Peanut butter and chocolate lovers rejoice! I’ve combined at least 3 delicious cookies into 1 mouthwatering recipe with my big fat peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Consider yourself warned: these cookies are exploding with flavor, unapologetically thick, and hopelessly irresistible. They’re guaranteed to satisfy almost every cookie craving.
A cookie to end all cookies, these big fat peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are a mouthful. I was inspired to try these decadent treats after seeing the cover of my cookbook, Sally’s Cookie Addiction, for the first time. The glorious monster cookies gracing the book cover are loaded with M&Ms and can be found in Chapter 2 and have recently been added to my website.
This recipe, however, skips those rainbow candies and focuses instead on a flavor relationship like no other. Chocolate chips and peanut butter. It’s a match made in cookie heaven! In this recipe, we’re combining that perfect pairing with textured oats to achieve the thickest, richest, and most satisfying cookie.
Tell Me About These Big Fat Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Texture: Loaded with so many delicious add-ins, these cookies have chewy edges, soft centers, and are unbelievably thick. (I’m always shocked by how thick they turn out.) If you want to go even bigger and thicker, try these big fat dark chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies next!
- Flavor: Ordinary chocolate chip cookies are buttery sweet on their own, but the peanut butter-chocolate pairing here brings a delicious decadence to these cookies. If this flavor pairing is a favorite, be sure to add these peanut butter chocolate cookies to your list, too.
- Ease: Simple to make, the dough comes together in just minutes using a few staple pantry add-ins like old-fashioned oats and peanut butter. Make them for same-day snacking or prepare them ahead of a special occasion (see Note).
- Time: This dough can be prepped and chilled in under an hour. 20 minutes in the refrigerator (the same amount of time we chill dough for brownie cookies) helps the oats soak up some moisture and prevents the cookie from overspreading.
If you love these cookies but don’t have oats, try these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies instead. If you love these cookies but need a gluten free dessert recipe, try these flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookies or flourless monster cookies instead. We’ve got all the bases covered!
One reader, Dyna, says: “Hands down the BEST cookie recipe I have ever made, and I’ve made a lot of cookies… All the extra notes and suggestions too were spot on. Following those tips made for a beautiful, delectable cookie!”
Recipe Testing: What Works & What Doesn’t
- The weight of peanut butter. This cookie dough is adapted from my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The addition of peanut butter here, however, can weigh down the dough. To counter this, I add baking powder for lift.
- A spreading solution. When testing the recipe, I found the cookies weren’t spreading enough. I decided to swap the quantities of granulated sugar and brown sugar. Granulated sugar—dry and thin—helps increase cookie spread. Brown sugar—moist and thick—keeps cookies compact. Increasing the granulated sugar makes all the difference in this dough for the perfect spread. You won’t even miss that extra brown sugar flavor because the peanut butter is our front-runner.
- Fewer oats + more chocolate. When testing, I originally had a higher quantity of oats in the cookies. I decided to reduce that amount to make room for more chocolate chips. Can you blame me?
Choosing the Right Ingredients:
Peanut butter. Though natural-style peanut butter is my #1 choice for eating and snacking, I recommend using non-natural peanut butter for this particular cookie recipe. Natural peanut butter can be used in my regular peanut butter cookies (though the cookies are a little crumblier than intended), but it’s not ideal for today’s recipe. Instead, use Jif or Skippy. You can use creamy or crunchy, but I prefer creamy peanut butter as crunchy can make the cookies taste a little dry. You need 1 cup of peanut butter for this recipe.
Room-temperature butter. Like my basic soft chocolate chip cookies, the base of today’s oatmeal cookie 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 usually spells disaster for your cookies!) Room temperature butter is about 65°F (18°C). It’s cool and slightly firm to touch, not warm or slippery. I recommend placing your butter on the counter for 1 hour prior to beginning the recipe to achieve ideal “room temperature” butter. If you don’t have an hour, here is my trick to soften butter quickly. You need 1 cup of butter for this cookie dough.
Whole oats: To ensure the cookies spread nicely and do not dry out, be sure to use whole oats and not quick oats. Quick oats are cut finer, and will soak up more moisture in the dough.
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
After you prepare the peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies dough, chill it for 20 minutes in the refrigerator. After chilling, it’s time to scoop the dough and bake the cookies. Each cookie uses 2 Tablespoons of dough which is about the same size as these regular chocolate chip cookies. Arrange the cookie dough balls 3 inches apart on your baking sheet. These cookies are large, so I use a medium cookie scoop and overflow it with dough (since the medium only holds 1.5 Tablespoons.)
