Big, soft, and thick white chocolate peanut butter cookies are made with 2 cups of peanut butter for massive peanut butter flavor. Studded with white chocolate chips, each sweet and salty bite is simply irresistible.
White chocolate and peanut butter is an underrated flavor combination and these white chocolate peanut butter cookies prove it! The recipe is inspired by our peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Theyโre always a hit, loved by readers across the world, and check off all our peanut butter cookie must-haves:
- Packed with peanut butter flavor
- Big and bold
- Crispy on the edges with soft-baked centers
- Chunky and thick (love a little texture!)
- Just the right amount of crumble
And the white chocolate morsels give off a sweet, caramelized flavor, which fits right in with the nutty, roasty, and slightly salty flavor of the peanut butter. Wildly delicious. The pair works beautifully in Reese’s peanut butter white chocolate bark, too.
Choosing the Right Ingredients for White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
These white chocolate peanut butter cookies use basic cookie ingredients like flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. But not all ingredients are created equal and here are a few recommendations that will help you make the best cookies:
- Peanut Butter. We use a whopping 2 cups of peanut butter in this cookie dough for ultimate peanut butter flavor. The best peanut butter for these cookies is a processed creamy peanut butter, preferably Jif or Skippy. You might remember this from our peanut butter cupcakes, but save natural-style peanut butter for eating because in most cases, itโs not ideal for baking. However, if you only have natural-style peanut butter on hand and NEED cookies, these peanut butter cookies work with either processed or natural-style.
- Room Temperature Butter. Like chocolate chip cookies, the base of todayโs recipe is creamed room temperature butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. You canโt cream butter and sugar together if the butter is too warm or too cold. It spells disaster for cookies! Room temperature butter is about 65ยฐF (18ยฐC). Itโs cool and slightly firm to the touch, not warm or slippery.
- White Chocolate Morsels. Youโll fill this peanut butter dough with plenty of white chocolate morsels. We love Ghirardelli white chocolate baking morsels. Instead of white chocolate, feel free to use semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips instead.
A Few Success Tips
- Add a little sparkle. We always like to roll peanut butter cookies in a little granulated sugar before baking for a little extra sparkle.
- Flatten the dough. Before placing the cookies in the oven, slightly flatten each cookie dough ball with your fingers. This helps the cookies spread just a little bit.
- Warning: must eat with milk. Todayโs cookies are unapologetically large. Weโll use 3 Tablespoons of dough per cookie. Not only are these cookies enormous, theyโre pretty dense too. A glass of milk is basically a requirement!
More Favorite Cookie Recipes
- M&M Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
- Soft & Thick Monster Cookies
- Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- No Bake Cookies
- White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
- Prep Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 24 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Big, soft, and thick white chocolate peanut butter cookies are made with 2 cups of peanut butter for massive peanut butter flavor. Studded with sweet white chocolate chips, each peanut butter bite is simply irresistible.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/2 cups (313g) all-purpose flourย (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 cups (500g) creamy peanut butter*
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 and 2/3 cups (300g) white chocolate chips
- optional: 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Whiskย the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and saltย together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and both sugars together on medium speed until smooth, about 1-2 minutes.ย Add the eggs and beat on high until combined, about 1 minute.ย Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the peanut butter and vanilla, then mix on high until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, add the white chocolate chips.ย Dough will be thick and soft.
- Chill the dough for 1 hourย in the refrigerator (and up to 2-3 days). If chilling for longer than a few hours, though, allow to sit at room temperature for at leastย 30ย minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard and the cookies may not spread that much.
- Preheat oven to 350ยฐF (177ยฐC). Line baking sheetsย with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.ย Set aside.
- Roll cookie dough into large balls,ย about 3ย Tablespoons of dough per cookie (it’s a lot!), and then roll the balls in granulated sugar. Place 8 balls onto the cookie sheets. Gently press down on each ball to *slightly* flatten.ย Bake each batch for 14-15ย minutes until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft.
- Remove from the oven. If the cookies are still very puffy, you can gently press down on the warm cookies with the back of a spoon. Let cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week. You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 2-3 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 5. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Here’s how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Toolsย (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowlย |ย Whiskย | Electric Mixer (Handheldย orย Stand) | Baking Sheetsย |ย Silicone Baking Matsย orย Parchment Paperย |ย Cooling Rack
- Peanut Butter: Use a commercial brand peanut butterย like Jif creamy or Skippy creamy. I do not suggest using natural style or oily peanut butter. Avoid using crunchy peanut butter; I found it made the cookies super crumbly.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Reader Comments and Reviews
These cookies are sooo good. I make a batch almost weekly for school lunches and it’s baking the kids refuse to trade, that’s saying something.
The flavor came out great, but I used locally ground peanut butter (it wasn’t their organic stuff so I thought it might be ok) so they came out very dry. I want to try this again with store bought peanut butter next time!
These are absolutely the best cookies I’ve ever made!!
Hi. I want to make these but Iโd like to use m&ms instead of the white chocolate chips. I know that cookies with m&ms work better when some cornstarch is used. Any suggestions for how to adapt the recipe? Or do you think it will work without any changes? Thank you
Hi TA, you can replace the white chocolate chips with M&Ms with no other changes.
This recipe is a no go for me. Although the flavor is great, it was a crumbled mess of a cookie. I routinely make and love your recipes but something is off here. I weighed the flour so that was no pan issue, refrigeratored the dough, and still a crumbly mess. Will continue to use your recipes as this is the only one that has not worked.
P
Hi Jeanne, sorry to hear they didn’t turn out for you. Here are my best cookie tips, which might help if you decide to give them another try.
I am going to try these cookies today but I have to make them smaller. I am wondering about the cook time . If the large ones need 13 minutes would 9 minutes work for a smaller size?
Hi Susan, it depends on the size of cookie you make, but yes, I would start checking around 9 minutes. They’re done when the edges are set and lightly browned. The centers will look very soft.
Hi Sally, can I use crunchy peanut butter?
Hi Kary, here’s what Sally says in the Notes about the peanut butter: “Use a commercial brand peanut butter like Jif creamy or Skippy creamy. I do not suggest using natural style or oily peanut butter. Avoid using crunchy peanut butter; I found it made the cookies super crumbly.”
I followed directions to a tee only made them a tad smaller, why are they falling apart? Not cooked enough? Please advise
Hi Mimi! Have the cookies cooled? They will firm up as they cool. The cookies can also turn crumbly and dry if over-baked, or if there’s too much flour in the dough. How did you measure the flour? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
i spoon and leveled flour, I baked for 14 minutes and let cool on sheet for 5 minutes and on a rack for 10 minutes. They were not brown on the edges though. I will let next batch cool longer.
Made these cookies to give away for the holidays and was happy I kept some for me because they are delicious! They came out soft with big peanut butter flavor. The addition of white morsels was perfect. I think peanut butter morsels can be added as an alternative too. I happy that the dough was easy to smooth into a ball shape. I did flatten them slightly after shaping them into a ball then added 2 or 3 white chocolate chips to the top for some esthetics. I will keep this cookie recipe for next year’s holiday cookie medley.