These 3-Ingredient Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies are the best healthy peanut butter cookies, 100% refined sugar-free, egg-free, and gluten-free.
Bonus, this recipe takes less than 20 minutes to make for bringing a healthy snack to your table in no time.
What Are Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies?
Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies are a version of my classic Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies but without all-purpose flour. I am an expert at baking cookies with almond flour and have created many of them, like the famous almond flour shortbread or almond flour lemon cookies.
Almond flour cookies are healthier than wheat-based cookies because almond flour is:
- Lower in Carbs – it won’t spike your blood sugar level as wheat, and therefore you won’t crave sweets as much.
- High in Fibers that keep you full.
- Plant-based Proteins that are also fulfilling.
- Healthy Fat
But this doesn’t mean that all almond flour cookies are healthy. It also depends on how much sugar, type of sugar, and ingredients are mixed into them.
Why You’ll Love These Cookies
Here, I am sharing healthy peanut butter cookies with almond flour made with no eggs, no dairy, and refined sugar-free.
Therefore, these cookies are vegan, gluten-free peanut butter cookies naturally:
- Gluten-free
- Vegan
- Egg-free
- Dairy-free
- Keto-friendly – see the options below.
Ingredients and Substitution
The best part about these peanut butter cookies is that all you need to make them are only five simple pantry ingredients.
Plus, even if these are vegan peanut butter cookies, you don’t even need fancy egg replacers like flax egg to make them work.
- Natural Peanut Butter – this is the butter with only one ingredient: peanuts (and perhaps salt). Don’t confuse it with peanut butter spreads that hide added sugar and oil. These won’t make the cookies healthy or as suitable in texture. Also, make sure you use a fresh jar of peanut butter to have creamy peanut butter with no dry parts. Feel free to swap for sun butter for a nut-free option or almond butter if you like.
- Maple Syrup – or any liquid sweetener you love, including brown rice syrup, agave syrup, coconut nectar, or for keto peanut butter cookies with almond flour, use sugar-free Monk fruit syrup. You can’t use granulated sweeteners like brown sugar or coconut sugar in this recipe. The batter wouldn’t hold together.
- Vanilla Extract – for flavor
- Salt – skip if your peanut butter is already salted.
- Blanched Almond Flour – preferably use ultra-fine almond flour. It’s golden in color, light, and ultra-fine in texture. I don’t recommend almond meal because the cookies come out grainy and dark.
- Baking Powder this is optional, it makes the cookies a little bit lighter, you can skip it, or half the quantity in baking soda.
Making Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies
Even your kids can make this cookie dough and enjoy baking some delicious cookies that are good for them.
- Nothing fancy here. All you need is a mixing bowl and a spatula to mix the peanut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla into a creamy paste.
- Then, stir in almond flour and baking powder until a sticky cookie dough forms. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lightly oil your paper with coconut oil. This prevents the cookies from sticking to the paper.
- Then, divide the cookie dough into six balls or twelve for tiny peanut butter cookies. Then, roll the balls between the palms of your hands and place them on the baking sheet leaving half thumb space between each ball.
- Use the back of a fork to flatten the cookie dough balls and form a cross on top, as seen in the pictures below.
Baking The Cookies
- Place the cookie sheet in the center rack of the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
- Don’t overbake peanut butter cookies made with almond flour or the almond flour burns, and they come out dark and hard.
- The cookies are still very soft when hot, straight out of the oven, and that’s normal.
- Cool the cookies down for 10 minutes on the baking sheet, then gently slide a spatula or flat tool under each peanut butter cookie to transfer them to a cooling rack.
Cookie Texture
The cookies need cooling for at least 15 to 30 minutes to deliver their best crunchy texture. They harden as they cool down, so be patient.
Storage Instructions
These peanut butter cookies have no eggs nor dairy, and therefore they store very well non-refrigerated.
Place the cookies in a cookie jar at room temperature and keep them for up to one week.
Add-Ons
There are so many ways to boost the flavors and texture of these simple 5-ingredients peanut butter cookies. You can add:
- 1/3 cup of dark chocolate chips – who doesn’t like healthy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
- 1/4 cup of crunchy peanuts or simply use natural crunchy peanut butter.
