Only 7 simple ingredients in these soft & chewy flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookies.
Use your favorite peanut butter—whether that’s homemade or store-bought. Try to stay away from anything too oily. I like to use my homemade honey roasted peanut butter in this recipe and strongly suggest you do as well for the best flavor. Peanut butter takes the place of regular butter in this cookie recipe.
Chewy edges, soft centers, cinnamon-spiced and full of peanut butter flavor. No butter, no flour, no oil, and yet… still taste dreamy. With a recipe repertoire of hundreds of cookies, it really says something when I make the same cookie recipe twice in 2 days!!
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Flourless Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
- Prep Time: 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 14 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Only 7 simple ingredients in these soft & chewy flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookies.
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup (57g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats*
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup (250g) peanut butter at room temperature*
- 6 Tablespoons (90g) packed light brown sugar*
- 1/2 cup (90g) semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, toss the oats, cinnamon, and baking soda together. Set aside. In a medium bowl, beat the egg. Mix in the peanut butter and brown sugar with a large rubber spatula until combined. Pour in the dry ingredients and slowly mix until everything is combined. Depending how thick and/or cold your peanut butter is, you’ll have to use some arm muscles. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Chill the cookie dough for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper. Scoop the dough, about 1.5 Tablespoons each (I use this medium cookie scoop), onto prepared baking sheet. Bake two batches – 7 cookies on each baking sheet. Gently press down on the dough mounds with the back of a spoon to slightly flatten. If you find the cookie dough balls are oily-looking from your peanut butter, blot each with a paper towel.
- Bake for 9-10 minutes. The cookies will look very soft and underbaked, but that’s ok. For crispier cookies, bake for up to 11-12 minutes. Sometimes I press a couple more chocolate chips into the tops of each cookie immediately after coming out of the oven. This is optional and only for looks!
- Allow the cookies to cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies stay fresh stored covered at room temperature for up to 7 days, if they last that long!
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: For longer storage, freeze the cookies for up to 3 months then thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowls | Spatula | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Gluten Free: Use certified gluten free oats.
- Oats: I typically use 3/4 cup of oats in these cookies, however 2/3 cup makes the cookie dough a little easier to handle and the baked cookies less crumbly. Make sure you use old-fashioned oats, not quick oats.
- Peanut Butter: You can use homemade, natural, or commercial peanut butter, however the type you use will alter their texture slightly. I found the best texture was with 1 cup of my homemade honey roasted peanut butter or 1 cup Skippy Natural Peanut Butter. If using my homemade peanut butter, make sure it is at room temperature or cold. Freshly processed, it’s quite warm and you do not want to use warm peanut butter in the cookie dough. I find natural and oily peanut butters tend to dry out these cookies, so keep that in mind.
- Sugar: You can use white sugar instead, but keep in mind you’ll lose the mild molasses flavor from brown sugar. If the peanut butter you are using is not sweet and on the salty side, increase brown sugar to 1/2 cup.
Keywords: flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookies
The dough was very dry and crumbly. Adding 3 table spoons of butter helped.
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These were great! They start off very crumbly but then solidify nicely. I put it in for 11 minutes as suggested in the recipe for a crispier cookie. I also used Brown sugar Swerve to cut down on sugar. I will be making these again for sure!
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Can I use baking powder as a substitute for baking soda ?
Hi Diosa, no they are not an equal swap. You can read more about the difference between the two in this post!
I love these cookies!! I use Gluten free oats and substitute 3tbsp of honey for the sugar and they are perfect 🙂 Thanks <3
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Damn!!! Best cookies I’ve ever made and I bake A LOT!!! These are my new favorite!!
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Thankyou Sally for this recipe . It came out perfect though I used instant oats , no crumbling issues.
Hi Sally!!! I was wondering can I replace the peanut butter with room temp butter???
Hi Aria! It wouldn’t be an even swap to substitute butter.
I made these flourless cookies today, as per recipe. Quite crumbly & difficult to work with. Will not make again.
What can I use instead of sugar?
Hi Delia, you can use white sugar instead, but keep in mind you’ll lose the mild molasses flavor from brown sugar.
