Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies (2024)

These peanut butter oatmeal cookies are soft, chewy and filled with peanut butter goodness. The oatmeal adds tons of texture for a quick and easy recipe that all peanut butter fans are sure to love. This recipe is also perfect because there’s no need to chill the dough.

**This post was updated June 22, 2022 with new photos and recipe tips. The recipe has remained the same**

If you love peanut butter cookies – then you need to try these peanut butter oatmeal cookies. They’re soft and chewy with a delicious crisp to the edges. The oats add texture and combine with the peanut butter flavor to create one highly addictive cookie. Although, I doubt you’ll eat just one. They combine the best of both worlds when it comes to chewy oatmeal cookies and peanut butter cookies.

Making the Cookies – Step by Step

These peanut butter oatmeal cookies are quick and easy to make. There’s no need to chill the dough, although you can make it in advance and chill in the fridge overnight if you prefer. Here’s the rundown with photos and tips.

1. As always, you’ll start by preheating your oven and lining your cookie sheets. I always line my cookie sheets because I find it stops the cookie bottoms from getting too crispy.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the butter, peanut butter and sugars. This recipe uses a combination of brown sugar and granulated sugar for more flavor. I always recommend using commercially prepared smooth peanut butter (instead of something natural or homemade) as it has a consistent amount of oil and you don’t need to worry about it separating.
3. Then beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
4. Carefully mix in the flour, baking soda and salt. I always like to do a few stirs by hand first to avoid the flour blowing everywhere when you turn on the electric mixer. Note that the dough will feel a little sticky at this point, that’s totally expected.
5. Then gently stir in the oats. For this recipe, we’re using a combination of quick oats and large rolled oats (often called old-fashioned oats).
6. Spoon the dough into balls about 1 to 1.5 tablespoons in size each. I always use a cookie scoop because it makes the process so much easier and avoids you getting sticky fingers.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for about 9-12 minutes, or until the tops are just set. The cookies will puff up slightly as they bake, but flatten as they cool. You should always bake 1 cookie sheet at a time on the middle rack of your oven. This ensures the cookies bake much more evenly than if you bake multiple cookie trays at a time on different racks.

Chilling the Dough

If you’d like to chill the dough for extra thick cookies, or simply to have cookie dough balls in your freezer, you have a few options.

1. After making the cookie dough, wrap the bowl in plastic and place in the fridge for up to 48 hours. When ready to bake, form the dough into balls and bake as directed in the recipe.
2. To freeze the cookie dough balls, make the dough and form into balls. Place the balls in a freezer bag in a single layer and freeze for up to 2 months. When ready to bake, preheat the oven and bake as directed in the recipe. The cookies will likely need 1-2 extra minutes. Do not thaw the dough balls before baking.

A Note About Oats

I recommend using a combination of quick oats and old-fashioned oats (AKA large rolled oats or large flake oats). I love the combination because I find it creates cookies that are extra soft and chewy without being dry thanks to the quick oats. But they still have lots of texture from the old fashioned oats. If you only have quick oats or old-fashioned oats on hand, you can use exclusively old-fashioned oats or quick oats (you’ll need 1 1/4 cups of oats in total). Do not use instant oats for this recipe – they are too small and will behave more like flour instead of oats.

So if you love peanut butter, extra chewy cookies, and chowing down on about 10 cookies at once (ok – that part is optional) – then you should definitely try these oatmeal peanut butter cookies.

How to Make Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies – Recipe Video

If you love peanut butter cookies, make sure to try these other favorites:

• Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies
• Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies