3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies are as easy to make as they are delicious to eat! It’s amazing how combining just three simple ingredients can result in such a flavorful peanut butter cookie! For a more classic recipe, try my Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe.
3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
With the right combination of fat and sugar, all you need are three ingredients to make a decent cookie. These 3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies will fool everyone into thinking you put a lot of time and effort into the batch. But, little will they know that it takes just a few minutes to mix the ingredients and bake these cookies. This is a great recipe for kids to make, too!
3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe
The title of the name pretty much says it all–three ingredients is all you need to make peanut butter cookies! Plus, it’s a 1:1:1 ratio (1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, and 1 large egg) making it easy to remember!
- Peanut butter–I used creamy, but you could also use crunchy. Just stay away from the natural peanut butter.
- Granulated sugar–You could substitute brown sugar for a more butterscotch flavor to the cookie.
- Egg–room temperature
The science behind the ingredients makes this recipe work. The peanut butter is the fat that is so important when baking cookies. It gives the cookies the color, flavor, and crispness that most of us want in our cookies.
The sugar is important for tenderizing the cookie as well as sweetening the cookie. Sugar crystals also make room for the leavening agent to react and allow the dough to inflate. Speaking of a leavening agent, that brings us to the egg. The egg yolk has some fat in it to give the cookie a light texture and the egg white acts as the leavening agent to give the cookie a bit of volume.
How to Make 3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies in an Air Fryer
Preheat Air Fryer to 350°F. Mix ingredients and then spray the tray (or basket) of the air fryer.
Make Mix all of the ingredients together with a hand mixer. Using a 3 tablespoon scoop, portion cookies, and place them onto the air fryer tray. Leave about 2 inches between each cookie. (Mine fits 5 so it was 2 batches total.) Use a fork and press down in a criss-cross pattern on each cookie.
Bake for about 5 minutes, or until cookies reach your desired doneness.
How to Store Peanut Butter Cookies
3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies are best served warm, but you can keep them somewhat fresh by storing them in a plastic zip sealed bag at room temperature for up to six days. You can always add up to a half piece of bread in the bag with the cookies to keep them from getting too hard.
To freeze the cookies, let them cool completely before storing them in an airtight, freezer-safe container for up to three months.
More Peanut Butter Cookies
3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (258g) peanut butter, creamy or chunky
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Stir together the peanut butter, sugar, and egg in a mixing bowl until combined.
- Using a 3 tablespoon scoop, portion cookies and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Leave about 2 inches between each cookie.
- Bake for 6-10 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies. Remove from the oven and let cool.
Video
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I add a tsp of vanilla extract and a cup of chocolate chips to this recipe. Family and friends love it.
Why can’t you use natural PB? Not enough preservatives?
“The salt and sugar from that regular peanut butter can add a lot of flavor to a recipe, and the thickness of the peanut butter translates into less spread for peanut butter cookies, for instance. Natural peanut butter is often unsalted, so you may need to add additional salt to a recipe.”
I can’t wait to try this recipe.
I looooooove pb cookies and you only use 3 items makes this so much easier.
Woo hoo hoo
I only have skippy natural, what happens if I use it?
I have used that, it worked great. 🙂
That’s the way my mom taught me to make peanut butter cookies love it
Can you use a substitute sugar ? I am diabetic.
I haven’t tested these with a sugar substitute so can’t say.
Love making the peanut butter cookies make them all the time with my grandson
I made my peanut butter cookies with jiffy whips, Lakanto Golden Sugar (monkfruit brown sugar for those who can have sugar cane) an egg and vanilla. It was delicious!
Sounds wonderful! Love peanut butter (Jiff). I think maybe I can’t screw this recipe up! 🤣
I’ve been making this recipe for about 20 years. I double it and add a bag of mini M&M’s.