Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (2024)

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By Carine Claudepierre
Published on 08/01/2019 - Last updated on 01/29/2024

4.81 from 182 votes

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These Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies have no egg, no dairy, and are gluten-free! They are Crunchy vegan cookies to snack on and ready in 20 minutes.

Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (2)

Table of contents

I love vegan peanut butter cookies like my No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookies or my Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies, and now these easy peanut butter cookies with only 3 ingredients!

What Are 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies?

3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies are super-simple cookies made with only 3 ingredients and no eggs, no dairy.

They are a simpler, quicker version of my classic vegan peanut butter cookies.

They are, as a result, vegan-friendly they have a lovely peanut butter taste.

Why You’ll Love These No Egg Cookies

These cookies are my go-to vegan snack. Here’s why:

  • Gluten-Free
  • No Eggs
  • No Dairy
  • Only 3 Ingredients
  • Ready In Just 20 Minutes
  • Perfect Peanut Butter Taste
  • Rich And Crumbly Texture

Ingredients and Substitutions

In fact, all you need to make them is the following:

Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (3)
  • Salted Peanut Butter – You can also use unsalted peanut butter, but I love the touch of salt in this recipe. Make sure you use fresh natural peanut butter with no added oil and no added sugar for best results.
  • Homemade Oat flour – I use gluten-free certified rolled oat that I pulse into flour in my blender. The recipe works really well with spelt flour, all-purpose flour, or gluten-free flour.
  • Maple Syrup – Other healthy refined sugar-free sweetener options are coconut nectar, apple syrup, brown rice syrup, or agave syrup.

How To Make 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies With No Egg

It’s as easy as 3 ingredients to make the most delicious crunchy peanut butter cookies!

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (180°C) and prepare a cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper. Set aside.
Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (4)
  1. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine fresh runny salted peanut butter with maple syrup. Use a spatula to blend the ingredients until a creamy paste is formed.
Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (5)
  1. Fold in the oat flour and stir until the mixture transforms into a cohesive cookie dough ball.
Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (6)
  1. Divide the cookie dough into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball between your hands.
Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (7)
  1. Place each ball on the prepared cookie sheet and, using a fork, flatten the cookies. For an appealing touch, flatten each cookie twice, forming a cross shape on the top.

Tip: Leave a small gap between cookies to prevent them from touching during baking.

  1. Bake the vegan peanut butter cookies for 12 to 18 minutes or until the sides turn golden brown. The baking time may vary; for example, it took 16 minutes for 8 large cookies and 12 minutes for 12 smaller cookies in my test.

Tip: Keep an eye on the cookies to avoid overbaking, as this can impact their texture.

  1. Allow the cookies to cool on the tray for 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. Be patient, as they will become crunchier over time. After 3 hours, they will reach their peak crunchy texture.

Storage Instructions

Great news, these cookies can be stored for up to 2 weeks in a cookie jar! That’s the great side of vegan baking. Indeed, vegan peanut butter cookies have no eggs, no milk, or butter. Therefore they store very well at room temperature. Their texture and taste remain intact and delicious.

I recommend a sealed glass cookie to enjoy the full flavor and crunchy texture for longer.

You can also freeze the cookies in an airtight container or zip-lock bag and leave them in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thaw them overnight at room temperature.

Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (8)

Allergy Swaps

There are many ways to make these simple cookies fit most dietary restrictions. Here are some:

  • Peanut-Free – You can make these cookies without peanut butter. You can use almond butter instead.
  • Maple-Free – Maple syrup can be replaced with coconut nectar, rice malt syrup, or sugar-free maple syrup.
  • Gluten-Free – As long as your oat flour is made with certified gluten-free oats, this recipe is gluten-free. If you can’t tolerate oats, you can use almond flour instead with a teaspoon of guar gum.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are the answers to the most common questions about this peanut butter cookie recipe. For any other questions, post a question in the comments!

What can I substitute for an egg in peanut butter cookies?

The combination of natural peanut butter and maple syrup makes eggs superfluous.
Once you’ll have tried these 3-ingredient cookies with no eggs, you’ll realize how unnecessary they are in peanut butter cookie recipes!

How Can I Make The Criss-cross Pattern On Peanut Butter Cookies?

The typical peanut butter cookie pattern is very simple to make. All you have to do is to press the end of a fork twice, rotating by a quarter turn.

Can I Use Crunchy Peanut Butter?

Yes, as long as it’s made only with peanuts, it’ll work.

More Vegan Cookie Recipes

If you love healthy vegan cookies recipe as we do on this blog, you may want to try these recipes:

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Quinoa Cookies

Sunflower Butter Cookies

Buckwheat Cookies

Did You Like This Recipe?

Leave a comment below or head to our Facebook page for tips, our Instagram page for inspiration, our Pinterest for saving recipes, and Flipboard to get all the new ones!

Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (13)

3-Ingredient Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

These vegan 3-ingredient peanut butter cookies have no egg, no dairy, and are gluten-free! Crunchy vegan cookies to snack on and ready in 20 minutes.

