Why you’re going to love these cookies:
- Made with minimal, basic ingredients you likely already have
- Zero time spent waiting for ingredients to come to room temperature (so you can make them without notice if you’re craving something sweet or in a pinch)
- Straightforward instructions – simply toss everything in a bowl and mix
- Ability to make them vegan but swapping out one ingredient
- Start to finish, made and out of the oven in ~20 minutes
- Dairy-free and gluten-free friendly
- Keeps for up to 2 weeks
Need I say more? Naturally sweetened and balanced with a hint of salt, these creamy little cookies are anything but dry and crumbly; which are painfully common characteristics of peanut butter cookies.
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “baking is a science”. Between the temperature of the fat and eggs, order in which the ingredients are mixed, role of protein in the eggs and gluten in the flour, breakdown of the sugar crystals in the oven, plus theorizing a healthier version – cookies fully live up to that term.
But while cookies can be complicated, they don’t have to be! This recipe is free from the strategic science that can make or break cookies. Think of it as a recipe that removes the skill required to nail a batch of cookies, making it doable for all levels – from kids to those who claim they can barely make a bowl of cereal!
A classic cookie with a healthy spin, these soft and chewy peanut butter cookies can be done faster than you can watch an episode on Netflix. And ICYMI, a warm plate of homemade cookies happen to be the *perfect* snack to go along with your current show!
One Bowl Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 C (256 g) creamy peanut butter*
- 1 C flour: AP, GF, WW, oat
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. stevia or sweetener
- ¼ tsp. sea salt*
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 2 TBSP honey
- ¼ C (~52.5 g) unsweetened applesauce
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F
- Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl until it’s fully combined
- Scoop the dough onto a prepped baking sheet ~1” apart (the cookies don’t spread much so they don’t run into each other as they bake)
- Score the cookies by pressing down on each cookie with a fork to create a crisscross pattern that resembles the squares on waffles
- Bake for 8-10 minutes and let cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the pan
Notes
- *Peanut butter: PB can be swapped out for other nut butters – I prefer freshly ground, unsalted PB as it’s high quality and free from unnecessary additives
- *Sea salt: omit or decrease the salt if the peanut butter is salted
- To make vegan: substitute maple syrup for honey (1:1)
- Like most recipes, this can easily be halved or doubled. But this recipe in particular can be taken two steps further and quartered or even divided into eighths for a mini batch. So instead of 32 cookies, it can be cut down to make only 4 cookies if you have a taste for something small! The measurements for 4 cookies are:
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- 2 TBSP (32g) peanut butter
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- 2 TBSP flour
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- 1/16 tsp. baking soda
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- ⅛ tsp. sweetener
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- A sprinkle of sea salt (or omit altogether)
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- ¼ tsp. vanilla
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- ¾ tsp. honey
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- ½ TBSP (~7g) unsweetened applesauce
- To take the cookies up a notch – dip or drizzle with chocolate or roll the balls of cookie dough in sugar, score, bake, and after they’ve cooled for ~5 minutes, lightly press Hershey’s Kisses on top of the cookies like my mom and I always did!
Aside from how quick and easy this recipe is, the versatility of it is another favorable factor in my opinion. When I was in the midst of making these with almond butter once, when we ran out of honey, a rarity for Grant and me. To compensate for the difference in honey, I used some coconut cream that was left over from another recipe and added a little cinnamon and nutmeg to make coconut almond cookies (which would’ve been even better have we had fresh coconut flakes to sprinkle on top)! With room for flexibility and creativity in the ingredients, the most important thing to look for if you do experiment is the consistency – you always want to end up with a cookie dough texture similar to how it looks when you follow the recipe normally.
To maximize the life of these cookies, store them in an airtight container. They keep for up to 2 weeks (if they even last that long), though they are a little drier around that 2 week mark; but that’s nothing a glass of milk can’t fix!
I hope you love these cute, melt in your mouth cookies as much as Grant and I do!
If interested, the macronutrients are below. They are kept separate at the very end of each recipe blog so that this can remain a safe, positive space for all as not everyone wishes to see the nutritional information.
Macros per cookie (makes 32): 6.3 C | 4.1 F | 2.5 P
If more or less than 32 cookies are made and you’d like to know the macros, divide the macros of the whole recipe below by the number of cookies made.
Whole recipe: 199.35 C | 130 F | 80 P
The macros can vary greatly depending on the type of flour used. The macros above are based off of Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Flour. To determine the macros with a different flour, add the macros for the entire recipe without the flour (below) to the macros of the flour used.
Macros without flour: 99.35 C | 128 F | 64 P
The macros for recipes are also available on MyFitnessPal. Simply search the name of the recipe followed by “ – SUNutrition” (so for this recipe, search “One Bowl PB Cookies – SUNutrition”).
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