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 chunk cookies. They’re 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.
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, it’s 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 today’s recipe is creamed room temperature butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. You can’t cream butter and sugar together if the butter is too warm or too cold. It spells disaster for cookies! Room temperature butter is about 65°F (18°C). It’s cool and slightly firm to the touch, not warm or slippery.
- White Chocolate Morsels. You’ll 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. Like black and white cookies, today’s cookies are unapologetically large. We’ll use 3 Tablespoons of dough per cookie. Not only are these cookies enormous, they’re pretty dense too. A glass of milk is basically a requirement!
More Favorite Cookie Recipes
- M&M Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
- 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 flour (spoon & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (230g; 2 sticks) 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
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt 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. Add the eggs and beat on high until combined, about 1 minute. 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. Dough will be thick and soft.
- Chill the dough for 1 hour 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 least 30 minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard and the cookies may not spread that much.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Roll cookie dough into large balls, about 3 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. Bake each batch for 14-15 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 Tools: KitchenAid Stand Mixer, Silpat Baking Mat, Baking Sheet, and Cooling Rack
- 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.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Keywords: white chocolate peanut butter cookies
Everyone raves about these cookies
★★★★★
These are our absolute favorite cookies!! They come out perfect every time and taste like they’re from a bakery. Since these freeze so well I like to make a batch of these and freeze the dough in servings of 6 so I can just grab them and pop them in the oven when we want something sweet. These are seriously the BEST!!
★★★★★
Hey Sally, I made this recipe yesterday and absolutely loved it! My husband said it taste a little too much peanut butter. If I use 1 1/2 cups instead of 2 cups of peanut butter would I need to change the other ingredients by half?
Hi Kaitlyn, I’m actually unsure– I haven’t tried reducing the peanut butter but you can certainly try it. I don’t expect any huge issues by doing so (and not changing any of the other ingredients).
Hi sally,
Is it ok to use unsalted butter instead of salted butter?
Hi Lauren, yes, you can use salted butter. We recommend leaving out the added salt in the recipe. You can read more about salted vs. unsalted butter in this post.
Just made these and they are absolutely divine! Followed the recipe exactly – ate a bit of dough along the way – and ended up with 22 huge cookies. They were perfectly soft. This will be a staple in our household!
★★★★★
My cookies turned out delicious, like a peanut butter shortbread. They melt in your mouth. My son is a huge Peanut Butter fan but my husband isn’t. Hubby has just eaten 4 with his coffee. A definite new favourite in my house. I used Caramilk chips instead of white choc as that’s all I had.
★★★★★
These are just fabulous. I followed the recipe and they came out perfectly. The only change I made was making them standard-sized, vs. the jumbo cookies in the recipe. Once a week I make cookies, my wife puts them in baggies of eight or so, and we take them around to our friends in the neighborhood. We started it when the pandemic hit and we’ve never stopped. So, I needed more cookies, not bigger ones.
For those who had trouble with the recipe, I would recommend purchasing a digital scale if you don’t already have one, because weighing the ingredients gives a far more accurate and reproducible measurement. I love that Sally’s recipes include weight units; every recipe I try comes out just right, and I think weighing the ingredients has a lot to do with it.
★★★★★
OMG these are soooooo yummy!! Your recipes never fail!!
★★★★★
Hi Sally! I adore this recipe and I’ve made it many times before. I’m just wondering if it would be possible to shape the cookie dough into balls and freeze them raw so that I could just bake a few at a time (from the freezer) when I want them. Let me know 🙂 thank you!!
Hi Rachel- So happy that you enjoy these cookies! See recipe note #1 for freezing instructions. Thanks for your positive feedback!
Scrumptious! Mine came out of the oven with many cracks. Do you know why? They don’t look like the recipe photo, but they taste great!
★★★★★
I just made these for the first time and mine have a lot of cracks too. Curious as to why? They do taste delicious!
