Peanut Butter Miso Cookies

▪️ Time: 30 min ▪️ Level: easy ▪️ Budget: medium

Peanut butter miso cookies are a surprisingly irresistible treat that brings together sweet, salty, and savory flavors in perfect harmony. Creamy peanut butter gives these cookies their rich, nutty base and soft, chewy texture, while miso adds a subtle depth that elevates them beyond a classic cookie.

Miso is a traditional Japanese fermented paste made from soybeans, known for its savory umami flavor. In baking, it doesn’t taste overtly “savory” — instead, it enhances sweetness, adds complexity, and balances sugar much like sea salt does, but with extra richness. The result is a cookie that tastes familiar yet intriguingly different, with a deeper, more rounded flavor.

Comforting, modern, and wonderfully moreish, these peanut butter miso cookies are perfect for curious bakers and anyone who loves a sweet treat with a sophisticated twist.

Peanut Butter Miso Cookies

Ingredients

• 115g unsalted butter, room temperature

• 110g white sugar

• 220g brown sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla essence

• pinch of salt

• 60g peanut butter

• 80g white miso paste

• 1 egg, room temperature

• 225g all purpose flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1½ tsp baking soda

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C and line an oven tray with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, mix the butter, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt on medium speed for about 3 minutes. Then add the peanut butter and miso paste and mix for another 2 minutes. Once this is homogenous, add the egg and mix until incorporated.

3. Use a spatula to fold in the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Leave the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes. Scoop the dough into balls with an ice cream scoop and roll each one into raw sugar. Then bake for 15 minutes at 160°C. Take out of the oven, bang your oven tray on the counter to make cracks in the cookies, and bake for another 3 minutes.

Wine pairing

The flavour combination of sugar and salted nuts makes this cookie perfect for a pairing with a Tawny Port. In this sweet wine you will find nut and caramel aromas that will perfectly match the flavour of the cookies. The wine also has quite a nice body since it's aged in barrel.