The combination of peanut butter and chocolate is, in my opinion, one of the very best flavor pairings ever created (hello, viral Costco pie, peanut butter blossoms, and buckeyes!). These chocolate-topped peanut butter bars are the last no-bake dessert recipe you’ll ever need — it takes only five ingredients and 15 minutes to make. Thanks to the addition of crushed graham crackers, the fudgy peanut butter layer is slightly crispy. The best part? It tastes just like a Reese’s peanut butter cup.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Creamy peanut butter: Pick peanut butter from the big national brands. They’ll have the smoothest texture, plus the oil doesn’t separate.
- Graham crackers: Add a crispy texture to the peanut butter layer.
- Powdered sugar: Sweetens and thickens the peanut butter, giving it a fudgy texture.
- Salted butter: Use salted butter or one stick unsalted butter plus 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt.
- Semi-sweet chocolate: Spread melted chocolate chips mixed with a bit of peanut butter over the top.
A Few Tips
Use an 8-by-8-inch baking pan: You’ll get thicker bars.
Line pan with a parchment paper sling: This makes it easy to remove the entire slab of peanut butter bars at once. Once they’re out of the pan, cut into 16 bars with a chef’s knife.
Use smooth peanut butter that doesn’t separate: The oil in homemade peanut butter (and some natural peanut butters) separates, which makes it the wrong choice for this recipe. Choose silky-smooth peanut butter from a national brand for these no-bake bars.
Crush graham crackers into fine crumbs: Use a rolling pin or meat mallet to crush the graham crackers into fine, even crumbs before adding to the peanut butter mixture.
Spread peanut butter layer with an offset spatula: The peanut butter mixture is quite sticky, so use a miniature offset spatula to spread it into the pan. If the peanut butter mixture is too sticky to handle, chill it in the refrigerator first.
Mix peanut butter into melted chocolate chips: A few tablespoons of peanut butter mixed into the melted chocolate helps it solidify (like magic shell topping), but with no cracking.
More Variations
This five-ingredient recipe for no-bake peanut butter bars is a classic, but there’s no reason to let your culinary creativity stop there. Instead of using graham crackers, use an equal weight of vanilla wafers, Biscoff cookies, animal crackers, or butter cookies. You can also substitute white chocolate chips for the semi-sweet chocolate topping.
