No-Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

Why You’ll Love This Peanut Butter Bars Recipe

• Peanut butter candy in bar form. Now, you’ve probably had these bars before, but if you haven’t, you can expect a texture similar to peanut butter cups, but a taste reminiscent of Butterfinger bars.
• Easy to make. No-bake peanut butter bars are surprisingly delicious for the tiny amount of effort (and the whole 6 ingredients) involved in making them. The hardest part of making these may be waiting on them to chill!
• Quick and delicious. This is the kind of recipe that you’ll find yourself making over and over because they’re great for sharing! They’re also quick enough to whip up whenever you’re craving some chocolate and peanut butter goodness.

Ingredients You’ll Need

Here are some notes about the ingredients you’ll need to make these easy no-bake peanut butter bars. Scroll down to the printable recipe card to find the full ingredient quantities and recipe instructions.

• Confectioners’ sugar – Also known as powdered sugar. I don’t recommend substituting regular sugar as it makes the texture of the filling grainy.
• Graham cracker crumbs – You can buy these ready-to-use, or crush up graham crackers in the blender. See below.
• Peanut butter – You can use creamy or crunchy, but either way, use the shelf-stable kind, not the natural varieties with oil that need to be stirred.
• Unsalted butter – I prefer to use unsalted butter. You can learn more in my post covering unsalted versus salted butter in baking.
• Salt – This is optional, but highly recommended. Even just a pinch of salt will add a bit more interest to this flavor party.
• Semisweet chocolate – Use chocolate bars or discs if you can, because they will melt better than chocolate chips.

How Do You Make Graham Cracker Crumbs?

You can find boxes of graham cracker crumbs in the baking aisle at the grocery store, but you can also make your own by pulsing graham crackers in a food processor until they’re finely ground. If you buy the kind that have 4 graham crackers per sheet, you’ll need approximately 12 sheets for 1 1/2 cups of crumbs. If you don’t have a food processor, seal the crackers inside a zip-top bag and crush them using a rolling pin instead.

How to Make No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

You’re just a few minutes away from the best peanut butter bars ever! Here’s what you’ll need to do. Follow the steps below, and check out the recipe card for the printable instructions.

• Prepare. Lightly grease a 9 x 13″x 2″ pan. For easier removal, you can line the pan with parchment paper and then grease the paper.

Easy Variations

This is the kind of recipe that’s open to minor tweaks and changes. I love finding new ways to customize these peanut butter bars, and I’m sure you will, too! Try these ideas:

• Add nuts. Sprinkle chopped peanuts, pecans, or hazelnuts over the chocolate topping. Do this before refrigerating while the melted chocolate is still wet.
• Different cookies. Graham cracker crumbs act as a binding agent in this no-bake recipe. If you don’t have graham crackers, feel free to grind up another cookie, like vanilla wafers or chocolate wafer cookies, gingersnaps, or even crushed corn flakes cereal.
• Fold candy into the filling. Reese’s Pieces, or chopped candy bars in the peanut butter layer or over the chocolate layer.
• Make nut-free bars. If you’d like to make similar bars for someone with peanut allergies, sunflower seed butter works well as a substitute. They won’t be peanut butter bars, but they’ll still be delicious!
• Caramel. Instead of chocolate, top these bars with caramel sauce and crushed pretzels as I do in my sweet-salty caramel pretzel peanut butter bars.
• More add-ons. Top these bars with cereal to make a variation of chocolate peanut butter cereal bars, or add mini marshmallows, toasted coconut, or sprinkles.