These no bake peanut butter cookies are an easy treat. They don’t require any flour, eggs, butter or oil. They take only about 10 minutes to prepare and don’t need to be cooked or baked.
I love making no bake cookies, especially this time of year when the weather is so warm. These cookies are great for a snack or dessert and are so easy to make.
Ingredients
- Peanut Butter
- Maple Syrup
- Quick Oats
Peanut Butter: This recipe uses natural unsweetened peanut butter. This is the runny kind of peanut butter that you need to stir before using and there should not be any added oils in the ingredient list. The ingredients should just be peanuts and salt. Peanut butter can be substituted with natural almond butter or natural sunflower seed butter.
Maple Syrup: The cookies are sweetened with pure maple syrup. The maple syrup also thickens and firms up the peanut butter. You can use other liquid sweeteners but the outcome may vary. Some pancake syrups will also firm and thicken up the dough. However, honey will not thicken or firm up the dough at all, so I don’t recommend using honey.
Quick Oats: The oats help firm up the dough and provide texture for the cookies. I don’t recommend using rolled oats because you don’t have enough liquid in the dough to soften whole oats. If you don’t want any chewiness, you can use oat flour. Your cookie dough will look much smoother (the cookies below are made with oat flour), but I preferred the texture of the quick oats.
How to Make No Bake Peanut Butter Cookies
First, you mix the peanut butter and maple syrup until the dough thickens. Then you stir in the oats. Cookies are then scooped onto a cookie sheet and placed into the fridge to set.
Texture and Taste
These cookies are not baked or cooked so they don’t have the same texture as traditional peanut butter cookies. They are more similar to energy bars but in a cookie form.
They are full of peanut butter flavor and are lightly sweetened, but not super sweet. You can add mix-ins like chocolate chips if you want a sweeter cookie. You can use salted or unsalted peanut butter, but I recommend using one with salt because that little bit of salt adds more flavor to the cookies and enhances the sweetness from the syrup.
More No Bake Cookie Recipes
- 3 Ingredient No Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 3 Ingredient No Bake Breakfast Cookies
- 3 Ingredient No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
3 Ingredient No Bake Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (128 g) natural unsweetened peanut butter
- 1/4 cup (59 ml) maple syrup
- 1/4 cup (20 g) quick oats
Instructions
- Line a small cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Add peanut butter and maple syrup to a large mixing bowl. Stir until maple syrup is completely incorporated into the peanut butter. Continue to stir until the dough becomes thick and starts to firm up (like a cookie dough consistency). Stir in the quick oats until fully incorporated. If your cookie dough isn't thick enough, you can add 1-2 tbsp more of oats until it reaches your desired consistency. If you feel like your dough is not sweet enough, you can also add 1 tbsp more of maple syrup. You can also add in other sweet mix-ins.
- Using a 1.5 tbsp cookie scoop, scoop out dough and place onto the prepared cookie sheet, spacing them at least 1 inch apart. Press dough balls with the palm of your hand until they form a thick round disk. Use the back of a fork to make criss-cross pattern on surface of cookies. Place cookies into fridge to set. Cookies are ready when they are firm enough to hold. Store uneaten cookies in the fridge.
Notes
- If you have questions regarding ingredient substitutions, please see post for more details.
- Make sure to use natural peanut butter. This recipe will not work with regular peanut butter. There should not be any added oils in the ingredient list.
- This recipe works best with maple syrup. See post regarding other syrups.
- These cookies are lightly sweetened. For more sweetness, you can mix in chocolate chips or other sweet add-ins.
Nutrition
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
Thanks!
How long do they usually take to set?
Usually within an hour or so.
I need these to help me. I am 82 and have PD my family loves me to try baking and cooking again. Do you have a recipe for mug cake made with a cake mix?
Thank you,
Pat Peppard
We do! Our 3 Ingredient Chocolate Cake Mix Mug Cake is really easy. We hope you love it!
AWESOME!!
Thank you!
I do not have an oven where I live, so these are delicious. We tried them with instant flavored oatmeal also. Very delicious.
We’re glad they worked with instant oatmeal!
Hello would a sirgar free maple syrup work as well?
We recommend trying out No Bake Keto Peanut Butter Cookies.
Very interesting recipes. Easy and simple to make.
We’re glad you’re enjoying them!
Thanks so much for posting this recipes for no bake cookies I have wanted to find something like this for a while having to bake is crazy because of the warm weather these days. Again thank you
We hope you love them!
I made these and they’re actually pretty good but i put chocolate chips in them and since you didn’t bake them they became kind of chewy but other than that really good recipe for 3 ingredients
We’re glad you enjoyed them!
Can I use any maple syrup or is there a certain one that is needed?
We recommend using pure maple syrup.
Mine seemed to be a bit smooshy, though they appeared to be thick enough as a dough. They didn’t look like yours, and weren’t able to have a fork pattern. They didn’t seem to harden in the fridge. I used the exact measurements, followed directions exactly. (P.S. Can these work with all natural crunchy peanutbutter, too?) Thanks.
Hi, if you followed the measurements exactly, then it sounds like you may have just needed to keep stirring the dough. It should continue to thicken and get more firm the more your stir. Also, I mentioned that you may want to add 1 or 2 more tbsp of quick oats to get the right consistency. I haven’t tried it with natural crunchy peanut butter.
I am peanut butter consumer
Love the stuff
We do, too!
I love peanutbutter cookies
We hope you try them soon!
I’m diabetic so these cookies sound great please put more lower calorie recipes out.. thank you
Sounds good
We hope you try the recipe soon!
Pls add me to list of subscribers thank you
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Awesome recipe..Thank uou must try..
quick n easy
We hope you love it!
Wonderful ,ty
You are welcome!
Do u have carbohydrate value I’m type 1 diabetic
All of the nutrition information is at the bottom of the recipe card at the end of the post.
I wondered if you or anyone reading has tried this wolith Almond Butter?
As I mentioned in the post, you can use natural almond butter as a substitute.