Preheat your oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Grab your peanut butter from the pantry and measure out exactly 1 cup—not packed, just level with the top of your measuring cup. This step takes two minutes but makes sure your cookie dough comes out consistent every single time.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the peanut butter, melted butter, both sugars, and that egg. Stir everything together for about 2-3 minutes until the mixture looks smooth and combined. Don't overbeat it—you're just looking for one uniform color, no streaks of peanut butter showing through.

Pour in the vanilla powder and milk, then stir until everything comes together. The dough should look slightly thick but spreadable, kinda like thick peanut butter itself. If it looks too dry, add another tablespoon of milk and stir again.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt for about 30 seconds. This keeps your peanut butter cookies from turning out dense and cake-like. Slowly fold this dry mixture into your wet ingredients until just combined—don't overmix or you'll end up with tough cookies instead of chewy ones.

Fold in your chocolate chips and chopped peanuts with just a few gentle stirs. These little additions give you bursts of flavor and texture that make people ask for your recipe. I always taste a tiny bit of dough here (raw eggs are my one compromise on food safety—you do you).

Drop spoonfuls of dough onto your prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes until the edges look golden brown but the center still looks kinda underbaked. This is the secret to soft cookies—they'll firm up as they cool, so don't wait until they look fully done.

Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving them to a wire rack. They'll continue cooking from the residual heat, which is why they end up so perfectly chewy. The first batch I made, I pulled them off too early and they stayed mushy—don't make my mistake and give them those full 5 minutes.