Picture making cookies on a Tuesday night. Can you? Or is baking such a production in your mind that this doesn’t quite compute? With these 5 ingredient peanut butter cookies, you don’t need a special occasion to flip on the oven.

Well, that’s because you’re not relying on miracle ingredient peanut butter. You may think you already understand peanut butter’s glory, having made peanut sauce or eaten a “bread-free PB&J” right from the spoon. But until you’ve seen how a cup of creamy peanut butter can turn into a batch of cookies, you haven’t admired the nut’s full range.
Of course, even peanut butter needs a little help. Here, we measured out brown sugar, an egg, baking soda, and chocolate chips in addition to the creamy spread.

That all gets mixed together, a process that’s not nearly hard enough to warrant the use of an electric mixer (phew!). Formed into balls, the dough looks a whole lot like regular not-five-ingredient cookie dough.
And then: bake! These only take about 8 minutes to turn from dough balls into bona fide cookies, so even if you’re hesitant to turn on the oven, you can have freshly baked cookies without turning the kitchen into a sauna.
Bonus! If you care, these are gluten-free. Also, though we like using creamy peanut butter – but if all you have on hand is crunchy, the cookies will still be wonderful.