Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Like a massive peanut butter cup from heaven.
Texture: The crust is crunchy yet buttery, the peanut butter filling is ultra-light, fluffy, and luscious, and the candy on top takes it to a whole new level. Every bite is bliss.
Ease: Super duper easy!! You’ll get a few dishes dirty and need some patience for the pie to set, but this is a great easy go-to dessert recipe.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: It’ll become such a family-favorite, they’ll request it for every holiday and special ocassion!
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
Life doesn’t get much better than this Peanut Butter Pie.
To me, peanut butter is one of the great pleasures of life. I’m OBSESSED with the stuff. Especially when it’s combined with chocolate… in PIE form.
This isn’t any old peanut butter pie. I mean, just look at it. It’s over the top, messy, and unapologetically sinful in the best possible way.
I’ve accompanied this recipe with a step-by-step video to not only show you how to make this beautiful pie, but to whet your appetite for it.
Because the chocolate + peanut butter flavors truly belong together.
This easy Peanut Butter Pie recipe is a total crowd-pleaser and won’t last long at all. That coupled with the fact that it can be made completely ahead of time makes it a perfect go-to recipe for easy entertaining. Everyone will want seconds of this pie. It’s that good!
How to Make Peanut Butter Pie WITHOUT Cool Whip
My favorite part about this pie recipe is that it’s entirely homemade! We make the filling with a mixture of peanut butter (of course!), cream cheese, heavy cream, and powdered sugar. Whipping the cream, then folding it in with the other beaten ingredients, gives this pie a light, creamy, yet rich texture without any Cool Whip (or any other highly-process whipped topping).
Pie Crust Variations
This recipe calls for a chocolate graham cracker cookie crust, but you could also use:
- Chocolate Teddy Grahams or chocolate wafer cookies (use the same amount by weight for best results, you should have about 1 3/4 cups crumbs total)
- Oreo crust (follow the crust ingredients & instructions in my French Silk Pie recipe)
- Regular graham crackers (follow the crust instructions in my Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding Pie recipe)
- My all-butter Best Ever Pie Crust recipe , or a Lattice Pie Crust
Serving, Storage, and Freezing
To Serve: You can actually serve the finished pie frozen or refrigerated, depending on which texture you prefer – or how hot it is outside!
To Store: Covered in the fridge for up to 3 days.
To Freeze: Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for up to 1 month. Serve frozen, or thaw overnight in the fridge before serving, if preferred.
FAQs
Yes! Use the same amount of almond butter as peanut butter in the recipe. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and almond butter filling (still adding the 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the heavy cream mixture as well). For the toppings, skip the Reese’s cups and peanut butter chips and instead garnish with almond butter cups and melted chocolate, or any other toppings of your choice.
Use as many or as few as you like – and feel free to customize! If you’d like to add some Reese’s Pieces in there, go right ahead – be as creative and fun as you wish.
This is entirely up to you and your taste preferences! Simply melt the peanut butter and chocolate in your microwave and drizzle as much as you’d like over your pie.
You can use any conventional creamy peanut butter for this recipe, such as Skippy or Jif. Natural peanut butter will give the best peanut flavor, but it MUST be well stirred and smooth before using. My favorite is the Kirkland Signature Organic Peanut Butter from Costco.
More Crowd-Pleasing Pie Recipes:
Email This Recipe
Enter your email, and we’ll send it to your inbox.
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 14 whole (196 grams) chocolate graham crackers*
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 7 tablespoons (99 grams) unsalted butter, melted
For the filling:
- 8 ounces (227 grams) cream cheese, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup (94 grams) powdered sugar plus 2 tablespoons, divided
- 1 cup (270 grams) creamy conventional peanut butter
- 1 cup (240 grams) heavy whipping cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the topping:
- Melted peanut butter
- Melted chocolate
- Mini Reese’s cups
- Peanut butter chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F.
For the crust:
- In the bowl of a food processor, process the crackers and sugar until finely ground. Add the butter and pulse until moistened. Use the bottom of a measuring cup, glass, or ramekin to press the crust mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Bake until fragrant, about 10 to 12 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.
For the filling:
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese, 3/4 cup powdered sugar, and the peanut butter until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer with the whisk attachment to whip the heavy cream until thick and light. Add in the remaining 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar and the vanilla extract and continue to whip until stiff peaks form.
