Sometimes a Friday night rolls around and you decide you absolutely must have a batch of sweet + salty home-baked cookies. Nothing else will quite satisfy your craving, but you’re not interested in making anything that takes an enormous amount of effort. The good news is, these Almond Peanut Butter Cookies are comprised of staples you likely already have in your pantry, they mix up in a single bowl in a matter of minutes, and they have a short bake time of about 12 minutes.
Basically, they’re the best possible answer to “gosh, I could really go for some cookies right now” that you or your significant other inevitably exclaim late at night. It happens, friends – like clockwork.
What type of nut butter should I use?
This Almond Peanut Butter Cookies recipe is flexible as far as what type of nut butter you choose to use. Often I will swap the peanut butter out of these cookies in favor of almond butter or other Paleo-friendly nuts. What I’ve found most important is the consistency of the nut butter itself, because it greatly affects the stability of the dough when you portion it out into cookies.
What works best?
Thick nut butter. Freshly ground nut butter from the bulk section works brilliantly because it is often quite thick. Generally, these “grind-your-own” machines offer simple ingredients lists, with many just containing the nut with no other oils or emulsifiers. Thick and spreadable commercial nut butters also performed well in my tests, though much of the time these contain extra emulsifiers or sugary additives in order to stay thick and spreadable.
What should I steer clear of?
Thin and runny nut butter that does not blend well or is on the goopy side. Basically, if you can pour your peanut butter straight out of the jar, you’re probably going to need to make some adjustments to the dough.
If this is all you have on hand, you can still make it work. Some things that will help the consistency of your dough when you’re working with thin nut butter are:
- Add additional almond flour
- Add one large egg to help bind
- Allow to firm up in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before scooping the dough
Want to mix it up?
Though these Almond Peanut Butter Cookies are super tasty on their own, this recipe also makes a great base to add chocolate chips, coconut flakes, or chopped nuts. I also never skip a sprinkle of coarse sea salt or finishing salt on top.
What tools do I need to make this recipe?
- a mixing bowl
- measuring cups and measuring spoons
- a wooden spoon or spatula
- a baking sheet
- parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet liner
- a fork
Are you looking to upgrade to your cooking tools or replenish your pantry? Check out my kitchen tools shop page and pantry staples shop page to find my must-have kitchen tools, pantry items, and other Whip & Wander favorites.
How long do these cookies keep?
These cookies should keep well in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the refrigerator for around a week.
A note for special diets
Made as directed, these Almond Peanut Butter Cookies are grain-free, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, egg-free, dairy-free, and friendly for some SIBO diets.
If you would like to make these cookies friendly for Paleo diets, the peanut butter can be swapped out for almond butter or another Paleo-friendly nut butter.
A keto-friendly swap
If you are following a strict Keto diet and would like to adapt these Almond Peanut Butter Cookies to lower the carb count, I have had success swapping the honey for an equal measure of Stevia in the Raw (granulated baker’s bag) plus 1 large egg to help bind. I find that this adaptation is less sweet than their honey counterparts, but certainly sweet enough to satisfy my cookie craving.
The nutrition facts for this Keto swap per 1 cookie (1/30 of the batch): Cal: 86, Fat: 7g, Chol: 6mg, Sod: 50mg, Carb 3g, Fiber: 1g, Sug: 1g, Prot: 3g
Remember: Nutritional information on Whip & Wander is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site.
Almond Peanut Butter Cookies
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 17 minutes
- Yield: 30 small cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
These sweet + salty Almond Peanut Butter Cookies are a gluten-free, refined sugar-free, egg-free, and dairy-free treat that can be made in less than 20 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup honey (see notes in post above for a Keto-friendly stevia swap)
- 1/3 cup thick peanut butter (may sub for almond or other nut butter)
- 5 tbsp coconut oil, softened
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp sea salt, plus more to top if desired
- 2 cups almond flour
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 F (176 C)
- Cream raw honey, peanut butter, and coconut oil together in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon or spatula. Then add vanilla, baking soda, and salt and mix.
- Add almond flour and mix until a thick dough forms.
- Portion dough into 1 tbsp spoonfuls and roll into balls. Place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking liner.
- Press down on each ball of dough with a fork crosswise, to form the traditional peanut butter cookie indentations.
- Sprinkle each cookie with a small pinch of fine sea salt if desired.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cookies should be golden brown around the edges.
- The cookies will be fragile when warm, so I like to let them cool slightly for approx 10 minutes before transferring them to an airtight container.
Notes
If made in the 1 tbsp size, as recommended, this recipe produces small roughly a two-bite cookies.
Nutritional information on Whip & Wander is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 94
- Sugar: 4 g
- Sodium: 46 mg
- Fat: 6 g
- Saturated Fat: 2 g
- Carbohydrates: 6 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 3 g
Keywords: Almond Peanut Butter Cookies
These look sooooooo yummy! LOVE a peanut butter cookie and your version looks delish! Gotta try them! Thanks for sharing your recipe 🙂
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These look so yummy and I love that they are keto!!!
Love that you used almond flour. Peanut butter cookies are a favorite in my house.
