These vegan peanut butter cookies are a peanut butter lovers dream dessert. They’re chewy, made in one bowl, gluten free, and ready in just 15 minutes! Finish them off with a drizzle of chocolate and sprinkle of sea salt.
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You probably know this by now but I have a thing for reallllly soft & chewy cookies. I like melt in your mouth pillowy fluffy cookies. None of that crunchy and crispy nonsense. Maybe with a *slight* crunch on the bottom (keyword: slight), but all in all just really fluffy.
Well, these vegan peanut butter cookies are exactly that! Plus, they’ll be in and out of the oven in just 15 minutes and only require a few simple ingredients you probably have on hand. Yet another pantry staple recipe that’s really coming in clutch these days!
These cookies require no butter or shortening, just some good old creamy peanut butter, a bit of flour, sugar, oil, milk and a few other basic baking ingredients.
How to make these cookies
In a medium mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, combine all wet ingredients. Beat until combined.
Add in the dry ingredients and beat again until a batter forms. The batter might look a little odd at this point, almost like it’s not fully come together, but this is normal so don’t worry.
Use a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon and measure into heaping tablespoon balls. Roll in your hands to form an even ball.
Repeat until all dough has been used and add to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Take the back of a fork and press the cookies down creating an x shape on top. Press down gently for thick cookies or press down to flatten more for thinner cookies. They will not spread a lot while baking.
Bake for 9-11 minutes. The cookies will be soft when the come out of the oven. 10 minutes is ideal in my oven for nice chewy cookies, but you can bake for longer if you prefer a bit of crunch.
Let cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
The key to soft & pillowy cookies
One of the reasons these cookies are so soft and pillowy is simply because of the peanut butter. It gets whipped with the other ingredients to create a really fluffy base for these cookies.
The second key is the short baking time. These cookies only need to be in the oven for about 10 minutes. Just enough time to cook them all the way through, but not so much time that they dry out and get crunchy.
The third reason? The cornstarch! Just one tablespoon of cornstarch added to the dough really helps fluff up the cookies. You can also sub for arrowroot starch or tapioca starch for the same result.
While these cookies are perfect as is, I like to finish them off with a basic chocolate drizzle and generous sprinkle of salt flakes.
To make the chocolate drizzle, combine 2 tsp coconut oil with 1/2 cup of your favorite chocolate chips in a small pot on the stove. Add that pot to a larger pot with about 1 inch of water in the larger pot.
Let melt over low heat, stirring occasionally until the chocolate is fully melted. You can also do this in the microwave, stirring every 20 seconds to ensure it doesn’t burn. Take a spoon and drizzle over the cookies, then finish off with some salt!
Recipe tips & tricks
- Be sure you use a peanut butter that only has two ingredients: peanuts and salt. You can use one that just has peanuts and no salt, but add a small pinch of salt to the batter if you do this. Using peanut butter or (peanut spread as it’s sometimes called) with any oil or sugar in it can really change the final cookies.
- Once prepared, these cookies will keep at room temperature in an air tight container for about 3-5 days.
- This recipe makes 12 smaller cookies (about 1 1/2 tbsp worth of batter), so if you are looking to make a larger batch or just larger cookies, I would double the recipe and use about 2 heaping tablespoons of dough per cookie.
Want to do more baking? Try these recipes!
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Chewy Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
Wet:
- 2/3 cup + 1 tbsp unsweetened natural peanut butter (ingredients should just be peanuts + salt)
- 3 tbsp oil (avocado, melted coconut, vegetable etc.)
- 3 tbsp non-dairy milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
Dry:
- 3/4 cup gluten free or regular all purpose flour* (spoon and level)
- 1 tbsp corn starch (tapioca starch, or arrowroot starch)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a medium mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, combine all wet ingredients.
- Beat until combined.
- Add in the dry ingredients and beat again until a batter forms. The batter might look a little odd at this point, almost like it’s not fully come together, but this is normal.
- Use a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon and measure into heaping tablespoon balls. Roll in your hands to form an even ball.
- Repeat until all dough has been used and add to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Take the back of a fork and press the cookies down creating an x shape on top. Press down gently for thick cookies or press down to flatten more for thinner cookies. They will not spread a lot while baking.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes. The cookies will be soft when the come out of the oven. 10 minutes is ideal in my oven for nice chewy cookies, but you can bake for longer if you prefer a bit of crunch, but you risk drying them out if they stay in for too lomg.
- Let cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Drizzle with melted chocolate (see notes) and a sprinkle of salt flakes.
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