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 pie was fantastic! I couldn’t find chocolate graham crackers so used your suggestion of chocolate teddy grahams and the crust was great. The filling is probably the best pie filling I’ve ever had and it was a huge hit for my PB pie loving husband. I ended up only topping it with a little whipped cream and Reese’s peanut butter cups and the sweetness level was perfect in our opinions
CAN I SUBSTITUTE COOL WHIP FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM?
Yes
How much cool whip?
I have made this several times and it’s always a hit.
I made this last week. I used store bought chocolate crust, drizzled melted chocolate on the top and then garnished with chocolate and reeces chips. It was good, but not quite sweet enough. I made it again and added a bit more sugar to the filling and it was just right. The whole family loved it and none of it went to waste.
So happy this pie was such a hit, Heather! 🙂
Hello my name is Izzy, I don’t have any heavy cream can I use whipped cream instead?
Hi Izzy! Whipped cream won’t work quite the same in this recipe as heavy cream, unfortunately, as it won’t properly thicken the filling. We recommend sticking with heavy cream for best results!
Hello Emily and Izzy,
If she whips the actual Whipped cream first it will thicken up.
I don’t have any whipping cream… can I use whole milk?
Unfortunately, no. Milk doesn’t whip up quite the same as heavy whipping cream! The filling wouldn’t thicken properly and would be very runny.
Can I use simply 5 Hershey syrup instead of melted chocolate?
Hi Kelly! We haven’t tested that, so I can’t say for sure, but it should be just fine. Just note that chocolate syrup will not solidify like melted chocolate once put in the fridge, and it will be a little sweeter, too. If you try it, let us know how it goes! Happy Baking!
I didn’t have heavy cream so I whipped aquafaba with a little meringue powder, powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla and it worked! This recipe is delicious and I will definitely make it again!
Loved it, cut down on the graham cracker crust and used a chocolate ganache for on top but otherwise amazing
Absolutely delicious! My family really enjoyed it!
We used oreos for the crust instead of chocolate graham crackers. I did not use a sweetened peanut butter such as JIF and really liked it. I used Kirkland Natural Peanut Butter instead. My 8 year old said he wanted it to be sweeter, but I preferred it less sweet.
It was hard not to take a break at the whipped cream stage and use all of it on hot chocolate instead! So good!
Perfect recipe! I made this for my coworkers for a “pie themed” potluck lunch and everyone asked for the recipe. Absolutely loved it1
To my great embarrassment, I cannot for the life of me find the link to the video for this delicious sounding pie that is mentioned above (“I’ve accompanied this recipe with a step-by-step video”) . Would you mind pointing me in the right direction? Thanks so much, and my apologies for my poor old eyes!
Hi John! No problem at all – it is actually inside the recipe card, just below the last instruction. If you’re looking at the recipe itself, simply scroll down just a tad and you should find it. Let us know if you have any issues! Happy baking 🙂