I made these with 3/4 quick oats and then I added x1 medium banana mashed as I felt the mix was a bit dry. Not as good as the big fat peanut butter oatmeal cookies of yours but definitely feel like these are quick, easy, delicious (and I’m convincing myself they are a few less calories too). I added a bit of flaky sea salt on top and used probably about 120g of choc chips. My peanut butter is natural – no added salt or suagr so the extra salt on top was perfect!
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So good! My best friend has dietary restrictions, and I am so excited to be able to make a delicious cookie for her. And my husband, who loves peanut butter, really loves these cookies too.
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SO GOOD! I’m not able to eat a lot of cigar so I swapped out the brown sugar for swerve and these were absolutely delicious!!!! Thank you so much!
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Hi Sally, love this recipe and I’ve made it many times now. thank you for a lovely recipe. I wanted to make them double chocolate chip so if i were to add cocoa powder, what other alterations would i need to make?
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Hi Shlips, we haven’t tested a double chocolate flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookie, so sorry! Cocoa powder is a very drying ingredient, so it would take a bit of recipe testing to guarantee results. You may love these flourless peanut butter brownie cookies instead (you could use regular chocolate chips instead of peanut butter chips for a double chocolate cookie). We’d love to know if you give it a try.
Hi! Your recipe looks fab and I’m itching to try it but I need help with something – how do I adjust the recipe if I cannot get my hands on old fashioned rolled oats and instead only have quick oats to work with? Thanks.
Hi Mev, We’ve used both quick oats and whole oats in these cookies with no adjustments – however we did have a reader try them with quick oats (which are more powdery) and have trouble with the dough crumbling. That hasn’t happened to us, but to avoid this issue with anyone else making these cookies – we suggest whole oats.
I have made these cookies many times and always use 2/3 cup quick cooking oats and they turn out perfect
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Hi Sally. love all your recipes and I’ve made this one many times. I wanted to know if these can be converted to double chocolate chip and what adjustments would i need to make.
Hi Shilpa, we haven’t tested a double chocolate flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookie, so sorry! You may love these flourless peanut butter brownie cookies instead (you could use regular chocolate chips instead of peanut butter chips for a double chocolate cookie)!
This is a perfect quick and easy recipe. I wanted to make some cookies for a friend’s child who is dairy and gluten-free. I am a bit unfamiliar with cooking for those with allergies, but gave this a try. So tasty and chewy, my family loved them too.
Just a note, watch the chocolate chips you use, some have milk…yikes!
Thanks for posting!
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need nutrition info: carb count, calories.
Hi Sharon! We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp
Please is always nice to add! Plus this can value based on which peanut butter you use or any yummy substitutions. Happy baking! Delicious recipe as always! 🙂
I made these and found the dough so dry it needed moisture. So I added an extra egg. They are quite bland and tasteless. Since I use real pb I think it needs more sweetener. But also maybe a little salt. I don’t know why else my attempt was not a happy one.
Can I use steel cut oats?
Hi Joleen, I don’t recommend steel cut oats for this recipe.
First time add some molasses to the creamy peanut butter; added Craisins/flaxseeds; frozed the batter than cut them practically 3 times before putting them on the cookie sheet; this time added Molasses and 1 cup of peanut butter; flax seeds; cocoa; powder; freezer as we speak!!
Hi sally. Ive baked these a few times. Always turn out lovely. Just have a general qu4stion. My oven shows temperature in Celsius so its 175 or 180. since most recipes say 350=177, is it better to go with 175 or 180.
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Made these for the first time yesterday. So delicious! I used Smucker’s Organic Chunky Peanut Butter, which was perfect for this recipe. The chunky PB added extra crunch. I also added 1 tsp vanilla extract and used 3/4 Cup of oatmeal, per note #3. Next I want to try using raisins or dried tart cherries instead of the chocolate chips. Looking forward to making this recipe on a regular basis and experimenting with variations. Thanks so much for publishing this recipe.
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I just made these…so good!!!
Swapped vanilla for cinnamon and used quick oatS since I had lots on hand. Came out Great!!! Will make again!!!!
Thank you for the recipe.
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These cookies are awesome – and thanks Broke PhD for the honey tip. They were crumbly the first time, but 1-2 Tablespoons honey really did the trick!
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Fantastic peanut butter cookie recipe. Just made them with my daughter. Yum!
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