More Quick Cookie Recipes
- Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches
- Mini M&M Cookies
- Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Brownie Cookies
- Shortbread Cookies
Big Fat Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
- Yield: 32 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Big fat peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are easy, thick, and exploding with peanut butter, oats, and chocolate chips to satisfy your cookie cravings.
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 cup (240g) creamy peanut butter
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups (170g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats
- 2 and 1/2 cups (450g) semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus more for topping if desired
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat on medium-high speed until creamed, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, peanut butter, and vanilla and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, add the oats. Once combined, beat in the chocolate chips. Dough will be thick and sticky. Cover and chill the dough for at least 20 minutes in the refrigerator (and up to 4 days). If chilling for longer than 1 hour, allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Scoop balls of dough, 2 Tablespoons of dough per cookie, and arrange 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. While the cookies are still warm, I like to press a few more chocolate chips into the tops—this is only for looks!
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 4. 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. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Peanut Butter: Use a non-natural peanut butter like Jif creamy or Skippy creamy. I do not suggest using natural style or oily peanut butter as both produce crumbly, fragile, and sandy tasting cookies. (Try this recipe for flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookies if you want to use natural!) Crunchy peanut butter is OK, but I find the cookies taste a little dry with it.
- 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
Wonderful recipe
I made these cookies today and they are the best tasting Oatmeal cookies ever. I’m anxious to have my one grandson who isn’t a fan of oatmeal cookies to try this one. I added a cup of chopped walnuts to the recipe as I like nuts in cookies and they turned out great. They’d be delicious either way. It’s definitely a keeper. Thank you for such a good recipe. I’m exploring new recipes and it’s been fun.
These are good. So glad I halved the recipe because they are hard to resist. Delicious.
I love this and every other Sally recipe. I always try to make two things while I have the oven hot! Good for the grandson, not so good for my waistline. I did see a texture difference from the very start. I had a mix of dark brown sugar and light brown sugar in my bin. I did also add the white sugar. The cookies seem dry but not hard. Did I over beat the sugar/butter mixture? Can that happen? Still one TASTY COOKIE! highly recommend
Hi Rose, so glad you enjoyed these cookies! 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.
Wondering if anyone has tried using a gluten free 1:1 flour and GF rolled oats in this recipe?
Thinking of trying it any recommendations on how to do it?
Update….successfully made these gluten free. I used red Bob Mills gluten free flour (red bag) and added appropriate amount of Xthamn gum for cookies. Also, simply swapped regular rolled oats for gluten free. They were not as fluffy as yours look but they are delicious and loved by all my non gluten free family members.
Yes! I have made these substituting King Arthur GF flour and they taste so yummy! My son who does not like GF products (his girlfriend has to have GF) could not tell the difference!
My family’s favorite cookies! Been making this recipe for several years. I use whole wheat flour in place of the all purpose (white wheat is best but red wheat does fine too) and I do 1 cup brown sugar and 1/2 granulated sugar (basically switching the measurements around from this recipe). Turns out amazing. Also for storing, put a piece of bread on top of the cookies. Keeps the cookies super soft and delicious!
My family’s favorite cookies! Been making this recipe for several years.
These were great! We didn’t have any chocolate chips (we had a last minute cookie “emergency” last night so were working with what we had ), definitely would have been even better with the chocolate, but they were chewy and tasty. I had to bake them for 14-15 minutes in our oven. Will try again soon with chocolate and maybe some nuts
This is a great recipe. I added peanut butter chips and pecans. OMG. Thank you
They came out super dry. Not sure what I did wrong! Maybe you can help. Thanks!
Hi Cara, how did you measure the flour and oats? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post. Hope this helps!
I had a hard time waiting for these to cool, based on how good the batter was. At the last minute I realized I was short on chocolate chips so I tossed in some extra oats and some shredded coconut. I don’t think the coconut really brought much and will follow the recipe exactly next time, but wow, they are so good even with unplanned substitutions. Mine didn’t spread much so I smooshed them a little with a spatula. Half a batch yielded 20.
I have five teenage boys at my house tonight, and they inhaled these. They’re delicious! I only had quick oats, and they turned out beautifully. I’ll most definitely be making them again.
My husband just said these were his absolute favorite and that is saying something! I Cut the chocolate chips in half and added M&Ms in its place. Really phenomenal cookie combining oats, peanut butter, and chocolate. Delicious!
Could I make these as a bar?
Hi Carrie, you can definitely try these in a 9×13 inch pan to make cookie bars. We’re unsure of the exact bake time needed, but you can follow the baking time and temperature for our Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars as a guide. Enjoy!
I only have instant oats, will they work?
