Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookie Bars
on Mar 01, 2019, Updated May 07, 2024
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These sheet pan Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookie Bars are rich, soft, and full of flavor! Making these cookie bars is a breeze since they only use a handful of kitchen staples.
When it comes to easy-to-make desserts, cookie bars are a classic! My oatmeal cookie bars are no exception. These are great when you need to take a dessert to a large gathering. Half the batch can stay at your house and half the batch can go with dinner.
The chocolate, oatmeal, and peanut butter come together perfectly to create the perfect balance of sweet and salty flavors. Next time you are looking for an easy-to-make dessert, give these oatmeal cookie bars a go! You will not be disappointed!
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- The peanut butter and chocolate provide the perfect balance of sweet and savory flavors.
- You can easily double or triple the recipe if you’re serving a crowd.
- These bars can be stored long term in the freezer.
- You can modify these bars with some added ingredients to make delicious magic cookie bars
Recipe Ingredients
- Oats—Old fashioned or rolled.
- Milk—To soften the oats.
- Butter—To help dissolve the sugars.
- Peanut Butter—Creamy, not crunchy.
- Vanilla—Amplifies the sweetness of the cookie bars.
- Baking Soda—To give the cookie bars a little bit of rise.
- Flour—All-purpose.
- Chocolate Chips—Gives the cookie bars a sweet, decadent coating.
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities
How to Make Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookie Bars
- Preheat your oven. Whisk together the oats and milk in a medium sized mixing bowl.
- Use a hand mixer or stand mixer to cream the butter and sugars together in a large mixing bowl.
- Whisk in the peanut butter followed by the eggs and vanilla.
- Gently whisk in the flour and baking soda until it is fully incorporated with the creamed sugar mixture.
- Fold in the oat mixture and then pour the mixture into a large jelly roll pan.
- Bake the cookie bars until golden brown.
- Spread the chocolate chips over the cookie bars as they come out of the oven. Slice, serve, and enjoy!
Recipe FAQs
In oatmeal cookies, old-fashioned oats will give you a chewier texture, and quick oats will be slightly less chewy, but the flavor is the same. It’s really personal preference which one you like better for baking. For this recipe, I like the chewier old-fashioned oats, but both kinds work great.
Smooth and creamy peanut butter works best in this recipe. Crunchy peanut butter can cause the bars to become a little bit dry and will be more difficult to incorporate into the batter.
Expert Tips
- Love dark chocolate? Feel free to use semi-sweet chocolate chips. Really, you can use any chocolate chips you like or have on hand (peanut butter is also awesome!).
- This recipe works best with traditional creamy peanut butter. When I tried it with natural peanut butter, it was a bit dry.
- You can use quick oats in this recipe; it’ll work just great. The texture will be slightly less chewy than when you use old-fashioned oats.
- If you don’t have any peanut butter or oats them you can still make these classic chocolate chip cookie bars
- You can store these bars on the counter for up to 5 days covered with plastic wrap or stored in an airtight container.
How to Freeze Your Cookie Bars
In addition to storing your bars on the counter, you can also store them in the freezer. Once the cookie bars are baked, cut, and cooled, they freeze great. Just store them in a single layer (or with parchment or waxed paper between layers) in an air-tight container up to 2 months.
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Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 2 cups old-fashioned or rolled oats
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 package milk chocolate chips, 2 cups
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a small bowl, stir together oats and milk. Set aside so that oats can start to soften.
- In a medium mixing bowl, cream together the sugars and the butter until fluffy.
- Add peanut butter and incorporate.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time.
- Add vanilla and stir.
- Stir in flour and soda.
- Stir in oat and milk mixture. Batter will be sticky.
- Spread batter into a large rimmed greased cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes. The cookies should be lightly golden but not too dark.
- When the bars come out of the oven, sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the top and let sit for 3-5 minutes until the chips start to look shiny and melt.
- Spread the chocolate chips all over the top with a spatula. Let cool before cutting into squares.
Notes
- Love dark chocolate? Feel free to use semi-sweet chocolate chips. Really, you can use any chocolate chips you like or have on hand (peanut butter is also awesome!).
- This recipe works best with traditional creamy peanut butter. When I tried it with natural peanut butter, it was a bit dry.
- You can use quick oats in this recipe; it’ll work just great. The texture will be slightly less chewy than when you use old fashioned oats.
- You can store these bars on the counter for up to 5 days covered with plastic wrap or stored in an airtight container.
When you say cookie sheet or jelly roll pan, what size do you mean? The pin seemed to imply it was a sheet pan recipe, so now I’m confused.
My sheet pans are jelly roll pans! I think as long as it has an edge on it, it’ll work. If you are using a pan slightly smaller than jelly roll you might want to add a few minutes to the cooking time to account for the thicker cookie.