Name: Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 1/2 cup peanut butter, smooth; 1/4 cup peanut butter, crunchy; 1/4 cup sugar; 1/2 cup dark brown sugar; 1 egg; 2 tsp vanilla extract; 1/4 tsp sea salt; 1/2 tsp baking soda

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If you’re looking for THE peanut butter cookie, I’ve got you covered! These flourless peanut butter cookies are naturally gluten-free, but you’d never guess so. The cookies are the perfect balance of sweet and peanut butter in a thin, chewy, little cookie.

Cookies piled up on a blue and white platter.

Why flourless?

Yeah, that’s a good question actually. I’m not gluten-free, so it wasn’t really about that for me, although it’s a nice bonus for my GF friends; I was thinking more about simplicity.

How can I make peanut butter cookies easier. Less ingredients = easier. I guess that’s the bottom line here. These cookies have only a handful of ingredients and only 4 simple steps. And that’s only part of the reason they’re so great!

Step-by-step photos

Here’s what you’ll need

Smooth peanut butter (not natural peanut butter)
Crunchy peanut butter
Dark brown sugar
Sugar
Egg
Baking soda
Sea salt
Vanilla extract

TOOLS YOU’LL NEED

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Making these flourless peanut butter cookies

Cream the peanut butters, dark brown sugar, sugar, baking soda, and sea salt together until pretty evenly mixed. The dough will be thick and grainy, that’s okay.
Stir in the egg and vanilla extract and incorporate them well. You can’t really over-mix these cookies, which is really good news (especially if you’re a chronic over-mixer like me).
Scoop the dough onto lined baking sheets and generously sprinkle the tops of the cookies with sugar.
Bake, cool, and eat!

Cookies laying on a wire rack. The top cookie has a bite out of it.

What makes these the best peanut butter cookies

The most obvious reason, they’re super simple to make and only require a few ingredients and about half an hour.
They’re thin and chewy and have the most perfect crackled, crispy tops and edges.
They’re naturally gluten-free (high-five to my gluten-free friends!).
They’re lower in carbs than most cookies (high-five to my low-carb friends!).
They pair perfectly with coffee ~~in the morning~~ (maybe not everyone eats cookies for breakfast?).
They’re loaded with peanut butter, but thankfully, they’re not sticky-icky hurt-your-belly kind of sweet. Win!

Cookies stacked up on a wire rack with a small bowl of sugar.

Questions about this recipe

The crunchy peanut butter adds crunch and texture to the cookies, since they are lacking in density from not having flour. You can substitute all smooth peanut butter if necessary, but the cookies won’t be as good in my opinion.

These cookies will puff up as they bake. You’ll see the tops crack open, bubble a little, and start to brown. Pull them out when they are just barely brown on top and let them sit for minute, the tops will fall flat in 1-2 minutes.

I really want the answer to this question to be yes, but sadly no you cannot. The consistency is so much different than traditional peanut butter, the cookies won’t hold their shape. I tried, several times. I did bake this recipe with Jif Natural peanut butter and it worked well.

Freezing the actual cookies will have a better result than freezing the dough. The baked (and cooled) cookies will hold in the freezer for months. Unfortunately, the dough doesn’t thaw as well as some flour based doughs do.

Because they don’t have any flour, these cookies are fragile. They’ll do best in a very airtight container and you should eat them within the first day or two or freeze them and pull out a couple at a time when you want to eat them. They thaw out in 10 minutes or so.

There you have it, I 10/10 recommend

Flourless, gluten-free, low-carb, whatever you want to call them. These peanut butter cookies are so easy and so full of peanut butter flavor, they will quickly become your favorite recipe. Now, get you some and let me know what you think – leave your comments or questions below.

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