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!
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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:
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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.
This turned out amazing really good flavor
I’m making this and don’t have 6 hours to refrigerate. Can I freeze 1 hour and cut down refrigeration time? Is it better using the freezing or refrigeration time?
Hi Kimberly! The purpose of the chill/freeze time here is to allow the pie to set, for the best texture when enjoying. You can definitely freeze instead of chilling, as Tessa mentions in the recipe, but we have found that about 3 hours in the freezer is needed to set the pie properly – but it’s definitely possible that you may be able to get away with less chill time in a pinch. Let us know how it goes!
So easy and absolutely delicious!
Excited to try this for my peanut butter loving family. At step 3, do you chill the pie covered or uncovered?
Hi Gina! Either way will work just fine, but I typically cover the pie at this stage, using the cover my pie plate came with. I hope that helps! Let us know what your family thinks of this pie 🙂
Can I make peanut butter mousse without whipped cream? And how long can it be refrigerated if you make a separate peanut butter mousse? Is it better to make a peanut butter mousse and serve it every morning by filling it in the pie or refrigerating it the night before?
Hi Choi! No, the whipped cream is a vital part of the mousse filling here. Feel free to experiment without it, but your mixture won’t be as light, fluffy and delicious. We haven’t tried making this into a mousse (rather than the pie) but the same storage instructions and shelf-life apply. I recommend checking out the Tip Box (above the recipe) for freezing instructions, if you need to keep the pie/filling longer than a couple of days. If you assemble the pie the night before, it will still be perfect to serve the following day. I hope that helps!
Is this pie the consistency of pumpkin pie or is it creamy? I have been asked to make a non creamy peanut butter pie
Hi Allison! It is definitely on the creamier side, not set custard like pumpkin pie. We think it’s the most delicious peanut butter pie ever, but it sounds like the texture may not be what you’re looking for, sorry!
This pie absolutely leaves all those mediocre peanut butter pies you’ve ever known in the dust! It was so thick, creamy, and tall, with plenty of PB flavor. I made it with a normal graham cracker crust using the recommended recipe, and since it made so much, I made it in a springform pan instead of a normal pie pan, which really just upped the presentation in my book. I made it the night before and let it sit overnight, and then I topped it with melted chocolate, melted PB, and mini PB cups right before serving. Overall, a total crowd-pleaser and win- totally making this again!
Can I half this recipe?
Hi Kaitlin! We haven’t tried that, and I’m not sure what size pan you would need for a half batch. It should work just fine – you’ll just need to experiment with the perfect sized pan that’s half the volume of the recommended pan size. Let us know how it goes 🙂
My family loved this pie!
This peanut butter pie was a HIT! The one “complaint” that I received was that a small slice was “too much!” but that it was absolutely delicious.
I ended up making them into mini pies so my friends and family wouldn’t feel as guilty about eating them.
I baked the crust at 350° for ~5 minutes and followed the rest of the recipe as written. I used a standard cupcake/muffin pan and I was able to make about 16 mini pies. I did have crust left over, but it was used as ice cream toppings. The mini pies were an even bigger hit than the actual pie since they were handheld so this is how I’ll continue to make it in the future. Thank you Tessa and team for another amazing recipe!
made this for a family gathering and got HUGE rave!!!
can I use sweetened condensed milk instead of heavy cream
We wouldn’t recommend that as sweetened condensed milk and heavy cream are two very different products. The texture of your pie will be different, and the sweetened condensed milk will also add too much sweetness to the pie, whereas the heavy cream perfectly balances the sweetness.