You won't believe these 3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies! They are made without flour making them an easy and tasty gluten free cookie. We love this simple and chewy cookie recipe!
This recipe was the perfect solution when my kids were craving peanut butter cookies but we were out of flour. I figured I'd try to make a no flour cookie so I was shocked when it was so easy to make and so delicious! This cookie recipe also makes a great keto treat.
For more simple cookie recipes try our Banana Cookies, Sour cream Cookies, Oatmeal Cookies, and Tart Lemon Cookies.
You'll also love some of our other peanut butter desserts 2 ingredient peanut butter fudge, Peanut Butter Balls, and Peanut Butter Pie.
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Ingredients
An old fashioned peanut butter cookie made with a flourless, cookie dough. This recipe is so easy you won't believe it until you try it!
- Egg - For best results, we recommend using a room temperature egg. It helps the cookie rise. Refrigerated eggs will work as well.
- Granulated Sugar - We tested this recipe with both regular granulated sugar and brown sugar. We found that there wasn't a huge difference. The ones made with brown sugar were a little richer in flavor, and more fudgy in texture. All of our taste testers preferred white sugar.
- Peanut Butter- We recommend using regular peanut butter. We tested this recipe with natural peanut butter as well as regular. Our taste testers preferred them made with regular. The cookies made with natural were crumbly and not as good of a texture.
See recipe card for quantities.
How to make 3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
Follow these easy step-by-step process photos for the best result! You will have different results if you use natural peanut butter versus regular peanut butter.
Combine all the ingredients together in a medium mixing bowl.
Form the dough using a mixing spoon. You'll want to make sure all the ingredients are evenly mixed.
Make ½-inch balls with the dough and place them on parchment paper. Press a fork into the dough making a cross pattern. Bake for at 350° F for 12 minutes.
The picture above is a cookie made with natural peanut butter. While making these cookies with natural peanut butter will work, they won't have that same soft and chewy texture as they would with regular peanut butter. It has a more crumbly texture.
Substitutions
- With brown sugar- Looking for a fudge texture? Try substituting brown sugar at a 1:1 with granulated sugar.
- With chocolate chips- Nothing goes better together than chocolate and peanut butter. Add ½ cup chocolate chip after the dough is mixed.
- Coconut sugar- Try adding a subtle coconut flavor by using coconut sugar at a 1:1 ratio for the granulated sugar. It won't be as sweet. You can sweeten the cookie by adding ¼ cup sugar.
Why do you put fork marks in peanut butter cookies?
Peanut butter cookies don't spread well! These 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies are no exception. It's important to do the fork marks in the cookie dough so they spread properly. They also make the cookie look iconic!
Learn From Us
These cookies are not as sweet as traditional peanut butter cookies. To get that sweeter taste add ⅓ cup of sugar. If you want to decrease the sugar, only add ½ cups of granulated sugar.
Our biggest take away was using regular peanut butter versus natural peanut butter. The regular peanut better gave the cookie a much better texture than the crumbly natural peanut butter cookie.
Storage
Store 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. They will stay fresh tasting for 3-4 days. You can even warm a cookie up in the microwave for about 10 seconds to get that fresh out of the oven taste.
You can totally freeze these cookies! We suggest cooking the cookies and then after they cool freeze them in a freezer-friendly container. Thaw and enjoy or eat frozen. They will last up to 2 months in the freezer.
Top tip
If you want to add a fourth ingredient, we highly recommend adding a ½ teaspoon of vanilla. It adds a smooth flavor.
FAQ
A common reason that your cookies are falling apart is that you are using too much sugar or too much flour. Another reason could be if you are using natural peanut butter. If the dough isn't mixed properly you could be using dough that doesn't have enough moisture from the peanut butter and egg.
If you are making a 3 ingredient peanut butter cookie, they cook a little longer than traditional cookies. They have a denser dough. Cook for about 12 minutes. You don't want to over cook the cookie or they will dry out and become hard.
For a peanut butter cookie without flour, you only need 3 basic ingredients, eggs, sugar, and peanut butter. You can even add a touch of vanilla to enhance the flavor.
Related
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Recipe
3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup peanut butter
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar or brown sugar, see notes below
- 1 large egg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- Place peanut butter, sugar and egg together in a bowl. Beat on high for 2 minutes until well combined. Form dough into balls, compressing the dough together. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and press a fork into the dough in a criss cross pattern. Bake for 12 minutes until the cookies are cooked through.
Notes
- Use brown sugar for a more fudgy cookie.
- For a bonus 4th ingredient, we found while testing this recipe that adding ½ teaspoon vanilla really enhanced the flavor and was preferred.
- These cookies are not as sweet as your typical peanut butter cookie. For sweeter, add another ⅓ cup sugar.
- For a lower sugar cookie, decrease sugar down to ½ cup.
- We tried this recipe with natural peanut butter and found that it works well! We recommend upping the sugar to 1 cup. We found while testing the natural peanut butter that the cookies were more crumbly.
Andrea says
These 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies were perfect when I ran out of flour and wanted to make cookies still! Everyone loves them!