Easy Monster Cookies

These easy monster cookies are packed with peanut butter, M&Ms, chocolate chips, and hearty oatmeal for a soft, chewy treat. Learn how to make thick, jumbo, bakery-style cookies that are big on flavor and fun. This small-batch recipe is the best ever for quick baking sessions that deliver large, original cookies every time. Pin this recipe now and bake a batch of these crowd-pleasing favorites today!

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A grand cookie with all this goodness deserves to be monster-size.  Over 1.5 inches thick and 4 inches wide, this is one amazing, bakery-style cookie that is super easy to make right in your own kitchen.  Monster Cookies, also known as ‘Everything But The Kitchen Sink Cookies’, basically combines four recipes into one chewy cookie: peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate chip, and M&Ms.

Why this is the best easy monster cookies recipe

These are like chocolate chip cookies on steroids! They have all of your favorite cookie flavors in ONE GIANT COOKIE: peanut butter, chocolate chip, M&Ms, and oatmeal.

These cookies are easy to make. Cookie recipes don't get any easier than this: mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients, combine and bake. That's it!

The ingredients for this easy recipe are very common. You probably have most of the simple ingredients already in your pantry, and the remaining couple are available in every grocery I've ever visited.

These cookies taste amazing! You haven't lived until you've eaten a chocolate chip M&M peanut butter oatmeal cookie. (Whew, that's a mouthful. Let's just call them monster cookies from now on.)

These cookies are jumbo! There are no mini M&Ms here. We use the full-size M&Ms, full-size chocolate chips, and we make LARGE cookies with this recipe.

These cookies are soft and chewy! As long as you don't over-bake them, these cookies are the perfect chocolate chip cookie consistency: crispy on the edges and soft in the center.

This recipe is freezer-friendly. You can freeze the unbaked cookie dough ahead of time or freeze the baked cookies.

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What you'll need to make peanut butter monster cookies

Equipment

• Stand mixer - You could use a hand mixer if you had to, but the cookie dough gets pretty stiff and will be a challenge for the motor to process.
• Baking sheet - You will need this to bake your cookies.
• Parchment paper - I suggest parchment paper because it's easy, but if you prefer a reusable alternative, you can use silicone mats.
• #12 scoop - This size scoop is perfect for jumbo cookies. If you don't have this particular scoop, use the biggest one you have and make sure you weigh each cookie on a kitchen scale.
• Kitchen scale - I suggest you weigh your cookies on a scale even if you have the scoop. This is to ensure they are all the same size.
• Wire rack - This is to cool your cookies. If you leave them on the baking sheet for too long, they will continue to cook and be overdone. Overdone cookies are not soft and chewy.

Ingredients 

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See the printable recipe card at the bottom of the page for all measurements and nutritional information.

• All-purpose flour - I have never personally tried it, but I think a cup-for-cup gluten-free baking mix would also work.
• Table salt - This works with the baking soda and baking powder to make the cookies rise.
• Baking soda - This is a leavening agent which means it makes the dough rise.
• Baking powder - Same as baking powder, although it works in a different way.
• Old-fashioned rolled oats - These add structure to the cookies, so don't leave them out.
• Butter - I've always been taught that you should bake with unsalted butter, and I can get behind that suggestion. However, salted butter has less than one teaspoon of salt per pound of butter, so if all you have is salted, you can rest assured that it's not going to ruin your cookies. Butter should be room temperature but not melted.
• Granulated sugar - This is plain white sugar.
• Lightly packed brown sugar - A little brown sugar enhances the cookies' flavor.
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• Creamy peanut butter - I suggest creamy peanut butter, but there's really no reason you couldn't use crunchy if that's all you have. I personally prefer Jif, but I know people who prefer Skippy or another brand. Use what you have. However, I don't recommend sugar-free or natural peanut butter.
• Vanilla bean paste - I prefer vanilla bean paste over plain vanilla extract for two reasons. The paste has a much more potent and robust vanilla flavor, so I think that's important, but also, vanilla bean paste has actual vanilla beans crushed up in it. Vanilla extract is made by soaking vanilla beans in alcohol and then removing the beans. Vanilla bean paste is made from concentrated vanilla extract that has had crushed up vanilla beans added to it. If you don't want to get vanilla bean paste, you can use an equal amount of pure vanilla extract.
• Large eggs - These should be room temperature.
• M&M candies - You're going to put these in the batter, but save a few to put on top of the cookies before you bake them.
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips - You're going to put these in the batter, but save a few to put on top of the cookies before you bake them.