★★★★★
As usual another perfect cookie recipe! Thanks Sally! Just substituted for regular semi-sweet chocolate chips. So delicious 🙂
★★★★★
I have just made these, they are hands down the best peanutbutter cookies! They made exactly 24 large cookies, I cooked 1 batch of 8 and froze the other two. They tasted and looked like bakery cookies, thank you for such an amazing recipe
★★★★★
Hi Sally! How should I modify baking time to make smaller cookies (about 1.5 tablespoons instead of 3)?
Hi Sophia, The bake time will be a few minutes less but I’m unsure of the exact time. Keep an eye on them and bake until lightly browned on the sides but the centers still look soft.
Delicious and easy to make them. My husband loved them!
★★★★★
I brought these to work and everyone loved them.
★★★★★
I just made these and they were delicious! My husband was dunking them in milk. These are by far some of the thickest cookies I’ve ever made, and I love thick cookies! Great peanut butter taste and not overly sweet, even with rolling in sugar. The only very minor ingredient substitution I made was to use dark brown sugar instead of light. Everything else was exactly as written.
★★★★★
made these just as the recipe states and they came out perfect! Thanks for a great recipe! This is definitely a keeper
★★★★★
I did two cups of plain old Jif, almost a whole large jar, and it worked well.
I made them last weekend and loved them. Amazing flavor, even people who say they don’t like peanut butter (don’t worry I’m suspect of them too) loved them with coffee! My only question is, how can I keep the white chocolate from falling to the bottom when baking. I refrigerated between batches but out of the oven all the chips were covered by cookie. Would coating the chips lightly in flour help?
Hi John! Try adding a few extra chips on top of the warm cookies when they come out of the oven. Press a few into the tops of the warm cookies. As the cookies cool, the white chocolate chips on top will “set.”
Wow, these are amazing! I only baked 6 and put the rest of the cookie dough balls in the freezer. I love knowing that when the next cookie craving hits all I’ll have to do is throw a few in the oven! (Referenced your “How to Freeze Cookie Dough” post so that I know how to handle the sugar on the outside of the cookies when it’s time to bake them.) Thanks for another great recipe, and the helpful baking tips too!
I made these and got ridiculous feedback!!! They easily make 30 cookies. My advice would be even if they look undercooked when you take them out to leave them to continue out on the pan and they turn out perfect.
These are hands down the best peanut butter cookies I have ever had/made! Thanks for the recipe 🙂
Fantastic cookies. Made exactly as written except used the whole bag (2 cups) of chips. Skipped the chill step, and went straight to oven w/o parchment. Used a light cookie sheet. Had no problem with excessive spread, sticking, browning on bottom, etc.
★★★★★
Made these – YUM. The texture is divine – just perfect. It makes a lot of cookie so next time I would freeze some dough. They taste like high class bakery cookies. I like the sugar on the outside – they are not too sweet even with that. Just a wonderful cookie. Looking forward to trying more!!! So excited to see the new book.
The best ever! Made a batch today and we (family of 5) have already finished more than half the cookies. The texture is divine and the cookies are not too sweet, so perfect in so many ways.
★★★★★
How long would you bake these if you want regular-sized, smaller cookies? Thanks!
Depends on the size. For about 1.5 Tbsp size balls, maybe 10 minutes or so. Just until the edges are brown.
Hi Sally, I made these yesterday and I love them! I made them with chopped white chocolate instead of chips, wonderful. Did skip the sugar on the outside though but added a few flakes of sea salt which is great. And I froze half of the dough for future baking, following your instructions – first time ever I tried freezing rolled cookie dough, I’m glad I finally tried this! Thank you for Cookie Week! Wishing you all the very best 🙂 Sina
These cookies are WONDERFUL!!! It takes A LOT for me to say this about many recipes…These are the BEST cookies I’ve made/eaten in a LONG time!!! Can I say JUST PERFECT just the way they are?! YES! Perfect taste, crumb, thickness, appearance….in every way! If someone will follow this recipe exactly as you’ve written it, they can’t go wrong! I’ll be putting these in my favorite go to recipes for all occasions! THANKS!