Hi Mary Ann, Quick oats are more powdery and dry out the cookies. We recommend sticking with whole oats if possible.
Just an update, I didn’t want to make a trip just for rolled oats so I added 1/4 cup of applesauce, and a couple extra tablespoons of peanut butter and they are pretty great. I will be going to the store tomorrow and will try to do the recipe again soon with rolled oats so I can see how much of a difference there is. IF there are any of today’s batch left to compare to, Lol!
when we make the balls of dough do we have to flatten them a little or do we leave them like that? Will they flatten out on their own when cooked?
Yum! These are excellent.
Out of impatience , my 7 yr old son & I made these with a cold egg (we halved the recipe) and didn’t both to chill the dough. Just scooped with a small ice cream scoop onto pan and baked 10min.
Delish!
I love, love this recipe. I had some extra peanut butter and oats and found this. So grateful I did. I added an extra egg which I usually do with cookies which tends to make them a little chewier. Just a personal preference I think. Used chunk choc chips which is what I had and were wonderful. Will add to my favorites. Thank you for what you do!
Delicious! One of my all time favourite cookie recipes. They are scrumptious on their own but slather some vanilla ice cream between the two of them and they are some of the tastiest ice cream sandwiches.
If you don’t have good self-control, you don’t want to have these around. These are absolutely delicious! We are a peanut-free house, so I subbed almond butter, but they leave nothing to be desired. I highly recommend this recipe!
Does anyone have the nutritional info on these? Just curious! I just made them and they are soooo yummy and soft. I highly recommend them to anyone with a sweet tooth.
Hi Cameron! 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://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
No fancy ingredients.. just a very simple but tasteful chocolate chip cookie with a peanut butter twist! Love them. I halved all the quantities and it still yielded 20 cookies!
made these a while ago and they were easily some of the best cookies i’ve had and they went over well with the family too, but one member recently developed a peanut allergy and i was wondering, does the texture of the cookie change much if i were to omit the peanut butter or use your oatmeal chocolate chip recipe instead?
Hi Jen, We would suggest using the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe. Enjoy!
These are simply amazing! Absolutely delicious, cannot wait to share them at my friends dinner tomorrow!
My absolute favorite cookie recipe. I make them exactly as instructed (unusual for me) every time!
I haven’t made these, yet, but have a kid who is not a fan of chocolate…How can recipe be adjusted when no chocolate chips are added?
Thanks!
You can leave them out without any other changes. Enjoy!
Thanks!
Literally the best cookies ever!! Great recipe.
I don’t have an cookie scoop but I do have an ice cream scoop will that work
Hi Bree, you’ll need about 2 Tbs of dough per cookie. Hope you enjoy them!
I just finished making these and had to leave a comment. They are freaking FANTABULOUS! I think these are the best cookies I have ever made (and possibly have ever eaten.) My husband won’t stop raving about them and he’s not even a cookie fan (I know.) I made the recipe as written except I used mik chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet and put a half cup of peanut butter chips in because I ran out of the chocolate chips. SO DELICIOUS! Thanks for a great recipe!
Made them last year and they were so delicious I decided to make them again this year
What can I sub for the eggs? I’m vegan but these look delicious!
Hi Shakira, We have never tested this recipe with an egg substitute, but let us know if you try anything. If you are interested, here are all of our egg free baking recipes.
https://www.thekitchn.com/best-egg-substitutes-baking-23003895 They tested egg substitutes for baking purposes and found that carbonated water yielded the best results, with a combination of oil and baking soda being the second best option.
I made batch using raisins and crazins (dried cranberries) also. Omygoodness!!!! I really liked those. I also finally figured out that waiting five minutes to transfer to a cooling rack is imperative. Tomorrow, I’m making your blueberry muffin bread for my sis. Thank you again!!!!
I just started making your cookie recipe for the first time and found that I only have dark brown sugar and organic natural sugar. Are these going to make a difference in your recipe? I followed all the steps precisely as well as adding 1 cup coconut flakes. Just wondering what to expect. Thank you, my husband loves the dough so far lol
Sherry
Hi Sherry! Dark brown sugar will be great in this recipe! Sometimes organic sugar has bigger granules, so you may taste some grit in your cookies. Adding coconut flakes acts as a dry ingredient, which will dry out your dough. Your cookies may not spread much or have a dry texture – or they may be OK 🙂 Let us know how they go!
Instead of AP can I sub WW for half the flour or use all white WW flour?
Hi Liz, We don’t recommend whole wheat flour – you will end up with very heavy dense cookies. If you are interested, here are all of our recipes that use Whole Wheat Flour.