How to make easy monster cookies

1. Pre-heat oven to 400F.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat mats.  Set aside.
2. Stir the dry ingredients together using a whisk in a medium mixing bowl: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and oats. Set aside.
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3. Using a stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer), beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until well combined.
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4. Add the peanut butter, vanilla bean paste, and eggs to the sugar mixture and mix until well incorporated but not over-mixed (about 30 seconds).
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5. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly, scraping the sides and bottom to make sure all the dry ingredients are mixed in. Do not over-mix. The cookie dough should be sticky. 
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6. Fold in the M&Ms and chocolate chips with a rubber spatula.
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7. Refrigerate dough for 1-2 hours (or place in the freezer for 30 minutes if you're in a hurry). 
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8. Scoop dough to slightly less than ⅓ cup, use a #12 scoop or 112-115 grams on a digital scale.  Form into even cookie dough balls and place on prepared baking sheet leaving 4-5 inches in between.
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9. Add a few additional M&M's and chocolate chips to the tops. 
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10. Bake cookies in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes. Remove just as the edges start to brown.  Leave cookies on the baking sheet for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
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Baker's tips

You should always bake with room temperature ingredients, unless the recipe states otherwise.

Scooping and weighing the dough seemed to be the best way to get uniform sizes. Aim for 112-115 grams each. Normally, you want each one to be the same weight but due to the random number of M&Ms and chocolate chips in each one, they may vary in weight just slightly. It's important that they're all the same size so that they bake evenly. If they are more than a few grams different, some will be over-baked and hard while others are soft and possibly under-baked.

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Since oven temperatures may vary slightly, be sure to watch the bottom edges closely and remove the pan when the edges are just starting to brown.  The center may appear undercooked, but the cookies will continue to bake for a few more minutes as they cool on the pan.  This will result in crispy edges with a soft, chewy center.

These are intentionally jumbo-sized cookies. To make these cookies in a smaller, normal cookie size, use a #50 cookie scoop, lower the baking temperature to 375ºF, and bake for 7-9 minutes.

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Variations & substitutions

The classic monster cookie includes chocolate chips and M&Ms for mix-ins, but you are limited only by your imagination here. Crushed potato chips, chopped pretzels, toffee bits, caramel chips, chopped Snickers, butterscotch chips, the sky is the limit! Just try to stick to 2-3 cups total mix-ins.

If you are not a fan of the heavy texture of the oatmeal, opt for quick oats which are cut finer than the old-fashioned, but don't leave the oats out altogether.

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You can add a cup of chopped nuts (peanuts, pecans, almonds, whatever you want).

You can switch out the chocolate chips and use chocolate chunks instead.

You can switch out the M&Ms and use Reese's Pieces or another chopped candy. If you use Reese's Pieces, you could even use peanut butter chips in place of chocolate chips and go for a mega peanut butter cookie. (That's what I'm trying next!)

Storage

Store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week (if they last that long, which mine never do!).

When you store baked goods in the refrigerator, they get stale more quickly and lose their flavor. I do NOT recommend storing monster cookies in the fridge.

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Freezing oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Like most cookies, these can be frozen for later. To freeze the unbaked cookie dough, wrap the dough ball tightly in plastic wrap and aluminum foil, and then store in the freezer for up to two months. To bake the cookies, thaw frozen cookie dough overnight in the fridge and then bake as directed above.

Or, you can freeze the cookie dough in ready-to-bake balls! Refrigerate the dough for 2 hours so that it's easier to work with. Scoop out the cookie dough balls using your scoop and kitchen scale (remember 112-115 grams per cookie). Place the balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze for an hour or until they are no longer sticky. You can transfer the frozen cookie dough balls to a freezer bag or freezer-safe container and keep them like that for up to two months. When you want fresh cookies, simply grab 2-3 balls, place them on parchment on a baking sheet (4-5 inches apart) overnight in the fridge, then bake in the morning. You'll have freshly baked cookies without thawing the entire batch of cookie dough.

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If they are already baked, cool cookies completely to room temperature then place them on a baking sheet in the freezer until they're firm. Remove the frozen cookies from the baking sheet to a plastic freezer bag or freezer-safe container, and you can freeze the cookies for up to 2 months. Remove the number of cookies you want to eat and allow them to thaw on the counter. There's no need to defrost baked cookies in the fridge.

The reason we freeze the cookies on a baking sheet is so that they don't form a massive clump in the freezer. Pre-freezing them enables you to remove just one or two cookies from the bag without defrosting the entire batch of cookies.

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Try these other delicious cookie recipes:

• Lemon Sugar Cookies
• Inside Out Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
• Mini Strawberry Almond Tarts
• The Very Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Homemade Thin Mints Girl Scouts Cookies
• Christmas Sugar Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
• Secret Hershey Kiss Sugar Cookies
• Thumbprint Sugar Cookies with Jam Centers
• Christmas Sugar Cookies with Sprinkles
• Perfect Soft Sugar Cookies
• Double Chocolate Pecan Cookies
• Gluten-Free Coconut Macaroons
• Pecan Pie Bar Cookies

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