Monster cookies are peanut butter cookies with oats, chocolate chips, and M&Ms. My easy monster cookie recipe yields extra soft and thick cookies and you don’t need to chill the cookie dough!
For as much as I love peanut butter cookies and iced oatmeal cookies, I’ve never published a monster cookies recipe on my blog before. To be honest, the reason I’ve never shared one is because it’s taken me almost 3 months to develop one I’m proud enough to publish. Too flat, too puffy, falling apart, rock hard, too dry, and too sweet peanut butter oatmeal cookies have all made their way in my kitchen lately. But I’ve finally found that “perfect” one and I’m so excited to show you!
What Makes These Monster Cookies Different?!
My monster cookie recipe is unlike most traditional recipes. It’s more like a peanut butter cookie with oats, rather than an oatmeal cookie with peanut butter. Other aspects setting these monster cookies apart from the rest:
- Mega soft-baked texture
- Extra thick, just look at the picture!
- No dough chilling required
This recipe doesn’t make 5-6 dozen cookies like most monster cookie recipes requiring a hefty load of ingredients. Rather, my recipe uses a small amount of ingredients and yields 2.5 dozen medium-sized cookies. They aren’t actually “monster” in size, but feel free to roll them larger. Or try my one giant monster cookie recipe if you want a literal monster-sized cookie!
And if you need a gluten free option, try these flourless monster cookies.
Quick Oats are Key
Use quick oats. Why? Quick oats are more finely cut whole oats and will give the monster cookies a more uniform texture. Furthermore, quick oats will act more as a binder since the consistency is more powdery. If you don’t have quick oats, pulse your whole oats in the food processor a few times to break them down.
Helpful tip: The cookies spread just slightly while baking, so press them down with a spoon after you remove them from the oven. That’s what gives the cookies their crinkled tops.
Quick Monster Cookies: No Dough Chilling!
Like I mentioned, this is a quick cookie recipe. Unlike your classic chocolate chip cookies or sugar cookies, there is no dough chilling needed for these monster cookies! The dough is thick and sturdy enough to bake right away. However, should you bake the monster cookies with a thinner peanut butter or on a particularly humid day, chill in the refrigerator for up to 30 minutes. Cookie dough can be picky. Go by how your dough feels. If it’s too sticky, chill for 30 minutes. If not, just bake.
More no dough chilling cookie recipes. I have tons! Snickerdoodles and shortbread cookies are two favorites.
These cookies remain exceptionally soft for days… if they last that long. I also find that the peanut butter flavor is intensified after day 1, too. Just like my favorite soft and thick peanut butter cookies and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Now wait until your first bite!
Print
Soft-Baked Monster Cookies
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 2.5 dozen
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These are the best monster cookies ever! They’re deliciously packed with peanut butter, oats, M&Ms, and chocolate chips. No bite is boring! The cookies are soft-baked style and extra thick. No cookie dough chilling required, so this cookie recipe is simple and quick!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) salted butter, softened to room temperature*
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (185g) creamy peanut butter
- 1 large egg, at room temperature*
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/4 cups (156g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (43g) quick oats*
- 3/4 cup (150g) M&Ms (any size or variety)
- 1/2 cup (90g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
- In a large bowl, using a hand-held mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars together on medium speed, about 3 minutes. Mix in the peanut butter, egg, and vanilla (in that order). Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Slowly mix in the baking soda, flour, and salt. Do not over-mix. On low speed, beat in the quick oats, M&Ms, and chocolate chips just until incorporated. If the dough is very soft and unmanageable by hand, chill the dough for 30 minutes before rolling.
- Rolls balls of dough, about 2 Tablespoons of dough per ball, onto prepared baking sheet. Press a few extra M&Ms on top for looks, if preferred. Bake for 11-13 minutes—the cookies will still look a little soft, which is recommended. Slightly press down the baked cookies with the back of a spoon, since the cookies only slightly spread in the oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Cookies will firm up as they cool.
- Store cookies covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Baked and cooled cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months too. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Cooling Rack
- You can use unsalted butter in this recipe. If so, add 1/4 teaspoon salt with the flour.
- Peanut Butter: While it’s great for cooking and eating, natural style peanut butter isn’t ideal for these cookies. They will turn out too dry and crumbly. I do not recommend crunchy style peanut butter for that same reason. I recommend processed creamy peanut butter such as Jif or Skippy.
- Use quick oats in this recipe. Quick oats are more finely cut whole oats and will give the monster cookies a more uniform texture. Furthermore, quick oats act more as a binder since the consistency is more powdery. If you don’t have quick oats, pulse your whole oats in the food processor a few times to break them down.
- Looking for a recipe without peanut butter? Here are my Chewy Oatmeal M&M Cookies.
- Why is everything at room temperature? All refrigerated items should be at room temperature so the batter mixes together easily and evenly. Read here for more about the importance of room temperature ingredients.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking success tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
These are delicious but I also had the problem with dry and almost crumbly cookies. I weigh all my ingredients so I know it’s not that. But I do think the type of peanut butter is probably what’s happening… some peanut butters are super oily and runny while others aren’t. But they are delicious.
This recipe deserves 5 stars!! One of my favorites of all time. I make this so often and guests love them!
We make these cookies every year at the cabin on our summer vacation. I can’t suggest a different cookie or there will be anarchy! Everyone loves them!
Flavor was good but texture was dry and powdery. Really strange.
Terrible! So dry and crumbly. Threw them out. 🙁
Hi Barb! We’re happy to help troubleshoot. Usually dry cookies are caused by too much flour in the dough. How did you measure the flour? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
By far the worst monster cookies ever! I was in a panic because I couldn’t find my recipe and used this as a substitute. What a mistake and a waste of ingredients. So dry and grainy. Since then I found mine if anyone wants an awesome monster cookie recipe!
They taste good, but they’re nearly impossible to get off the pan without crumbling and breaking into pieces. I weighed my ingredients, used creamy skippy, and they’re still just a bit dry and crumbly. Again, they’re tasty, just not quite what I was hoping for.
Hi Kate, thank you so much for your feedback and for giving this recipe a try. The most common cause of dry cookies is too much flour, but if you spooned & leveled and weighed your flour it doesn’t sound like that is the culprit. If you decide to give these another try, you could use an oven thermometer to make sure your oven is baking at the correct temperature. Here are some more Cookie Baking Tips to Improve Your Next Batch.