Monster cookies: all of my favorite foods combined into one cookie. Chewy oats, creamy salty peanut butter, and sweet melty chocolate. Soft and chewy all the way; never dry or crispy. Betcha can’t stop at just one!

SO EXCITED to share this recipe with you today! It’s about time we had a true dessert recipe around here! I mean, breakfast cookies are all well and good, but sometimes we need something a bit more decadent and sweet. And CHOCOLATE.

Monster cookies are by far my favorite cookie. I mean, is there a better match that chocolate + peanut butter?! I love oats in cookies too. Speaking of, these are basically like eating a bowl oatmeal for breakfast since they contain oats…right?!

So a bit about these cookies. I actually didn’t grow up eating monster cookies, it was chocolate chip all the way. I think the first time I tried monster cookies was in cross-country in high school. Perfect post-race snack right there! I fell in love at first bite. The original recipe uses quite a bit of butter and sugar. While there’s nothing wrong with that, I love the challenge of creating desserts that taste just as good (if not better!) that are a healthier. The best thing ever is when you make a healthier recipe and nobody even knows its different from the original ?

This recipe actually took me FOUR trials to get the most perfect results. Thankfully, I had willing friends, family, and coworkers that didn’t mind eating the test batches haha. I mean, cookies are still cookies. I actually eventually took a break from testing these since I couldn’t get it quite right at first!

Recipe testing

The final recipe ended up being quite a bit different than my initial first batch! I am SO glad I kept testing this recipe…it was worth the sacrifice of all that taste testing ?

Various test batches included 2 cups of oats (too dry), all brown sugar (lacking in depth of flavor and sweetness), various amounts of salt, as well as different amounts of peanut butter (should I use 1 cup? 1 ½ cups?).

I’m happy to say I finally found the perfect balance! Less oats, more peanut butter, a mixture of half white and half brown sugar, more salt for that salty/sweet taste, and most importantly…baking SODA. You guys, I accidentally used baking POWDER instead of baking SODA in one batch and the cookies didn’t spread at all while they baked. My brother literally thought he was eating a ball of unbaked cookie dough haha.

A note on the type of peanut butter: while I usually love natural peanut butter (just peanuts + salt as ingredients), I have found through trial and error that a creamy, shelf-stable peanut butter such as Jif works MUCH better for this recipe. Since there is no butter used, the slight amount of added oil in the Jif style peanut butter really helps these cookies texture and taste. They spread much better and the dough holds together much more. Using natural-style peanut butter also resulted in a dry, crumbly dough and cookies that didn’t spread at all.

Substitutions

Feel free to change your add-ins to if you’re crazy and don’t like chocolate!  Raisins may be good here. I have tried this recipe using both quick and old-fashioned oats, and they are both great. This recipe easily makes a half batch too, for about 10 cookies total.

This will definitely my go-to recipe now for monster cookies! I hope you try them as well; you seriously don’t want to miss out on this recipe. Don’t forget to tag @audras_appetite on Facebook or Instagram if you make this recipe so I can see your creations!