4.81 from 182 votes

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Prep Time: 10 minutes mins

Cook Time: 12 minutes mins

Total Time: 22 minutes mins

Course: Snack

Cuisine: American

Servings: 8 cookies

Calories: 267 kcal

Author: Carine Claudepierre

Ingredients

US CustomaryMetric

Optional – for extra sweetness

  • 5-6 drops Vanilla Stevia

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

  • In a medium-size mixing bowl, add fresh runny salted peanut butter with maple syrup.

  • Combine with a spatula until it forms a creamy paste.

  • Fold in the flour of your choice and stir until it forms a cookie dough ball

  • Divide the cookie dough into 12 pieces.

  • Roll each piece into a ball between your hands

  • Place each ball on the prepared cookie sheet and, using a fork, flatten the cookies. I love to flatten each cookie twice, forming a cross shape on the top of the peanut butter cookies.

  • Repeat until all cookies are shaped and leave a thumb space between each cookie. They won't expand while baking, but you don't want the cookies to touch each other.

  • Bake for 12-18 minutes or until the sides are golden brown. It took me 16 minutes for 8 large cookies and 12 minutes for 12 smaller cookies.

  • Cool the cookies down 10 minutes on the tray, then transfer on a cooling rack. Be patient; they will get crunchier with time. After 3 hours, they will get the most beautiful crunchy texture.

Storage

  • Store your cookies for up to 2 weeks in a sealed glass cookie jar at room temperature.

  • You can freeze the cookies in an airtight container or ziplock bag. Defrost the day before at room temperature.

Notes

Flour options:

I recommend gluten-free certified oat flour. Otherwise, if you are sensitive to oat, you can use spelt flour or all-purpose flour, or all-purpose gluten-free flour. The texture will vary slightly, but the recipe will be delicious as well.

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Nutrition

Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 267kcal | Carbohydrates: 20.9g | Protein: 8.7g | Fat: 17.8g | Fiber: 2.3g | Sugar: 9.4g | Calcium: 3mg | Iron: 6mg

Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (14)

About Carine

Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, photographer, and published author of a cookbook and founder of The Conscious Plant Kitchen with my husband Damien.Learn more about us.

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86 Comments

    1235»

  1. Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (15)
    Hello,
    Love the cookies!! But I just made a giant batch and they may be underbaked.
    Is that ok?

    Reply

    • feel free to cook them a bit more – the baking time depends on a few things (oven calibration, altitude, etc.). This is why I normally also give color indications 🙂

      Reply

  2. Hi! Thank you for the easy to follow recipe. My toddlers enjoyed it although they were a bit dry and crumbly. Not sure where I went wrong, any advice on how to remedy this issue for next time? Thank you!

    Reply

    • Make sure your peanut butter is fresh and drippy, well blended so you get the good amount of natural oil from it. Also don’t over pack oat flour to measure it so you have just want you need.

      Reply

  3. Does this make 8 large or 12 smaller total for the whole recipe? Want to make sure I’m marking them the right size for the time to bake!

    Reply

    • 8 large cookies, or 12 smaller cookies – baking time for both size is in step 9 of the recipe. Enjoy.

      Reply

  4. Hi there! Would this work with another kind of nut butter, such as almond or macadamia? Thanks!

    Reply

    • I didn’t try yet but it should if your nut butter jar is fresh and drippy.

      Reply

  5. Absolutely delicious!!! My husband enjoyed them! Definitely have to make again!

    Reply

  6. Been loving trying your recipes on the blog!! **as I sip my peanut milk 🙂

    I only have crunchy PB at home right now, will it work in this recipe?
    Thanks so much!

    Reply

    • Yes sure, this should work very well but the crunchy PB is sometimes a bit less soft and drippy so the cookies might be a bit dryer. You can add 1-2 tsp coconut oil to balance that. Enjoy ! thanks for following me here and on instagram 🙂

      Reply

  7. Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (16)
    Made these today & loved them.
    I added rice milk chocolate chips to the second batch.
    Waiting for them to come out of the oven!
    Many thanks for such a great recipe!

    Reply

  8. It didn’t work out for me. I think 12-18 minutes was way too long. So sad. :((

    Reply

    • I am sorry to hear that. You can adjust time based on your oven, check them after 8 minutes and when the cookies are golden brown remove from the oven.

      Reply

  9. Hey! This looks good, I am just wondering if it is possible to substitute for the maple syrup?

    Arkela

    Reply

    • You can use any liquid sweetener like agave syrup, date syrup etc

      Reply

  10. Can I add in vegan chocolate chips? I don’t bake much, so I didn’t know if this might change the texture or baking time?

    Reply

    • Yes you can, add about 1/3 cup at the end, knead it and bake!