- Gently fold the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture. Pour into the prepared pie shell and freeze for 3 hours or chill in the fridge at least 6 hours.
- Place your melted peanut butter and melted chocolate in separate resealable bags or piping bags. Snip off a tiny corner of the bag's tip. Squeeze slightly to drizzle the melted peanut butter and melted chocolate over your pie. Top with mini Reese's cups and peanut butter chips. Serve frozen or refrigerated.
- Store in the fridge, covered, for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Notes
This recipe was originally published in 2015 and was recently updated with new tips & photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
thank you for the recipe
I made this with natural peanut butter and I’m planning to re-make it with conventional peanut butter instead. My husband isn’t a huge fan of cream cheese. Can I use 4 ounces of cream cheese instead of 8?
Hi Shirley! We haven’t tried this recipe using less cream cheese, so we can’t say for sure! There will be much less filling with half as much cream cheese, and it won’t be as fluffy and creamy – but you can certainly give it a try if you wish! Alternatively, with all the peanut butter and other deliciousness, maybe your husband won’t notice the cream cheese flavor? My husband isn’t a huge cheesecake fan, and he still loves this pie 🙂 I hope that helps! Happy baking!
We substituted Peanut Butter Oreos for the chocolate graham crackers. Best pie I have ever had!
Yum yum yum!! I made this peanut butter pie for my husbands birthday. It was so delicious and another favorite from HTH. I used Reese’s thins, miniature peanut butter cups from Trader Joe’s, Reese’s peanut butter chips and Hershey’s miniature kisses for the topping and I used Oreos for the crust. This will be made again soon ♡
Can I make this in a 9×13 pan? I have a large crew to feed
Hi Elisabeth! I’m sorry, we haven’t tried that, so I can’t say for sure! Alternatively, you can always make double the recipe and simply make in two pie pans. Let us know how it goes 🙂
Can I substituted Kite Hill cream cheese made with Almond milk rather than regular cream cheese?
Hi Maura! I’m sorry, but we haven’t tried that so we cannot say for sure! If you give that a try, please let us know how it goes 🙂
I made this one for a pie contest and I received first place.. It was awesome.. I also have had friends request this for there birthday pie. It is so good and decadent,,
Woohoo! Congratulations, Lisa! That’s amazing 🙂
I’ve been making a version of this for a long time but make A crust with crushed Nilla wafers and pretzels. It’s so good! I usually use regular Jif peanut butter but now I want to use natural peanut butter with no added sugar. It’s a little bit more runny, but do you think it will work OK?
Hi Carrie! Tessa has included tips for this in the pink tip box, above the recipe! As she mentions there, “Any kind of “natural” peanut butter that doesn’t include an added oil to stabilize the mixture will result in a pie filling that will become oily and separated. If you must use natural peanut butter, make sure it’s extremely well stirred and smooth before using.” Happy baking 🙂
This was a huge hit with the grandkids. We used chocolate animal crackers with a bit of sugar for the crust. So good. Topped it with some Reese’s pieces and tiny peanut butter cups.
I made this today to take to a friend’s for dinner. It came out great! Highly recommend! I used chocolate teddy grahams for the crust and added Reese’s pieces candies to the top!
For the melted peanut butter and chocolate on top; what did you use? How did you melt? I used chocolate chips and peanut butter chips, and when they hardened, it made the pie hard to cut. Is that normal? Other than that, it was delicious, and as big of a hit you said it’d be!
Hi Jessica! We typically just melt the chocolate and peanut butter (separately) in microwave-safe bowls in short increments until melted. If you’re worried about the chocolate cracking when you cut it up, you can leave the pie out for a bit before slicing and serving – or skip the drizzle entirely. You can also use melted peanut butter, rather than peanut butter chips. I hope that helps 🙂
I may have missed it but what are the measurements for the topping? How much
Melted peanut butter, Melted chocolate, Mini Reese’s cups and Peanut butter chips? Thank you! Lora
Hi Lora! Tessa didn’t include measurements for the topping because it’s totally up to you how much you use 🙂 Drizzle and top til your heart’s content 😉 Happy baking!
I’ve made many different peanut butter pies and this one takes the cake! It’s not dense and heavy like others tend to be and instead really light and airy! It’s not too rich and has just the right amount of peanut butter!