Vegan 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
By Carine Claudepierre
Published on 08/01/2019 - Last updated on 11/19/2023
This recipe may contain Amazon or other affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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.
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 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
How To Make 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies With No Eggs
It’s as easy as 3 ingredients to make the most delicious crunchy peanut butter cookies!
Ingredients
In fact, all you need to make them is the following:
- 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.
Storing 3-Ingredient Vegan Cookies
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.
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!
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!
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.
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:
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!
3-Ingredient Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Peanut Butter (Unsalted) - salted or unsalted peanut butter, no added oil, no added sugar
- ¾ cup Oat Flour - see notes for options
- 5 tablespoon Maple Syrup
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.
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!
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.
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!
8 large cookies, or 12 smaller cookies – baking time for both size is in step 9 of the recipe. Enjoy.
Hi there! Would this work with another kind of nut butter, such as almond or macadamia? Thanks!
I didn’t try yet but it should if your nut butter jar is fresh and drippy.
Absolutely delicious!!! My husband enjoyed them! Definitely have to make again!
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!
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 🙂
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!
It didn’t work out for me. I think 12-18 minutes was way too long. So sad. :((
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.
Hey! This looks good, I am just wondering if it is possible to substitute for the maple syrup?
Arkela
You can use any liquid sweetener like agave syrup, date syrup etc
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?
Yes you can, add about 1/3 cup at the end, knead it and bake!
Is it ok to use brown rice flour?
Feel free to experiment, I never tried this before
yummy when i tried it
Yum! 🙂
I just made these and OMG they were fabulous! Oat flour is probably my favorite flour because of its affordability and neutral flavor. I made these cookies pretty large and they were super gooey!
Thank you so much! Enjoy the recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine
I’m not by any means a baker, so I made half the recipe, in case they flopped. I had crunchy unsalted organic peanut butter, so used that. Of course I couldn’t wait to taste before 3 hours. They’re delicious although they turned out misshapen, and not pretty, like Carine’s. Today I’m going to make the full recipe with creamy peanut butter & add a little salt. I even feel good letting my 2 veggie rescue dogs have tastes. The ingredients are so clean. BTW, I grind organic rolled oats and it works just fine.
These are so easy and sooo yummy! I was looking for a recipe that didn’t have all the processed sugar. These are crunchy and flaky and so good!
How much does a cup of oat flour weigh?
Simply click on the metric link before the ingredients to convert the entire recipe into grams. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
imply click on the metric link before the ingredients to convert the entire recipe into grams. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
Finally, a recipe that doesn’t include a lot of unnecessary ingredients! I don’t know why so many folks include baking soda in a peanut butter cookie recipe– not to mention egg and vanilla extract. Thank you for keeping it simple AND healthy.
These are my family’s favorite peanut butter cookies. I return to this recipe again and again. Just killer. Thank you!
I really wanted to like these 🙁 They came together easily and they looked beautiful but they just lacked balanced flavour and the texture was way off for me.
I am sorry you didn’t like them. They are crunchy 3 ingredients only cookies so you can’t expect much more flavor than peanut butter and maple syrup indeed. You can always add 1 teaspoon vanilla or cinnamon for extra flavor. Enjoy the recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine
These are the most amazing peanut butter cookies I’ve ever had! It is so great to FINALLY have a great tasting, affordable, easy ingredient list, vegan AND gluten free cookie recipe that comes out perfect every time! Thank you for this creation! We cannot stop eating them.
SO TASTY! I read the comments and made sure to use a natural runny peanut butter. The dough was still a tad thick so I added 1 Tbsp oat milk and it was great! Just softened it up enough so it wouldn’t be too crumbly. I used regular all purpose flour.
I made half a recipe on made TEENY TINY MINI BITE SIZED cookies. Half the recipe made ~30 mini cookies! Probably about a teaspoon of dough per ball and baked for 9 minutes. They are about 2 hours cooled and are more on the chewy soft side than crispy.
