them for 9 minutes. They turned out perfect! Love this recipe.
I’m so glad you enjoyed these cookies Allison! 🙂
Hi,
I was wondering if you can reduce the amount of sugar used in this recipe to 1/2c?
Thanks,
Ragan
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Ragan! Do you typically not like cookies to be as sweet as traditional versions? Or are you mainly worried about the overall carb/sugar count? Knowing your main concern will help me better answer your question and come up with a modification to suit your tastes! 🙂
I wanted to love these so badly because I love peanut butter cookies, but they were way too dry. I measured using my kitchen scale, so I guess people just have different taste buds! My husband didn’t even like them…and he likes practically everything! I tried to fix them by adding more peanut butter and butter along with more sugar, but nothing worked! I decided to try the recipe again using brown sugar, but I still had the same problem, so I added the egg yolk to see if that helped,but it didn’t! I was really sad, because neither of us cared for them at all, and I didn’t want to waste all of my organic ingredients, so instead of throwing my money away, I processed them into crumbs to sprinkle over my homemade ice cream! Thanks anyway for your efforts!
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Kiki! What brands of white whole wheat flour and peanut butter did you use? And was the PB creamy, rather than chunky? Also, did you add any milk like I suggested in the Notes section of the recipe? I promise we’ll get these issues sorted out so your cookies turn out perfectly chewy if you decide to try them again! 🙂
Ups ? that dough was a true workout! Jeez lol. Decided to go in with my hands to mash it together. Added a lil kefir at the end because i found the dough a tad too crumbly! Also used a whole large egg (1) and spelt flour. Would like to leave a pic but there’s no option to upload ??♀️.
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Fabienne! Did you enjoy the final cookies? You’re welcome to share your photo on Instagram, if your profile is set to public (use #amyshealthybaking and tag @amyshealthybaking in the photo itself so I can see it!), or you can post it on my blog’s Facebook page here! 🙂
I tried making these but the dough was so crumbly that I couldn’t get it to form into a ball. Any advice?
I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Daniela! Let’s get that sorted out. 🙂 What’s the exact flour that you used, and how did you measure it? Did you use a kitchen scale or measuring cups? If the latter, can you describe in detail what you did? Also, what creamy peanut butter did you use? Homemade or store-bought?
Hi Amy, thank you for sharing this incredible healthier recipe peanut butter cookie. I love the swap for coconut sugar and whole wheat flour! I’m a Registered Dietitian and will be telling my clients about these great alternatives. Also, what a beautiful website. 😀 😀
Thank you so much for your kind words about my recipe and website, Ariel! That means SO much to me! 🙂 I’m truly honored that you plan on telling your clients about my recipes! You’re so sweet!!
I’ve made these a couple of times already and they were a hit every time! I added some Reese’s pieces so my family would eat them (namely my “if it’s healthy, it can’t be yummy” husband) and THEN I could drop the bombshell that minus the pieces, they’re not awful for you!! I’m making these again tonight for my co-workers, and again in a few days for Christmas for family! LOVE this recipe!!!
For SURE need to keep all of your recipes in my kitchen….
WOW!! I’m so glad these cookies have been such a big hit in your house — even with your husband! That means so much to me, Morgan — thanks for sharing that! 🙂 I hope you, your family, and your friends have a wonderful Christmas! And I can’t wait to hear what recipe of mine you try next!