Frequently Asked Questions
A dry dough won’t come together, and it will crumble apart. This happens if your dough lacks moisture. It can be that your peanut butter jar was old and not creamy, so some oil is missing, or you used a liquid sweetener high in fiber like Monk fruit.
If so, add a bit of melted coconut oil to help the dough come together, one teaspoon at a time.
You added too much liquid. It could be that you have added too much syrup or peanut butter.
To balance the extra moisture, add more almond flour, one tablespoon at a time, until you can form a soft cookie dough ball.
Almonds are very sensitive to heat, way more than wheat, and they can burn fast if you bake your cookies for too long or too close to the top or bottom rack. Always bake almond flour cookies on the center rack. If you can use a convection mode rather than a classic mode, it keeps the color of the cookie nice and golden.
Don’t exceed 15 minutes of baking time, or the almond flour burns.
You probably have used almond meal. It’s a coarse flour made from raw almonds.
Unfortunately, if you have already prepared the dough, you can’t remove the grainy texture coming from the almond meal but next time, aim for blanched, ultra-fine almond flour.
More Almond Flour Cookie Recipes
I have so many almond flour cookie recipes on the blog for you to try. Below are the top recipes we’ve shared recently.
Did You Like This Recipe?
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Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Almond Flour - Learn how to measure accurately
- ½ cup Peanut Butter (Unsalted)
- 3 tablespoons Maple Syrup - (note 1)
Optional
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract - for flavor
- ¼ teaspoon Baking Powder - for lighter texture
Chocolate Shell – optional
- ½ cup Dark Chocolate
- 1 teaspoon Coconut Oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lightly oil with coconut oil. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, combine peanut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla extract until smooth and well combined.
- Stir in almond flour and baking powder until it forms a cookie dough batter.
- Form 12 dough balls and place them on the baking sheet, leaving half a thumb of space between each ball. Flatten them with the back of a fork to form a cross on top of the cookies.
- Bake the cookies at 350°F (180°C) for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Cool them down for 10 minutes on the rack, then gently slide a spatula under each cookie to transfer to a cooling rack.
- Wait for 30 minutes to 1 hour to enjoy their full crunchy texture and flavors.
Chocolate Shell
- If you want to dip the cookies in chocolate, place the dark chocolate chips and coconut oil in a microwave-safe bowl.
- Microwave in 30-second bursts until melted, dip half the cookies in melted chocolate, and return them to a wire rack. Sprinkle crushed peanuts if you like. Pop the cookies in the freezer 10 minutes to quickly harden the chocolate shell.
can I substitute oat flour for the almond?
The cookies will be very dry and crumbly.
Delicious! I used half almond half coconut flour and they turned out great!:)
can I use light syrup
Yes, that should be fine!
Even though I’m following your recipes for a few months now on Instagram, I decided to try this one. It was very easy to follow and when they were still cooking in the oven my husband came and said they smell delicious when can he eat them. Definitely will make them again, thanks a lot for the simple recipe.
Can you substitute with almond butter?
Yes, but almond butter is often dryer, so make sure the jar is fresh and if needed add a little coconut oil if too dry
Thank you for sharing this recipe!
I like it the taste is nice , it’s easy to make it and healthy
The nutrition information is based on 12 “tiny cookies” you mentioned, rather than 6 cookies, correct? There’s a diabetic in my house, so I try very hard to keep them in compliance with their carb, fat, sugar, etc., as advised.
Yes, it’s for 12!
This worked exactly as written, thanks! Took them to a friend gathering and they were a huge hit with the recipe being requested. Do you believe these cookies can last longer by keeping them in the freezer?
Thank you!! Yes you can keep them for up to 3 months in the freezer.
To be honest, I tend to keep cookies more than I recommend in my recipes, but I take the conservative approach 🙂
These are the best healthiest peanut butter cookie I’ve ever had. My husband has requested a weekly batch. So quick and easy to make. Thank you.
Thank you Claudette! Your husband sounds like a connoisseur!