I added 1 tsp vanilla and a small pinch of salt since my PB was unsalted.
I want to try this with almond flour!!
It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t amazing. It just tastes like peanut butter. Came out as expected. Either way it satisfied my sweet tooth 🙂 thanks for the recipe
I’m doing a one month vegan trial and today my sweet tooth got to me. Now being that I’m from a small Caribbean island, ingredients are limited and expensive.
So when I came across this recipe I thought heck yea! Who’d have thought that something this easy to make would be sooo delicious!!
I love it! Will definitely be making more often!
PS: my Husband had already eaten more than me and I didn’t think he would like it!
Thank you for a wonderful, simple recipe.
Thank you so much for the lovely feedback! Enjoy the vegan recipes on the blog. XOXO Carine
Delicious cookies! I should have made two batches. So simple and tasty.
Thank you! It is never too late to make a second batch right 🙂 They store very well. XOXO Carine
Excited to try these they sound great
Enjoy and let me know how it goes! XOXO Carine
Absolutely delish!!! Thank you! I used rice flour instead of oat flour and half peanut butter and half mixed. It butter, just wonderful.
Thank you ! XOXO Carine
My friend is now on a plant based diet, due to medical reasons and i am always looking for recipes to make delicious tasting food that I can give to her as well as for my own family. I made these cookies this morning before the kids woke up and my son loves them so thank you for this awesome & quick recipe.
I made your recipe and it was great. I want to try it with tahini instead of peanut butter. It is more runny so do you recommend decreasing the amount.
Sure, you can use tahini, make sure you mix the sesame butter very well in the jar before measuring, to avoid having a layer of oil on top. Then, use same amount as peanut butter it will work well. Note that tahini can add a bitter taste in cookies. Enjoy!
That’s amazing! Thank you for the lovely feedback. XOXO Carine
Hola, acá en mi país, Chile, es difícil co seguir jarabes o syrup, pero hay muuuchs miel, podré sustituir ese ingrediente?
You can use any liquid sweetener you have on hand! Enjoy, Carine
Made these last night. They came out dry bland and flavourless. This is my fault leaving feedback so y’all don’t make the same mistakes. I used whole oats pulsed in the food processors. This has worked well for previous recipes but left too much texture for this recipe. I also used Peter Pan peanut butter which was pretty thick and dry. Becarful of your subsitions with this recipe.❤️
Hi, as I mention in the recipe you must use fresh creamy peanut butter and thin oat flour. If your ingredients are dry o coarse flour it will obviously end up dry. I hope it gets better next tim using the right ingredients. XOXO Carine
Is it possible to use regular peanut butter and regular syrup its all i have on hand till payday and i would love to make these usually they don’t last very long after i do any kind of baking
I never tried the recipe with something else so I am unsure. What I can tell you is, if your peanut butter has added oil or added sugar the result will be very different, could be too oily or overly sweet. However any liquid sweetener will be fine! Let me know how it goes if you give them a go, XOXO Carine
Would almond flour work?
I didn’t try almond flour, I suspect they won’t hold as well and be more fragile as almond flour contains more fat and less fiber. Maybe adding 1/2 teaspoon guargum will help hold the cookies better. Let me know how it goes! Carine
Hello. Can these be made with coconut flour?
I didn’t try coconut flour in this recipe. It will be a very different ratio, probably less flour needed as coconut flour contains way more fiber and tend to dry out – crumble – cookies. Let me know if you have any success with it otherwise I reommend you try my 3 ingredients coconut flour shortbread cookies recipe here! Enjoy, XOXO Carine.
Hello beautiful girl!
This recipe looks amazin!
Could I get the ingredients in grams, please?
Thanks lovely
Thank you ! I will think about this and try to convert the recipe asap. Thanks for following me here. XOXO Carine.
These are delicious – I just have a question about the kcal. For 1g it’s 267 kcal?