Oh my goodness, these look so delicious! I have such a sweet tooth and find it hard when I have a big cookie to stop eating it. Little cookies help me to limit myself.
Love love love these little cookies! The ingredients are wholesome and simple and they look amazing! I can’t wait to try these little babies!
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Yay! A cookie recipe I can eat! I’ll be trying this really soon!
That looks so delicious!! I wish I could have these delicious peanut butter cookies right now in front of me!
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Love anything peanut butter, especially a yummy cookie! I’m pinning these for later!
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Peanut butter cookies were my go to as a kid. This version sounds delicious!
I have never combined almond and peanut butter before to make a cookie. This look perfect with glass of milk
I’ve been all about the almond butter lately. Yum!!
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I can’t wait to make these for my parents since they are on Keto!
Oh we just ate the last of our peanut butter chocolate cookies that we made earlier this week and now I want to make these STAT! They look so yummy, and I love the peanut butter almond flavor combo.
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My daughter would love these little cookies…they look delicious!
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I do love a good cookie! I needed a new recipe to try!
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I LOVE cookies but haven’t been baking since I cut out gluten. But it looks like I need to go buy some almond flour and make these this weekend!
I love mini treats, as it means I can eat more of them, right? These sound really yummy.
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These look great! I cannot wait to get to the kitchen to start making this recipe.
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These look so good. I have a bag of almond flour to use. Yum!
Wow, do these cookies look good! Peanut butter is my favorite cookie ingredient so I know these will become a family favorite. Can’t wait to try them!
Oh these look so good and I’m glad you included the substitutions for those of us with peanut allergy kids. Can’t wait to give these a shot!
These look delicious. I remember when my mom would make these, I always wanted to put those indents in them.
Those look delicious! I love the idea of adding sugar-free chocolate chips too! We’re doing keto right now,so I’d have to substitute the honey, but everything else would work. Thanks for sharing!
They’re actually only 3g of sugar each – even with the honey. I hope you love them!
I love how low in sugar these are! Honey generally has too many carbs to be keto-friendly though. That’s the only reason I think it would have to be substituted.
I’m getting overly excited because I realized I have everything I need to make these in my kitchen right now! Can’t wait for a little baking date with my kiddo this afternoon 🙂
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How adorable are these cookies?? These would be so great for a treat to go in my son’s lunchbox. Love that bit of sea salt on top – sweet and salty is always a hit!
Oh yeah, I’m always ready for some peanut butter cookies! 🙂
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One of the things I love about these two bite almond peanut butter cookies are since they are only two bites, I can have at least three and not feel guilty. 🙂 They look delicious and perfect!!
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I love the combination of honey, almonds and peanut butter…these cookies look perfect! I wish I could reach into my screen and grab a couple 😉
I think I may need to make these later today~they look SO good! I’m pretty sure my 15 year old son could eat these in ONE bite though 🙂
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Just give me a warm glass of milk and these peanut butter cookies, I am one happy girl!
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I love the simple ingredient list and the mini size! Making these for sure!
Love that they are refiend sugar free! so much better for us! aka i can eat a whole bunch more haha
Wow! I am SO making these…what a great idea and I love that they are low sugar too…very nice job
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Can’t go wrong with 2 bite almond peanut butter cookie. Now all I need is a tall cold glass of milk.
What a great recipe using these ingredients. Love peanut butter cookies and can’t wait to give this recipe a try.
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These look delicious! I’m always looking for good gluten free cookie recipes. I’ll have to try these next time I’m in the mood to bake something.
I am more of a brownie person but these look SO good.
❥ tanvii.com
I can’t believe these are gluten free! The texture looks so nice! Not heavy like many GF baked goods! I have to make these for my Mom! She would think she’d died and gone to heaven! She hasn’t had a cookie in years!!
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What an awesome dessert idea! Using almond flour in cookies is such a great idea!
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I love how easy these are – I could whip them up after school in no time. They look so delicious!
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These sound so good! I love freshly baked cookies and will have to give this recipe a go!
This is so good! I need to try this!! I would make my cookies huge so it’s more than a 2 bite haha
Probably going to need to make these a bit bigger to get three or four bites! 😉
Two bit cookies, that’s the perfect little size! And almonds and peanut butter cookies will always be my favorites.
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These look and sound delicious! Pinned to make later.
Your peanut butter cookies look so good! Your pics make me want to take a bite out of the picture! Such a great cookie!
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Love tiny delicious cookies like this! yum!
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I am dying to try this recipe. My favorite but with almond flour. They sound so delicious!
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Being that these cookies are grain-free, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, and egg-free they are perfect for my family! These sound so good!
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My favorite cookies are the simplest ones. And I’m a HUGE peanut butter lover so these cookies are calling my name. I think I’ll make a bunch to fill cookie jar this week. Thanks for reminder 😉
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I LOVE peanut butter cookies! They honestly have to be my favorite cookie. We are real peanut butter addicts in this house. ;-D Your cookies look scrumptious!
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Oh man I haven’t had a good peanut butter cookie in ages! These look so delicious, and I love the addition of almond flour and honey. What a wonderful combination, and I’ll have to try this out
My husband would love these. He loves anything sweet and bite-sized. Makes the perfect after dinner dessert!