      Reply

1235»

Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients for peanut butter cookies? ›

Why are my peanut butter cookies always hard? ›

Why did my peanut butter cookies turn out hard? This is most likely to happen from over-baking your cookies. Make sure to take them out of the oven when they're still a bit soft in the middles, that way they can finish cooking on their cookie sheets outside the oven.

Why are my peanut butter cookies crumbling and falling apart? ›

If you're wanting to use natural (no sugar added) peanut butter, the cookies will be less sweet and they will likely spread out more. Using natural peanut butter will change the structure and texture of the cookies. Why are my cookies dry and crumbly? This is most likely a classic case of using too much flour.

Can I use peanut oil instead of butter in cookies? ›

You should use a NEUTRAL flavored vegetable oil (i.e. corn or canola oil) in order to make these no butter chocolate chip cookies. Stronger flavored oils (i.e. peanut oil or olive oil) may NEGATIVELY impact or change the taste of the cookies. You want to use an oil that has very little flavor.

Is Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie mix vegan? ›

Mix to prepare cookies peanut butter flavor. Contains Wheat, Peanut; May Contain Egg, Milk And Soy Ingredients.

How to improve peanut butter cookie mix? ›

Peanut Butter Cookie Mix Hacks

Easy Add-Ins: After creating the dough according to the peanut butter cookie mix instructions, try introducing 1 cup of add-ins like REESE'S PIECES, toffee bits, dried fruits, mini marshmallows or even cooked bacon bits, if you're feeling adventurous!

Why do you put fork marks in peanut butter cookies? ›

So it looks like that there are utilitarian reasons for the cross-hatching—to allow for even cooking—but it might have been passed along for nearly a hundred years for primarily aesthetic reasons, where the cross-hatching is more to identify the cookies as peanut butter ones, rather than to cook them well.

Can I substitute butter for peanut butter in cookies? ›

13. NUT BUTTER. Rich, tasty and nutrient-dense, nut butters like almond, cashew, peanut and tahini make excellent butter substitutes for baking and cooking. They will help retain moisture in batter and dough and give your baked goods and other dishes a nutty flavor.

Is it better to use butter or shortening in peanut butter cookies? ›

Your other source of fat should be butter, not shortening. Butter will make your cookies taste buttery; shortening will make them taste suspiciously vacant, like Katy Perry's voice post-autotune. Yes, shortening yields chewier cookies than butter does, because butter contains water and shortening doesn't.

What happens if you add too much peanut butter to peanut butter cookies? ›

This may not sound like a lot, but it is enough that it can affect the quality of your cookies – adding too much peanut butter can make them dry, hard, and crumbly.

What happens if you don't flatten peanut butter cookies? ›

Cookie tips & tricks:

For softer peanut butter cookies, don't flatten them with the fork. They will be puffier and softer. For crispier peanut butter cookies, use a fork to flatten the dough balls. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes before rolling into balls for a chewier peanut butter cookie.

Should you refrigerate peanut butter cookie dough before baking? ›

"When your dough is refrigerated, the butter hardens. So when you bake them, they spread less and hold their shape better," adds Epperson. "Which means a better likelihood of a soft, chewy cookie in the center." Chilling the dough creates fluffier cookies with better consistency.

How to tell when peanut butter cookies are done? ›

Unlike many other cookies, peanut butter biscuits only fully harden once they've been removed from the oven. Here's how to tell when peanut butter cookies are done: The tops of the cookies are a uniform light brown. They're soft to the touch but not moist or mushy.

Why are peanut butter cookies so greasy? ›

If you've had this happen to you, odds are you made one of two mistakes: either you didn't allow the ingredients to thoroughly mix during the creaming process or you didn't allow the dough to rest enough before baking. Watch the video below to see how both these mistakes happen and how to fix them.

What are the 7 basic ingredients in all cookies? ›

What are the 7 basic baking ingredients?
  • Flour.
  • Raising Agent.
  • Salt.
  • Fats & Dairy.
  • Add-Ins.
  • Water.

What are the ingredients in great value peanut butter cookies? ›

ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDISCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRAIL, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), SUGAR, PEANUT BUTTER (PEANUTS, FULLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL [RAPESEED, COTTONSEED AND SOYBEAN OILS]), CANOLA AND/OR SOYBEAN AND/OR PALM OIL WITH TBHQ ADDED TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, GRAHAM FLOUR ...

What are the ingredients in Girl Scout peanut butter cookies? ›

INGREDIENTS: PEANUT BUTTER (PEANUTS, SUGAR, HYDROGENATED PALM OIL, SALT), SUGAR, ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, VITAMIN B1 [THIAMIN MONONITRATE], VITAMIN B2 [RIBOFLAVIN], FOLIC ACID), VEGETABLE OIL (PALM KERNEL, PALM AND SOYBEAN OIL), COCOA, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF INVERT SUGAR, CORNSTARCH, SALT, ...

What are the ingredients in most peanut butter? ›

Roasted Peanuts, Sugar, Contains 2% Or Less Of: Molasses, Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (rapeseed And Soybean), Mono And Diglycerides, Salt.

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