For one cookie 🙂 Enjoy the blog, XOXO Carine
I did this yesterday night and they are so yummy! With only 3 ingredients: very affordable and simple. The house smelled amazing as well, haha.
Thank you so much!
Dry could have been better
I am sorry you didn’t appreciate the cookies more. If it dry, it can be because your oat flour is coarser than mine. A fine oat flour is the best. Also make sure you measure the flour precisely, and use fresh runny peanut butter with the oil on top of the jar, without added sugar or oil. I noticed that old jar of peanut butter make them dry too. Enjoy the recipes around here. XOXO Carine
Thank you SO much for this lovely feedback ! I am so happy you enjoyed the cookies. I agree, nothing can bet the smell of peanut butter cookies in the house :). Enjoy the easy recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine.
Hello,
Love the recipe. After defrosting from the freezer,do you heat it up again?
Many thanks
hello ! No I don’t rewarm the cookies as I usually pop them frozen in my kids lunchbox the day before. They are defrosted for their morning tea at school the next day and they love them like that. This said, it won’t harm to rewarm them a bit if you like them hot 🙂 May be bring them to a toaster after they defrost for 1 minutes just to get them lukewarm. Enjoy the recipes around here. XOXO Carine.
This recipe is delish! It’s hard to believe that with just three ingredients they can be so tasty and satisfying. I added a few chocolate chips and vanilla. They were a hit for my family, I love it when I try a simple recipe and it actually is as tasty or better as an 8 ingredient recipe and takes an hour or more to make and bake! Thank you!
Oh thank you SO much, this makes me so happy. I love the choc chips addition, great idea! Enjoy the easy recipes on the blog, XOXO Carine
These are AWESOME! Super easy, delicious, filling – but not in the bloaty-icky way. Made two batches – they were GONE in less than 4 hours… this will be a staple in our house. Teen approved!
THANK YOU! I am so happy you enjoy the cookies thanks so much for trying my recipe. XOXO Carine
Très bonne recette facile à faire, parfait !
I tried them. But mine were not crunchy. They were after 2 hours but next day they were more doughy instead of crunchy. I mean they taste good and melts in mouth but not crunchy at all.
What could be the problem?
I am not sure what went wrong. Did you use a natural peanut butter with no added oil and no added sugar as recommended? The addition of oil in peanut butter may soften cookies a lot. What about the sweetener, did you use a sugar-free maple syrup ? Sugar free liquid sweetener also soften cookies. Let me know ! XOXO Carine
Merci beaucoup! A bientot pour une nouvelle recette. Carine.
Awesome recipes with the most clean ingredients.
These cookies are very good. I only had non salty peanut Added a little salt But not quite enough. Next time I will know to add more. They are still cooking but I couldn’t wait three hours and already ate one. They are quite filling! Definitely will make again!!
Hello, wondering if we can substitute peanut butter with almond butter?
Yes sure! The cookies might be a bit dryer as almond butter is less oily tho. Enjoy the cookies, XOXO Carine.
I love this recipe, it is very easy to make and with few ingredients. We like the Butter peanut and as we are vegan we are happy to find such easy and delicious recipes. Thanks for sharing. Thank you
I made these today and they were so dry I couldnt roll them in balls they just crumbled. Should i have used less flour??
This happened if your peanut butter is either too dy, old jar open for a while doesn’t have the same amount of oil, or your peanut butter contains added sugar. I recommend using a fresh jar of peanut butter to ensure the right texture. Enjoy an take care, XOXO Carine.
Thanks so much for the nice message! I will keep creating more easy vegan recipes for you to enjoy! XOXO Carine.
Made these with my granddaughter today and they are really delicious.
Thank you for trying my recipe with your granddaughter, baking with kids is so much fun ! I am so glad you love the cookie, thanks for reporting back. Enjoy all the others recipes here. XOXO Carine.