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Classic Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies are the crispy cookie you remember from your childhood. This is a simple recipe every baker needs to have in their arsenal.
If I was a truly clever individual, I’d come up with some way to make cookies into a profound metaphor for life. I am not clever. Life is hard. Cookies are tasty.
I guess life is always changing, but cookies always stay the same, and that’s a good thing. No matter what kind of day you’ve had, what kind of bad news has been dropped in your lap, or how spiteful your uterus might be, cookies are always delicious.
Normally I’m a chewy cookie kind of girl, but these peanut butter cookies are both crunchy and delicious. I love their intense peanut butteriness. I think the average was about six cookies for everybody who tried these. It’s really hard not to go back for another taste.
This classic recipe is made with a classic technique. Mix up some butter and two types of sugar, beat in peanut butter and oil, then add eggs and vanilla. Finally, we gently mix in our dry ingredients. This dough is best chilled, so pop it in the fridge for a while. Try not to eat it all first.
Once it’s nice and cool, we can give them that distinctive peanut butter cookie look. Roll your dough into balls, and just use any old fork, pressing lightly in one direction, and then the other, to create the cross-hatch effect. Bake ’em up, cool ’em off, scarf ’em down. Easy as that.
There’s nothing tricky or flashy in these Classic Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies. Just pure peanut butter goodness. Sometimes simple is awesome.
PrintClassic Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies

Straight up peanut butter cookies with a satisfying crunch
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 17
- Total Time: 32 minutes
- Yield: 50 1x
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup (189 grams) brown sugar
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1–1/3 cups (378 grams) peanut butter, creamy or chunky, your choice
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1–3/4 cups (340 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1–1/3 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine flour,baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter, sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed. Let it mix for about three minutes.
- Turn the mixer to low and mix in the vegetable oil and peanut butter, then add the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla.
- Finally, mix in the dry ingredients until combined.
- Place the dough in the refrigerator to chill for half an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350 and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Scoop out the cookie dough in ping pong ball scoops leaving a couple of inches between each one. Gently flatten the cookie dough with a fork in a criss cross pattern and bake for about 17 minutes.
- Allow the cookies to cool for three minutes on the cookie sheet then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Keywords: Peanut Butter, Cookies
Recipe adapted from I’m Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown.
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I’m pretty sure the flour amount is wrong. It’s much too liquidy. Are you sure it’s not suppose to e 2 3/4 cup flour?
Hi Jessanne. I’m sorry you had some trouble with this recipe. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll have to retest it to be sure. If you can, I’d definitely recommend using the weight measure rather than the volume measure, as this will always be more accurate.