Peanut Butter Reese’s Pieces Cookies — These Reese’s Pieces cookies are are LOADED with Reese’s Pieces and oozing, melted chocolate chips. Perfect any time of year!
Reese’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cookies
I had never baked Reese’s Pieces into cookies until now. Thank goodness I’ve made up for lost time.
I’m not sure how I managed to write my cookbook Peanut Butter Comfort, filled with over 100 recipes using peanut butter, and have 75+ peanut butter recipes on my site, but have never baked those smooth little discs into cookies. I’ve used Reese’s cups, mini Reese’s cups, M&M’s, peanut butter M&M’s, and finally now Reese’s Pieces.
The Reese’s Pieces add a wonderful crackly texture to the soft, moist, tender cookies. I prefer my cookies on the underbaked side and these are soft, squishy perfection.
There’s a very slight bit of chewiness to the edges, but these are for soft-batch cookie fans. No crispy or crunchy cookies for me. Ever.
They’re loaded with Reese’s Pieces and there’s an abundance of oozing, melted chocolate chips in every bite. I almost skipped the chocolate chips and opted to solely use Reese’s Pieces, but I’m glad I tossed in the chocolate chips, too. Cookies just aren’t the same without chocolate.
The peanut butter flavor is distinct and full-on. There’s a hefty amount in the dough and there’s all those Reese’s Pieces.
These cookies are made for those of us who really like the peanut butter in peanut butter cookies. With some recipes you have to wonder if it’s really there or not. Not an issue here. Very peanut buttery.
They’re a snap to make and the dough comes together quickly and easily.
Calling all peanut butter (and chocolate) lovers! These are for you.
What’s in Reese’s Pieces Cookies?
To make this Reese’s cookie recipe, you’ll need:
- Egg
- Light brown sugar
- Creamy peanut butter
- Unsalted butter
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Reese’s Pieces
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
How to Make Reese’s Pieces Cookies
Add the egg, peanut butter, softened butter, sugar, and vanilla to a bowl. Cream until smooth.
Add in the dry ingredients, then fold in the Reese’s Pieces and chocolate chips last.
Scoop the dough into balls, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Once chilled, bake the cookie dough until the edges have set and tops are just beginning to set.
Do I Have to Chill the Dough?
Yes! Chill the dough so your cookies bake up nice and thick. Warm dough equates to thinner, flatter cookies and I prefer thicker and puffier.
I use my cookie scoop to scoop out the dough, put the mounds on a plate, and refrigerate. When I’m ready to bake, I grab a half dozen and save the rest for later.
Can I Add Extra Mix-Ins?
You’re welcome to mix and match the mix-ins as you see fit, but I wouldn’t add more than 2 cups total otherwise you won’t have enough dough to balance them out.
What Type of Peanut Butter Should I Use?
Use regular, storebought peanut butter. Old-fashioned Jif or Peter Pan Honey Roasted Peanut Butter are my favorites for baking.
Homemade Peanut Butter or ‘natural’ varieties are playing with fire in cookie-baking. Cookies made with them tend to spread, and I don’t have time to worry about a potential cookie flop or wasted ingredients, so I bake with what I know will give me success, every time.
Every recipe in my cookbook was tested with Jif because it’s universal and I know it works.
Can I Use Crunchy Peanut Butter?
Technically yes, but I much prefer using creamy peanut butter.
How to Store Reese’s Pieces Cookies
These Reese’s Pieces peanut butter cookies will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 4 months.
Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored airtight in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
Tips for Making Reese’s Peanut Butter Cookies
I used semi-sweet chocolate chips to make these Reese’s peanut butter cookies, but you’re welcome to use milk or dark chocolate chips if preferred. You can also chop up a chocolate bar instead.
Likewise, you could switch out the chocolate chips for butterscotch chips or something similar.
Note that the cookies shown in the photos were baked with dough that had been chilled overnight, allowed to come to room temperature for 15 minutes, and were baked for 8 minutes, with trays rotated at the 4-minute mark. They have slightly chewy edges with soft, pillowy centers.
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Reese's Pieces Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- ¾ cup creamy peanut butter, do not use homemade or natural peanut butter; use Jif, Skippy, or similar
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
- 1 cup Reese’s Pieces
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large bowl and electric hand mixer), cream together the first 5 ingredients (through vanilla) on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, baking soda, optional salt, and mix on low speed until just incorporated, about 1 minute; don’t overmix.
- Add the Reese’s Pieces, chocolate chips, and blend until just incorporated.
- Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping two-tablespoon mounds (I made 27). Place mounds on a large plate, flatten mounds slightly with your palm, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat or spray with cooking spray. Place mounds on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet).
- Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if slightly undercooked, pale and glossy in the center. Do not bake longer than 10 minutes because cookies will firm up as they cool.
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Peanut Butter Comfort, my cookbook featuring 100+ Peanut Butter Recipes.
THESE COOKIES WERE TO DIE FOR. I’m 18 years old and I’m kind of a terrible baker but the recipe was SUPER easy and the directions were really clear! And the cookies- the cookies were absolute perfection. So soft and gooey and the flavors were perfect (the only thing I did differently from you was that I used a mix of semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips- they still tasted pretty good!) What was even better, these cookies were a BIG hit with my friends and family. I’m definitely making these cookies again ASAP. It’s too bad I’m off to college in a week!!!
Well just think, now you have a recipe that you can always make and everyone will love – think of it as a beginning! Glad you tried these and loved them!
Once you measure each mound, do you roll it into a ball, or do you bake the mound as it is? I’m not sure which way is better, or if it would even make a difference, so if you could let me know I’d greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
I mound it and then slightly flatten it. You can roll into balls and slightly flatten or slightly flatten the mounds. Make sure the dough has been properly chilled before baking.
