Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies With Honey
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The best peanut butter cookie recipes are made with honey! This easy recipe comes together quickly, with no chilling time or room temperature butter needed, and makes the best soft and chewy peanut butter cookies!
This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclaimer policy for details.
So the next time you need an afternoon pick me up or a tasty after school snack for the kids, Make these peanut butter honey cookies! They make a wonderful treat for any time of day!
Why You’ll Love These Peanut Butter Honey Cookies:
- Deliciously Simple: Whip up a batch of these cookies with basic pantry staples and simple ingredients in under 30 minutes. Perfect for satisfying a sweet tooth without spending hours in the kitchen! No softening butter and no chill time required!
- Perfectly Balanced Flavor: The combination of peanut butter and sweet honey is not too sweet or overpowering. The chunks of peanuts in these cookies help the peanut flavor shine!
- Chewy & Soft Texture: These cookies are delightfully soft without being cakey, and melt in your mouth.
- Naturally Sweetened: This recipe uses honey as the primary sweetener, offering a healthier alternative to regular white sugar while still delivering satisfying sweetness. Perfect for those looking for a more mindful treat.
- Customization Possibilities: Get creative! Add chocolate chips, chopped nuts, coconut, or a drizzle of melted chocolate for a personalized touch. Make them your own and have fun experimenting!
Bonus Reason: These cookies are perfect for sharing or gifting. Bake a batch of cookies for your family members, neighbors, or colleagues, and spread a little kindness around town!
How To Make Honey Peanut Butter Cookies
Full Ingredient amounts and step-by-step instructions can be found on the recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Crunchy peanut butter: If you don’t have crunchy peanut butter, use smooth peanut butter and mix in crushed peanuts.
- Unsalted butter, cold
- Honey: The honey not only adds sweetness and flavor, but adds moisture and makes for a chewy cookie. The honey also keeps these cookies from drying out too fast!
- Light or Dark brown sugar
- Large Egg
- Vanilla Extract
- All-purpose Flour
- Baking soda
- Kosher Salt: I like coarse Kosher salt since it’s not as salty as table salt. If you’re using table salt, reduce the quantity of salt by half. Omit the salt entirely if you’re using table salt and salted peanut butter.
Tip: Use natural peanut butter for thicker peanut butter cookies!
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350º and line two to three cookie sheets with parchment paper. Adjust your oven racks to the middle position.
Step 1: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the unsalted butter on medium low until smooth. Add in the chunky peanut butter and mix until the butters are fully incorporated.
Step 2: Next, add your brown sugar and honey to the peanut butter mixture. Beat with the mixer on medium low until all ingredients are well combined. Stop once to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Step 3: Crack in your egg and add the vanilla. Mix until thoroughly blended.
Step 4: Add in the dry ingredients.
Step 5: With the mixer on low, stir until all ingredients are just combined, stopping once to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl.
Step 6: Using a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon, scoop the cookie dough onto the prepared cookie sheet, keeping the dough balls about 2 inches apart.
Step 7: Gently flatten the centers of the cookie dough using the back of a fork dipped in flour, making a crisscross pattern.
This will give the cookies their classic peanut butter cookie look and help them bake evenly.
Bake cookies in a 350º oven for 8-10 minutes. The edges will be just starting to turn brown and the centers of the cookies will be puffed. The tops will look pale, but the bottoms will be golden brown.
Allow the baked cookies to sit for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before moving to a wire rack to cool.
Substitutions
- Peanut butter: you can use commercial or natural creamy peanut butter in place of the chunky peanut butter. Alternatively, you can crush up 1/4 cup of dry roasted peanuts and stir them into the batter. You can even use your own peanut butter if you have some homemade on hand!
- Brown sugar: You can use light or dark brown sugar in this recipe.
Variations
- Add 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips to the honey peanut butter cookie dough, or drizzle a little bit of melted chocolate over the top of the cookie after baking.
- Stir in a teaspoon of cinnamon for extra warmth and flavor.
- Make peanut butter sandwich cookies by spreading peanut butter frosting or berry jam in between two cookies.
Storage
When kept in an airtight container, these peanut butter honey cookies will last up to one week.
Leftover cookies can be frozen for even longer storage. After baking, let the cookies cool completely and store in a freezer safe bag for up to 3 months.
Pro Tips
- Flatten the cookies in the center to bake evenly.
- Keep in mind that honey will brown faster than regular sugar, so keep an eye on the cookies while baking. It’s better to underbake these cookies than overbake! Underbaking will ensure the cookies are soft with a chewy texture!
FAQs
Equipment You May Need
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Honey Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup crunchy peanut butter*
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter cold.
- 1/4 cup of packed dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup of honey
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350º and move the oven rack to the middle position.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the peanut butter and unsalted butter on medium low until smooth.
- Next, add in your brown sugar and honey. Beat with the mixer on medium low until all ingredients are well combined. Stop once to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- Crack in your egg and add the vanilla. Mix until thoroughly blended.
- Add in the flour, salt and baking soda.
- With the mixer on low, stir until all ingredients are just combined, stopping once to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl.
- Using a cookie scoop or a tablespoon, scoop the cookie dough onto sheet pans lined with parchment paper. Keep cookies about 2 inches apart.
- Gently flatten the centers of the cookie dough using the back of a fork dipped in flour, making a crisscross pattern.
- Bake in a 350º oven for 8-10 minutes. The edges will just start to turn brown and the centers of the cookies will be puffed.
- Allow cookies to sit for 5 minutes before removing the cookies from the pan. They will flatten as they cool.
Peanut butter cookies, we crunky peanut butter AND honey!? These sound amazing!! Thanks for sharing!
Peanut butter cookies, we crunchy peanut butter AND honey!? These sound amazing!! Thanks for sharing!
I love peanut butter and I love honey so I need to try these!
Yum! I love finding new ways to use peanut butter. It’s a good protein source which makes this a healthy cookie! 🙂
I love PB anything so I’ll have to give this a try! Honey is so good too. I can imagine how good this will be!
Your photos are so beautiful and I love the additional information about honey. I definitely will try your recipe! We love peanut butter and honey around our farmstead! Thank you.
You are so sweet!! Thank you so much 🙂
I love that this recipe is so simple and doesn’t have as much sugar as some others. They do taste delicious. However, the reduced flour results in a lack of balance with the soft PB and the honey combo, making it tough to work with. Note I used Trader Joes organic peanut butter (pure PB). My dough was incredibly sticky, to the point that I had to freeze it before scooping, and on my second tray, I had to quickly freeze the tray in order to make the fork marks, and even that was nearly impossible because the fork kept sticking. They also needed more bake time than called for to set up and came out thinner than expected. This recipe needs a few tweaks but thank you for a tasty combo!
Hi there! I’m glad you liked the flavor! I’m sorry about the sticky dough though. My tips would be to use cool butter, and make sure the honey is measured accurately. I know I personally overpour sometimes!
For the crisscross issue, dipping the fork in flour prevents sticking! I hope that helps! Thanks for giving these a try!!