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.
I’m planning to make this two days in advance, travel with it for 5 hours in the car the next day, and then serve it the following day. Would you advise freezing it overnight before putting it in a cooler or just keep it refrigerated and then cold on the drive?
Hi Michelle! I’d recommend freezing it and keeping it in a cooler with ice during your drive, then placing it in the fridge overnight when you arrive at your destination. Hope it’s a huge hit! 🙂
I used your recipe to make a birthday pie for my wife’s co-workers. It was an immense hit. They asked me to make two, so one could be raffled off as a fund raising. I gladly made them four.
Thank you,
Ben
Wow, what a compliment! So happy to hear your pies were such a hit, Ben 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
The winning bid for YOUR peanut butter pie was $75. Now that’s a compliment. Thank you.
I love this pie! Every time I make it, it is a huge hit! Since I can’t easily find chocolate graham crackers, I usually substitute in Goya Maria cookies. They are a chocolate cookie. They are great substitution and the size of the package (198.6 g) is just slightly more than the 196 grams.
Can i use powered truvia instead of regular?
This pie was delicious. I made an Oreo cookie crust using Oreo Thins instead which was very complimentary.
How many Oreo Thins did you use?
So what’s the reason for making chantilly instead of just putting all the icing sugar and vanilla into the pb base and folding in plain whipped cream?
This pie is so easy to make and so delicious!! We are Ohio state fans so this was an easier alternative to buckeyes for game day!
Can I use crunchy peanut butter?
We haven’t tried that, but I don’t see why not! Let us know what you think if you give it a try.
Does the pie crust have to be baked? I would like to make these into individual mini desserts in plastic.
Yes, it needs to be baked; otherwise, it will be too crumbly. Feel free to search for a no-bake crust recipe online and swap it in! Mini peanut butter pie desserts sound delicious—let us know how they turn out 🙂
I made the crust recipe as follows but divided it between 12 foil cupcake papers and baked it 325’ for 10 minutes. Then I just divided the filling. They were perfect just like the pie.
Do you freeze the pie before adding the toppings?
Amazing pie! I’ve made this with natural peanut butter and as long as it’s frozen, I find it doesn’t separate. I’ve also used Oreos for the crust when I don’t have access to chocolate graham crackers or teddy grahams, and they work well too. Thank you!
Do you freeze pie before putting on toppings
Where is the link to the video? I’ve looked all over the page and can’t find it, am I missing it?
Doug, search on “recipe notes”; the video is immediately above it (as of Aug 2025 anyway!)