Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies
Published 1/8/2021 • Updated 9/12/2023
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These Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies are flourless, chewy and oh so delicious with dark chocolate chips and a sprinkle of sea salt.
The BEST Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies
We’re serious! These healthy peanut butter cookies are seriously the best we’ve ever had. They’re perfectly chewy, flourless, and (of course!) pack that delicious peanut butter flavor we all love.
What Makes These Cookies Healthy?
We’ve made a few simple ingredient swaps from traditional peanut butter cookies
They’re Flourless: These healthy peanut butter cookies are flourless and gluten free thanks to almond flour (which is actually just ground up almonds).
All-Natural Peanut Butter: We’re big fans of using all-natural drippy peanut butter with one ingredient – PEANUTS, and none of those extra fillers you often find in many nut butters. Smucker’s All-Natural is or go-to.
No Granulated Sugar: Instead of using white granulated sugar like many cookies do, we use light brown sugar for these cookies. Feel free to sub 1:1 for coconut sugar if that’s your jam!
Dark Chocolate Chips: While these healthy peanut butter cookies can definitely be made without chocolate chips, we love the taste that dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips give these cookies (instead of milk chocolate chips).
How to Make Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies
Preheat and Mix Ingredients
First, preheat the oven to 350ºF and spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.
Next, place all ingredients into a medium bowl and mix until combined. Your dough should be a similar consistency to classic cookie dough.
If it seems too dry, you probably didn’t use drippy enough peanut butter. Feel free to add 1 to 2 tablespoons melted coconut oil.
Scoop Cookie Dough
Use a 1.5-tablespoon cookie scoop to scoop dough into your hands. Roll into a ball and slightly flatten in a cookie shape (more on this below!) and place on the baking sheet. Repeat until you’ve made all your cookies (this recipe will make around 10 cookies!).
Add additional chocolate chips (if you love chocolate) to the tops of each cookie and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
Bake Those Cookies
Bake at 350ºF for 9-11 minutes, or until the cookies have firmed up.
Immediately transfer cookies from baking sheet to a cooling rack and let cool for at least 10 minutes before eating. ENJOY!
Pro Tip: Always Slightly Flatten Cookie Dough
After you mix the dough up for these healthy peanut butter cookies, it’s no secret that you’ll scoop them out and put them on a pan. HOWEVER, do not forget to slightly flatten the peanut butter cookie dough before you put them on the pan.
They will spread out a bit, so only SLIGHTLY flatten them so that they don’t spread out too much!
Here’s what you do:
- Mix the cookie dough in a large bowl.
- Using a 1.5 tablespoon cookie dough scoop, scoop a cookie dough ball in your hands.
- Next, roll the cookie dough into a ball and slightly flatten it in the palm of your hands.
- Place the cookie dough ball on a greased baking sheet.
WHY DO I HAVE TO FLATTEN THESE COOKIE DOUGH BALLS BEFORE BAKING?
You have to slightly flatten the cookie dough balls before placing them on the baking sheet because if you do not, they will end up as a dome shape rather than a perfect, flat top, chewy cookie.
How to Make These Coconut-Free
We know lots of you can’t do coconut products, so we also tested this recipe without coconut flour, oil, and sugar. The cookies do expand more, so just make sure you spread your cookies out, only press them down slightly, and only do 8 cookies per sheet.
To make these cookies coconut-free, simply just omit the coconut flour and coconut oil and use brown sugar as directed. Then, follow the recipe as written.
By omitting the coconut oil and coconut flour, your cookies will be slightly chewier and equally as delicious!
How to Store Peanut Butter Cookies
Keep these cookies in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, making sure they fully cool before storing.
Can you Freeze Cookies?
Absolutely! These healthy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Simply allow the cookies to cool completely, and then store in an air-tight container (large Ziplocs work great for this!), and write the date you made the cookies + the name of the cookies on the bag before placing in the freezer.
Thawing Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies
Thaw these cookies at room temperature overnight, or if you’re in a pinch for a healthy cookie right now, remove from the freezer and place a cookie in the microwave for 1 minute on defrost, or until it’s chewy and delicious.
Healthy Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
Wet
- 1/2 cup drippy, all-natural peanut butter* (we recommend Smuckers or Good and Gather)
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon melted coconut oil
- Dry
- 2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed (option to use coconut sugar*)
- 1/2 cup finely ground, blanched almond flour (we recommend Bob’s Red Mill or the Kirkland Brand)
- 3 tablespoons coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
- coarse sea salt, for topping
Instructions
- First, preheat the oven to 350ºF and spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
- Next, place all ingredients into a medium bowl and mix until combined. Then, add melted coconut oil and mix again. Your dough should be similar to classic cookie dough. If it feels too dry, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil. If it feels a little too wet, you can add 1-2 more tablespoons of almond flour.
- Use a 1.5-tablespoon cookie scoop to scoop dough into your hands. Roll into a ball and slightly flatten and place on the baking sheet. These cookies will expand, so I like to do 8 per cookie sheet. Repeat until all dough is gone.
- Add additional chocolate chips (if you love chocolate) to the tops of each cookie and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
- Bake at 350ºF for 10-13 minutes, or until the cookies begin to turn golden brown on the outsides.
- Let cookies sit on the hot baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer from the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let cool for at least 10 minutes before eating. As the cookies cool, they will firm up, so be sure to let this process happen.
- Let cookies cool completely before storing in an airtight container. As they cool, they will firm up even more.
Tips & Notes
- In order for this recipe to work, the consistency of your peanut butter must be drippy. The consistency of the dough should be like classic cookie dough. If it’s not, you can add a tablespoon or two of coconut oil and that should do the trick!
- If you use coconut sugar instead of brown sugar, you are more likely to need to use coconut oil as it absorbs more fat than brown sugar.
- Your cookies may seem cakey right when they come out of the oven, but if you let them sit for 10 minutes, they will become chewy and delicious.
- To make coconut-free: we tested this recipe without coconut products and the changes are simple. Omit the coconut oil and coconut flour altogether and follow the recipe as is. Do note that this variation will spread out more than the cookies WITH coconut flour, so make sure to only do 8 cookies per sheet! These cookies will come out with a chewier texture.
- Nutrition information includes coconut products and is for 12 cookies.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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I am afraid to make! 🙂
Totally trying these out tonight! We love anything peanut butter 😉
Yum! I love flourless peanut butter cookies so much!
I have a huge jar of creamy PB that needs to be turned into cookies; thanks for the inspiration 🙂
are those unreal m&m’s in them?
Lee,
Will this recipe work with natural peanut butter (just peanuts)?
Lauren
These look delicious! Anything with peanut butter sounds good to me 🙂
Haley – egginon.wordpress.com
Mmmm These look killer!!!!!
easy and healthy{ish}– what’s not to love?!
Yum! Peanut butter cookies are my favorite!