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.
Ridiculously delicious and absolutely perfect. This is exactly what you think of when you think of homemade peanut butter pie. Highly addictive and fluffy. I’ll take a pic the next time I make it because it’s a beautiful dish.
I made this peanut butter pie recently. Tasted amazing, but the peanut butter filling was kind of loose. Any way to firm up the filling, so pie slice stays together on the plate ? I did leave the pie covered in the refrigerator for a couple days.
Try adding a few tablespoons of instant pudding mix.
I beat the cream for a really long time, it was almost like a paste. Turned out great!!
This was so easy to make and absolutely delicious! The heavy whipping cream really makes a difference and is a plus for this pie.
I made this exactly per the recipe and it was wonderful! Everyone loved it and wanted the recipe! Thanks!
I seem to be at a loss finding any video of this recipe on this page…
Hi Bobo! All videos on our site can be found just under the recipe. Here’s a direct link 🙂 Enjoy your pie!
Has anyone ever made this pie with regular graham cracker crust? If so how did you like it? I would prefer that since my family isn’t big on chocolate but does love peanut butter!!
Try it with peanut butter cookies, like the nutter butter cookies! Awesome!
Has anyone made this with a regular graham cracker crust? We don’t like chocolate!!
Hi Lori! We share a few crust variation ideas above the recipe here, and one includes using regular graham crackers 🙂 Enjoy!
I have used a pre-made pie crust, any kind is great. I use whatever crust I have and add chocolate syrup to the bottom and freeze it for 30 minutes or so and then continue with the recipe. Yummy!
Can I substitute half and half for the heavy cream?
Probably not, but it’s worth a shot. I would google something like “can I use half and half to make whipped cream” and see what it says.
We haven’t tried that, but because half-and-half has a lower fat content, the texture and flavor of the filling wouldn’t be the same. I’d recommend sticking with heavy cream for best results!
Great recipe.
I used 1 cup of pb2 powered peanut butter and light cream cheese.
Also, I did a graham cracker crust, added 1/4 cup cocoa powder and cut the butter back to 4 tablespoons (per my normal homemade recipe.)
I was worrried the changes might change the taste and texture and I was so wrong.
This pie is absolutely amazing. Huge hit
This pie is amazing but I wasn’t a fan of the Teddy Grahams crust substitution option. Will try with sandwich cookie crust next time. Giving 5 stars because the pie filling and toppings are absolutely delicious.
Made it with an Oreo crust for a Pi Day competition at work and won 1st prize! Great recipe!
Absolutely wonderful recipe! Easy, quick, and delicious! The hardest part was getting the pie crust even, but after the pie was cut, I was able to remove a slice with the crust intact, so I would say I was successful!
I followed the recipe exactly to create the pie for a potluck-style gathering for some family friends. The theme was funeral food (i.e. food you might eat at a funeral or bring to help out the family of the deceased) because the hosts were mourning the death of their business’s off-season (they own an ice cream parlor and close down in the winter). Please don’t judge our morbid sense of humor. XD
The peanut butter pie was the hit of the night. The host had asked for the recipe during the gathering (I sent it along to her), and she had so many people asking after it that she sent this page to the entire guest list! Definitely a recipe I will keep in my bookmarks for the future!
I made this for my husband’s birthday and it was AMAZING! This is my favourite peanut butter pie recipe I’ve had. I followed the directions and everything worked out perfectly *chef’s kiss*
I’m hoping to make mini/individual-sized versions of this pie for a baby shower I’m hosting. Have you ever tried making these as individual pies using a muffin pan?
I used small decorative shot glasses, mismatched (for that extra fun touch!), HUGE hit at our weekly life group dinner. Best part? Limited calories in those glasses!