Ooey gooey chocolate chip peanut butter bars…
The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars
These chocolate chip peanut butter bars are one of the top most popular recipes on my blog – and for very good reason!
When you need a recipe that both meat eaters and vegans love, these bars are an absolute must-try, because they will never let you down.
Of every dessert I’ve ever made, these peanut butter bars are still one of my go-to recipes for parties, because they’re easy to transport, get rave reviews even from guests who aren’t into healthy eating, and you’re pretty much guaranteed no leftovers by the end of the night.
People go crazy for the soft, gooey, peanut buttery texture and melty chocolate in each delicious bite, and they taste like the lovechild of a chocolate chip cookie and a Reeses peanut butter cup!
*There’s now also a chocolate brownie version, so be sure to try the Brownie Batter Bars!
Above – watch the video of making the peanut butter bars!
The peanut butter bars can be:
Vegan
Keto
Gluten Free
Dairy Free
Sugar Free
Egg Free
Grain Free
Soy Free
Paleo
And Oil Free
(For high-protein peanut butter bars, make these Protein Bars.)
Homemade Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars
With chocolate and peanut butter, is it any surprise how good these are?
If Nestlé and Hersheys were to collaborate on a dessert, I’m pretty sure they’d come up with something along the lines of these gooeylicious chocolate chip peanut butter bars.
The recipe was originally adapted from my Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies, and I’ve changed it over the years to make it even better (which I didn’t think was possible, because the original was so good!).
Below is the newest version, which now includes a keto friendly option for those who need it. Everyone should be able to enjoy these crazy delicious peanut butter bars!
(Above, bringing the bars to a party earlier this year. They did not last long!)
If you want a bigger batch, try the popular Ryan Reynolds Blondie Bars.
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup applesauce, or yogurt such as coconutmilk yogurt
- 1 cup peanut butter OR allergy-friendly alternative – nut-free recipe here
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp flour – you can use spelt, white, sorghum, oat, almond, even or buckwheat (50g)
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar of choice or xylitol
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips, optional
- up to 2 tbsp milk of choice, only if needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease an 8-inch pan, or line with parchment. Gently heat nut butter if not already stir-able, then stir in the applesauce and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, stir baking soda, salt, flour, sugar, and chocolate chips. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and keep stirring—it will seem very dry at first, so you’ll need to break up the nut butter and stop occasionally to scrape it off your spoon. If needed, slowly add up to 2 tbsp milk of choice as you stir. Don’t add more milk; it will eventually get gooey like cookie dough. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan. Smooth down evenly. (I press a second sheet of parchment on top to smooth, then remove this sheet.) Press some chocolate chips into the top if desired. Bake 10 minutes. When you take the peanut butter bars out, the top will look set but they will still be very undercooked underneath. This is okay! Leave them to cool for at least 20 minutes, during which time they will firm up. (They also firm up even more overnight.)View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
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Our daughter has fructose malabsorption and it’s so difficult to find yummy things for her but you are amazing! This dessert is fabulous along with all your other recipes we have tried. Thank you!
OMG.
These are to die for!
I normally get a recipe and fiddle with it a bit to get it just right…but these, I wanted to eat the entire pan.
My husband is usually ehhh on keto dessert but he also loves these.
I don’t like to read the whole ‘back story” that everyone wants to include when a recipe is given. I skip it. So when I finally get to the recipe it would be nice is all the info is included *in the recipe*. Reading “Press into prepared pan” isn’t helpful. What size pan? What prep?
I love the look of this recipe. Thanks for all the yummy chocolate recipes! How many chocolate chips are inside? The optional is only listed. Thanks!
DELICIOUS!! They are super duper easy to make, and what’s better than a soft peanut butter cookie. I made a couple modifications per the comments. I used half the amount of coconut sugar, and half the amount of baking soda. They came out super yummy, with almond flour. I think next time (which there WILL be a next time), I might try oat flour, so that they are slightly firmer. 10/10 recommend!!
I found these to be softer than I expected even after they’d cooled completely. (That was without even adding the milk) Also a bit sweeter than I’d like, so if I made these again I’d reduce the sugar, as I think that would make them less soft also. I used equal parts white sugar and brown sugar. I used yogurt and was pleasantly surprised to find that I couldn’t taste it. I stuck them in the fridge overnight so hopefully they’ll be a little firmer today.
Do you need to change the flour amount if you use almond flour? Looks great!
You don’t, but the almond flour version is especially gooey (if you love gooey chocolate chip cookie bars as opposed to cakey ones, this is a good thing). You can definitely add a little extra if you want firmer bars, but they do firm up and are sliceable with the specified flour amount as almond flour 🙂
This looks delicious! May I ask what kind of flour and sugar you used? I’m hoping to make these as close to how you did so it’s in line with the nutrition facts.
I made 2 batches this is actually my second time making them my first time they fell apart but they tasted so damn good I decided to go for it again so…. I made too batches one with yogurt one with apple sauce (I couldn’t remember what I used the first time) I whipped up an egg and divided it evenly into both batches it solved the too dry need a Lil milk issue and the crumbling not solid issue (I agree with the original recipe’s creator Katie, overnight it won’t crumble and is perfectly solid but who wants to wait overnight) this does make it non dairy free non vegan but I wanted keto so it’s still keto friendly and my goal is accomplished I used keto friendly flower and monkfruit sugar (also did 1/2 cup of sugar instead of 2/3 cup to solve that it was too sweet but keto sugar is always sweeter than regularsugar keep that in mind. THANK ME LATER.
These were really delicious! A nice simple recipe that was easy to put together. The chocolate chips and salt are very important. A note: I did bake them for about 5 minutes longer in order to get some colour around the edges. At 10 minutes, it was still very much undercooked. The bars do firm up the longer they sit (I found them to be the most stable about 2 days after baking) as they are quite soft and fragile before then. But still really delicious even when they are very soft
Thank you so much for trying them!