These cookies look absolutely amazing! Too bad reese’s pieces aren’t vegan… i’m definitely going to try to work peanut butter into my next cookie recipe or maybe add them to my old on (https://www.veganosity.com/food/knock-your-socks-off-vegan-chocolate-chip-cookies/)! Thanks for the inspiration.
Thank you so much for another wonderful recipe! These cookies came out soft and delicious! They will not last long in this house :)
Thanks for trying them (and the other recipes of mine you’ve made too!) and so glad these won’t last long in your house :)
These look delicious! I have the shaped cookie dough chilling in the fridge now. I am worried that they won’t bake up OK though… The dough was extremely crumbly and very difficult to form. I had to throw away the last half a cup or so of dough because it wouldn’t stick together at all! I bake quite often and I am confident that I did not make a mistake. I think maybe there are too many chocolate chips and/or Reeses Pieces. The ratio of chocolate to dough must be off. If they stay together at all and they taste OK, I may try them again with a lot less of the chocolate. There’s got to be a way to make these Reeses cookies work for me!! :) Oh also do you think they would bake OK on parchment? Thanks!
I never bake on parchment because it’s like a big slip and slide. Your cookies slide all over the place as that’s the *intention* of parchment, to be slippery. But slippery = spreading in the oven. I only bake on a Silpat.
I had no trouble with the cookies being dry or crumbly. If you found the dough was too dry, next time start out with 1/4 cup less flour and if you need it, add it, if not, don’t. If you don’t need as many add-ins, reduce those too. I like tons :)
Sounds good, thanks! I love the add ins too but I think that may have been my problem this time – they just didn’t want to stick in the dough! These look like they need to have some vanilla ice cream in between 2 of them. Mmm…
They do have a tendency to slip out but you can just push them back in, best you can, or use slightly less next time. And using the cookies for an ice cream sammie sounds delish :)
I just got done baking these. They are beyond delicious – chewy and lots of chocolate. Thanks for the recipe!
Glad you love them & thanks for LMK you tried them!
I just made this recipe and they turned out really good! I only put them in the fridge for about a half hour I was impatient and they still turned out almost exactly like the picture I think another half hour and it would have turned out perfect! I used Reese’s peanut butter chips instead of pieces though they taste the exact same and only a half a cup of chocolate chips as I am not a huge chocolate person!
Glad to hear they worked out just fine for you despite a few minor tweaks. Thanks for trying the recipe!
Holy cow, these are delicious! I left out the chocolate chips; one cup of Reese’s was plenty! I froze these on a cookie sheet for 30 mins and then baked as instructed, so they were chilled in a quarter of the time! They came out perfectly fluffy and round!!
I do the flash-freeze method too sometimes (I don’t recommend it to people b/c there’s so many variables and some ppl over-freeze and then it’s too cold and then you have to bake longer, etc…) but glad it worked like a charm for you and that you’re digging them! :)
Made these yesterday and they are delicious! I followed the directions exactly and they turned out just like the photo. They are so good – I wouldn’t change a thing. I look forward to trying some of your other cookie recipes! Thanks so much.
Thanks for trying them and glad they turned out just like the pics for you! Wonderful to hear! If you make other things, LMK how they turn out, too!
These cookies look nice and thick! Perfect with Reese’s Pieces and chocolate chips. I’ll have to make something like this to send to my brother at college!
Is there a reason that you recommend to refrigerating dough already formed as balls versus refrigerating the whole batch and then forming balls?
Have you ever tried to form balls from dough that’s been refrigerated for a few hours (or days)? It’s like hacking into an iceberg and a major struggle and then the dough crumbles on you. Total mess and make-work project. Do it in the order I list :)
I made these, and just baked a batch after they cooled in the fridge 3 hours.
They are delicious, but they are really crumbly… like they arent staying together. I took a bite and one crumbled in my hand. Delicious but, I must have done something wrong!
The dough sounds dry and overfloured. When you measure your flour, make sure you’re not packing it down like brown sugar. Scoop it in with a light hand. It should be fluffy in the cup almost, not packed firmly. That could account for an easy 2-3 tbsp difference which would do it.
Also, dried out brown sugar, or dry-ish PB. I think next time you should add 2 tbsp less of flour AND add 2 tbsp more of PB. Between that, it will solve the problem. Dough should not be crumbly so just moisten it up and you’ll be set!
I just made these tonight, and you need to know – they are amazing. So wonderful. I absolutely love how packed they are with pieces and chips, how they retain the peanut butter cookie texture at the very edges yet are gooey all the way through. They are thick and charming. I didn’t even need to refrigerate them for a few hours – just piled them up tall and round and baked a tiny bit less.
Thank you so much for this recipe. I know I’ll be making these again.
I am so glad you love them and that they’re a keeper for you & that you’ll make them again! I wish I had put them in my cookbook but this recipe didn’t come into my head until just recently :) And yes, when I add chips, Pieces, add-ins of any kind, I am never stingy about it!
I started out by pinning these amazing peanut butter cookies…but then as I scrolled down, there were just more and more that looked just as good! Thanks for posting!
Julie
https://www.tastesoflizzyt.com
Well thanks for pinning and glad more than one thing caught your eye :)
Holy moly! My mouth is watering like crazy. Just pinned this recipe and I’m so excited to try it! (And congratulations on 7,000+ pins! Wow!)
Thanks for pinning and the nice compliments!
These were delicious! Baked a pan full & froze the rest of the dough but should have baked more- all of them were eaten in one night! Yummy, thank you.
I am so glad to hear you made them and they were such a hit that they were gone in one night! Love stories like that – thanks for LMK!