The Best Soft Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe (Without Brown Sugar)
Recipe update — September 2026: After hearing from readers whose cookies turned out dry or crumbly, I retested and improved this recipe. The updated cookies are soft and chewy—even the day after baking! Please use the current recipe card for your next batch, and thank you for sharing your feedback.
Our easy Peanut Butter Cookie recipe without brown sugar is just what you need to get some of that coziness going in your life.
The best part? We’re making these delicious cookies without brown sugar! Yup, we’re using just simple ingredients, like good ol’ white sugar, that most of us have sitting in our pantry.
Reasons to love this recipe
- Melt-in-Your-Mouth Good – These classic peanut butter cookies without brown sugar just melt in your mouth
- Flavor Bomb – The peanut butter flavor in these cookies is seriously the best!
- Share the Love – This recipe makes about 30 cookies – so lots to enjoy and share!
- Quick and Easy – It’s such an easy cookie recipe, you’ll be dunking them in milk in no time!
Try our Chocolate Chip Pizookie!
Ingredients
Each ingredient plays a role in our peanut butter cookies recipe to bring you a cookie that’s just downright delicious:
- Peanut Butter: Use regular peanut butter. Brand name or generic is fine.
- Flour: The backbone of any cookie. Here, we use regular ol’ bleached, all-purpose flour.
- Butter: What’s a cookie without the buttery goodness? Use unsalted butter to keep the sodium levels down.
- Egg and Egg Yolk: Brings moisture and helps with the cookie’s structure.
- Baking Soda: Helps the cookies rise and spread, for that perfect crumbly texture.
- Sugar: Helps create that irresistible golden crust. We use white sugar to keep things simple.
- Vanilla Extract: Elevates the other flavors.
How to make Peanut Butter Cookies
Follow these simple instructions to make these easy Peanut Butter Cookies. See the recipe card below for more help.
- Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a medium bowl
- Cream the butter and sugar together in a large separate bowl
- Add in a large egg and one egg yolk
- Mix in the vanilla extract
- Stir in the peanut butter
- Gradually stir in the flour mixture until smooth
- Use a 1.5 tbsp cookie scoop to form cookie dough balls
- Roll the cookie balls in your hands and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Press a criss-cross pattern into each cookie with the back of a fork
- Sprinkle a bit of sugar on top
- Bake cookies until the edges look dry and centers are still soft.
TIP: Did you know cookies will keep baking on a cookie sheet even after they are removed from the oven?
Expert Peanut Butter Cookies tips
Follow these expert tips to make the best Peanut Butter Cookies no brown sugar:
- Sift the flour: It only takes a couple of minutes and makes your cookies super light and airy.
- Room Temp Rules: For the best texture, let your eggs and butter get to room temperature before mixing. Cold ingredients just don’t blend well.
- Regular Nuttiness: Use regular creamy store bought peanut butter.
- Use a cooling rack – move the cookies on to the cooling rack within a few minutes
- Dough Stash: No time to bake right away? Wrap your peanut butter cookie dough in plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days.
How to Serve
When it comes to serving these delicious homemade Peanut Butter Cookies without brown sugar, you have lots of options!
Enjoy them fresh out of the oven for that melty, gooey experience, or let them cool on a wire rack to achieve that classic crunchy texture.
They’re perfect as a standalone treat, or you can level them up by sandwiching some ice cream between two cookies!
How to Store
To store your PB cookies, follow these instructions. First, let them cool completely on a wire rack. Once cooled, place them in an airtight container separated by layers of parchment paper.
Helpful information…
Here are some of the questions people have asked me when baking cookies without brown sugar:
Should peanut butter cookies be soft or crunchy?
This recipe will give you soft and chewy peanut butter cookies. They’re even soft the next day!
Why are my peanut butter cookies too crumbly?
If your cookies are falling apart, they could either be overbaked, or have too much flour or not enough fat.
Make sure you’re measuring ingredients accurately.
When you take the cookie tray out of the oven, let them cool for just a few minutes and then place the cookies on a cooling rack. Sometimes I just slide the entire sheet of parchment paper onto the rack so that I don’t disturb them.
What should I keep stocked in my pantry for baking?
Great question! For spontaneous baking sessions, I always have flour, white sugar, baking soda, and vanilla extract on hand. And of course, you can’t forget the butter and eggs in the fridge!
I like to keep a baker’s pantry stocked so I can bake whenever the mood hits. Check out our Baker’s Pantry Guide.
Where did I get my inspiration for this recipe?
When I think about Peanut Butter Cookies, I think about my sister Cathy, and it’s a cozy feeling all over. We used to bake them together, and she’s all about the soft, chewy kind.
Now, I bet there are hundreds of different recipes for peanut butter cookies. You’ve got variations with whole wheat flour, gluten-free options, and sweeteners ranging from brown sugar to honey.
Some even have mini chocolate chips or chocolate chunks, and some use creamy peanut butter and others use crunchy peanut butter.
But for me, it’s all about keeping it simple and classic, with those iconic fork marks on the top, just like Mom used to make – they give me major food nostalgia.
You might also like…
Craving more cookies? While this is our absolute favorite peanut butter cookie recipe, we have lots more cookie recipes you should try:
- Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie
- Chewy Old-fashioned Sugar Cookies
- Ranger Cookies (Cowboy Cookies)
- Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookie
- Rugelach
Final thoughts
Could this be the best peanut butter cookie recipe?
THANKS SO MUCH for following and being part of the Pie Lady Bakes community! We’re all about sharing easy-to-make vintage recipes that remind us of the ones our moms and grandmas used to make.
