Salted Almond Butter Cookies

Author Notes

In addition to their namesake, classic peanut butter cookies call for butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, and baking soda. But you can get crispier, chewier, gooier, better results if you ditch most of these. Peanut butter, some sort of sugar, and eggs are all you need. Maybe you’ve stumbled upon this bare-bones style by way of Ovenly Bakery, or Shirley O. Corriher, or Susan Purdy, among other blogs.

Sweetened nut butter is the default, but unsweetened works wonders in its own way. Not only does unsweetened, aka “natural” (depending on the brand), nut butter lead to a less sweet, more balanced dessert, but it opens up a world of other unsweetened nut and seed butters, like sunflower, cashew, and tahini. In this recipe, we're using almond, which might be my favorite for its roasty, marzipan-y energy.

Note: You can swap out the granulated sugar for 1 cup (213 grams) of light or dark brown sugar. This will yield a cookie that’s less almondy, more caramelly. You can even do a mix if you’d like.

Freezing the dough blobs before baking helps the cookies look their best. Once they’re firm, you can also toss them in a container and store them in the freezer, for up to a month, to bake on a whim. No need to thaw—just add a couple minutes to the baking time, and let me know when to come over. I’ll bring the milk.

This is one of our Big Little Recipes, our weekly column all about dishes with big flavor and little ingredient lists. Do you know (and love) a recipe that’s low in ask, high in reward? Let us know in the comments. —Emma Laperruque

Test Kitchen Notes

These cookies part of our Big Little Recipes column, which showcases great meals with five ingredients or fewer (not counting staples like salt and pepper, butter or oil). They are great on their own, yes, but why stop at great? If you’d like, you can sandwich them with whipped cream, chocolate frosting, or, best of all, ice cream. Here are a few favorites from the column:

Salt & Pepper Ice Cream: Yes, salt and pepper. Though these seasonings are often pulled out for lunch or dinner, they want to be part of dessert, too. Black peppercorns get infused into heavy cream, then more pepper gets stirred in (the little specks look like vanilla). Turn even more pepper into a crunchy brittle, if you dare.

No-Churn Butter Pecan Ice Cream: For an extra-nutty ice cream sandwich. This brown-buttery ice cream doesn’t even need an ice cream machine. And if you’re the sort of person who eats ice cream all year (as you should be!), this combo would be a dream at Thanksgiving.

Cookies & Cream Frozen Yogurt: Not quite ice cream, but close. This frozen yogurt was inspired by Max Falkowitz’s Genius recipe, with just plain yogurt, granulated sugar, and a pinch of salt. In this case, chocolate wafer cookies, like Oreos, make it even better.

Orange Sherbet Also not quite ice cream, sherbet is ideal for really, really hot summer days. This one tastes like a Creamsicle—sweet, sour, and super citrusy. Besides almond butter cookies, it would be wonderful with chocolatey cookies, too. —Food52