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Love your healthy high protein version of peanut butter cookies, can’t wait to try it.
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I love that you used almond flour and these cookies are so easy to make. I love that they don’t have 1000 different ingredients, they are simple and PERFECT!
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Simple, good ingredients in these cookies. Love them! They also look pretty and must taste awesome!
Love how petite and delicious these cookies look! I’d love to keep these around for a yummy dessert. Perfect for my family!
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i cant wait to try this recipe!!! it sounds so so goood.
Oh these are so delicious. I would like to try these cookies. My kids eat a lot of cookies. I think these cookies will provide both the taste and health benefits.
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wow this cookies are definitely perfection you made me craving a nice glass of cold milk and then dunk this amazing cookies in it. So yummy!
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They look so yummy, such a great snack
Such a great tasty treat, the salt on top is the best part
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I love the simple ingredients. My daughters would love making and eating these.
These seem so easy and SO yummy! I LOVE that they are keto since I follow keto most of the time!
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Almonds are the best nuts to go inside a cookie and with peanut butter these cookies are simply the best of the kind. Looks absolutely delicious!
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It’s more like a soft dough. Should I put in fridge to firm up? Otherwise it’s too soft to roll onto a perfect ball
The dough should be quite dense and rollable without refrigerating, though it doesn’t need to roll into a perfect ball as you’ll be pressing the dough down with a fork before baking. Refrigerating the dough should certainly help it to firm up if if you’d like to try, or you might consider increasing the almond flour slightly if you find that the dough is still too slack. Let me know how that works for you 🙂
Not sure what happened….but I checked and took them out at 10 minutes. They were burnt. Now trying 8 minutes. I even made them a larger size…..what went wrong?
I’m not sure how you ended up with that result. I’ve tested these many times and generally find that they need the full 12 minutes plus rest time to stay golden and intact, so I’m unsure how your batch ended up overcooking at 10. Did you substitute any ingredients or is was oven running a little hotter than 350 F? Also, what kind of peanut butter are you using?
These cookies are amazing. I’ve made them so many times and a lot of people have asked me for the recipe. Everyone in my household loves them and other than adding a few dark chocolate chips sometimes I follow the recipe exactly. Sometimes I have to add a bit more almond flour to stiffen up the dough, but otherwise it’s perfect.
These are really good! I didn’t have honey so I replaced it with maple syrup. We also added 1/3 cup of chocolate chips. The coconut oil makes them buttery and rich. Definitely addictive and will make again.
I’m so glad you enjoyed these, Bree! They are a favorite cookie jar cookie in my house!
just made these and they are great! i used unrefined coconut oil so that tiny bit of flavor comes through, which i love. i also used good ol JIF peanut butter and only cooked for 9 minutes as i wanted to make sure they were soft. taking them out at that time kept them in tact, but close to breaking if not careful. they certainly were not crumbly. they are a tad on the dry side but not too much so. thanks for the recipe!
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I’m glad you enjoyed this recipe!
I live at a high elevation, so typically add 25 degrees. My peanut butter was a bit runny so according to directions I added more almond flour. They turned out very dry and burned at the bottom, probably because I put the temperature up. I’m going to try another batch because the ingredients are great, and I like that there were such positive feedback. I will make the alterations but fake at a lower temperature.
Yum!! Made these today with my 2.5 year old. We had to make a bunch of small substitutions: almond meal for almond flour, agave nectar for honey, earth balance for coconut oil and then went without vanilla because we were out. We also added chocolate chips at the end— delicious!!! Will make these over and over again.
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I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Anne! They are such a tremendous cookie because they’re nice and flexible for pantry staples.
These almond cookies look wonderful. I also love how you have made the instructions easy to understand and follow. I think I might make a double batch—do you think they will freeze well? They seem like they would.
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I love that I can make these cookies for my family and not worry about them eating too much-refined sugar. I love that this recipe has simple ingredients and are also easy to make.
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These cookies looks really delicious and I love how easy to make this recipe for my kids. Thank you!
I think the honey adds a great depth of flavor to these! Such a delicious and wholesome twist on nut butter cookies ^_^ I wish I could reach in and grab one 😀
I can’t wait to try this recipe. I am out of cookies and I really need to fill my cookie jar ASAP. I love when I have plenty 🙂
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This is a great, classic cookie recipe! Sure to please anyone! Thanks for sharing!
I’ve wanted to make some almond peanut butter cookies for a long time. I just haven’t had the chance. Well, now that I’m stuck in the house this is the perfect opportunity. You give some really great tips for success. I can see me enjoying them with my afternoon tea and book.
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What a great recipe my daughter loves these! And she is a hard one to please, so you done well!
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I have all of the ingredients for these! I am so excited to have a use for the almond flour and the surplus of peanut butter we have in.
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Peanut butter cookies are my literal favorite!! I never made it with almond flour and honey before – I’m dying to try now and I already have all the ingredients!!! Making them this week!!
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What a guilt free pleasure recipe . It easy availability of the ingredients makes this so easy to make.
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OMG I want a whole batch to myself.
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