If you haven’t already, you can sign up for my weekly email newsletter using this link. It’s absolutely free, and you’ll never miss out on any of my new recipes.
See you soon!
Grandma Judy
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If you’ve made this delicious Peanut Butter Cookie recipe without brown sugar, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Be sure to give us a 5-star rating!
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Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe Without Brown Sugar
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar - + 1/4 cup additional to sprinkle on the cookies
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter - at room temperature
- 1 egg - room temperature
- 1 egg yolk - room temperature
- 1 cup smooth peanut butter - smooth or creamy – not all natural
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350F
- Place a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet
- In a medium bowl, sift the all purpose flour, and add in the baking soda and salt. Sifting the dry ingredients is very important
- In a large bowl, Cream the sugar and butter together until well blended. You can use a large spoon or fork.
- Mix in the egg, egg yolk, peanut butter and vanilla
- Gradually add the flour mixture (dry mixture) to the wet ingredients and stir until blended.
- You will end up with a soft peanut butter cookie dough batter
- Chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator for 1 hour and 15 minutes
- Using a 1.5 tbsp cookie scoop roll the cookies in your hand and then place the cookie balls on the parchment paper, making sure to space them apart
- Using a fork, press the fork tines into the cookie dough once, and then change direction and press the fork tines again, creating a cross hatch pattern.
- Sprinkle the cookies with a small amount of white sugar before they go into the oven
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until dry and golden around the edges, but soft in the middle. IMPORTANT: The cookies will keep baking on the cookie sheet after you have removed them from the oven.
- TIP: Tear a sheet of parchment paper to get the next batch of cookies ready to bake – and use a second cookie sheet if you have one or be ready to switch over once your first batch comes out of the oven.
- Let the cookies cool, and of course after sampling one or two 🙂 you can store them in an airtight container. We use large ziplock bags and keep them in the fridge.
- You can also freeze your cookies for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
These are estimated values generated from a nutritional database using unbranded products. Please do your own research with the products you’re using if you have a serious health issue or are following a specific diet.
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Judy Kahansky
Judy Kahansky is an experienced writer and baker, creating delicious desserts (including pie!) for over 40 years. She loves to take classic and vintage recipes and update them to fit the busy lives of her readers. When not baking, Judy and her husband Mark are passionate golfers, enjoy the simple life, and are travelers and dog lovers, spending as much time as they can with their sweet pup Ruby.
A little update from my kitchen: I’ve retested and improved this recipe after some readers reported dry or crumbly cookies. My latest batch was soft and chewy, including the day after baking! The post and recipe card now contain the updated recipe, so earlier comments may refer to the previous version. Thank you for your honest feedback—it helps me make these recipes better. —Judy
I don’t know why but my cookies came out dry
Sorry to hear that Pam – sometimes too long in the oven can do that.
Hi Pam, I wanted to follow up and thank you again for your feedback. I’ve now retested this recipe and updated the ingredients and instructions to address the texture concerns readers shared. I’m sorry your earlier batch was disappointing. If you decide to try it again, please use the updated recipe card—I’d love to hear how it turns out.
These were so good I had to make them twice in one week! I was impressed by how soft they were. Love them.
Aren’t they the best! You can choose ‘2x’ on the recipe card to help you double the batch – they freeze beautifully – if they last that long. LOL.
I’m baking mine now and a batch just came out and cooled a bit. they are falling apart. Will they come together when they cool?
Hi Rosie, It’s good to let them cool completely before moving them off the cookie sheet if you can. If they are crumbly, it may mean too much flour in the batter.
Hi Rosie, I wanted to let you know that I have updated this recipe after receiving your comment and some from other bakers! These cookies are now soft and chewy, once they cool on a cooling rack. I’ve updated the recipe card and post. Happy Baking! 🤗
So good! My husband commented they were the best cookies he’d ever had! High praise coming from him.
Thank you
Hi Cindy, that’s great to hear! This one is a favourite in our family too. 🙂
So good thank you!!!
You are so welcome! Thanks for letting me know. xo
Thank you, I just ran out of brown sugar and these turned out great!
i just made them and was worried they’d be dry but they turned out absolutely exquisite
Hi Bella, oh I’m so happy to hear that! It’s a favourite in our home. 🙂
10/10!! They turned out excellent!
Loved it, thanks!
I’m so glad and you’re welcome!
Am I missing something? Flour doesn’t appear in the ingredient list. How much flour do you use?
Flour is 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour. thanks.
Hi, I went to make this recipe and it seems that you forgot to put flour and how much in the list of ingredients. Oops.
Hi Glenda, flour is 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour.
Always come out really dry for some reason, definitely too much flour
Hi Georgia, do you measure your flour using a scale? And it might be the brand of flour as well. I usually spoon the flour into a measuring cup and then stir it to add some air pockets. Hope that helps.
@Judy Kahansky, I had the same problem. While a scale would have been more accurate, you did not provide a recipe in the metric system.
Thanks Kalyani, I will definitely make sure to provide metric measurements as well in the future! I appreciate the feedback.
Hi Kalyani, I wanted to let you know that I have updated the recipe – you can also choose metric button to get those measurements. Please see the updated ingredients and instructions in both the recipe card and post. Happy Baking!
Hi Georgia, just wanted to let you know that I have heard your comments and re-tested the recipe. The oven temperature, baking time and ingredients have been updated in the recipe card and the post. Thanks again and happy baking!
I follow exactly except I didn’t have parchment paper