Peanut butter bars are a firm family favorite when it comes to sweet treat and dessert recipes, but why not mix things up with some additional pretzels?
Peanut butter is enjoyed all across the entire world thanks to its added crunch or flavor, so if you want to make your family favorite treat even better, then it’s time to bake peanut butter pretzel bars!
Check out the easy no-bake recipe below to make your own peanut butter pretzel bars to serve up to your family!
Why Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars?
As we mentioned earlier, pretzel bars and peanut butter are both family favorite flavors and treats. When combined, the two help make a delicious treat that is so good, it’s easy to forget to stop eating.
It puts all other salty sweet treats to shame (such as boring, smooth peanut butter bars), so why not check out the recipe below and try making your own to serve up to your friends and family?
This recipe is super easy as there is no baking required! All you need is to refrigerate your bars, so there’s no heat needed – well, apart from a little microwaving! This means that this recipe is all prep time and no baking!
Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars Ingredients
If you want to try to bake peanut butter pretzel bars yourself, you will first need all the right ingredients. You will need:
- 16 ounces of mini pretzels – pretzels help make up much of the crust of the pretzel bars and bring a salty flavor with them. If you can’t find mini pretzels, then just use broken pretzels instead. Save 1 cup as your reserved pretzels for later garnishing.
- 1 cup of peanut butter – for this, you can use peanut butter spread. It’s used to bring a nutty taste to your squares and help make them delicious to eat when combined with the other ingredients!
- 2 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips – these bring a rich, chocolate taste to your pretzel bars for the classic duo of chocolate and peanut butter. You can use dark chocolate chips instead if you wish.
- 3 cups of confectioner’s sugar – this helps make your peanut butter pretzel bars sweet and tasty.
- 1 cup of butter
- Additional ingredients – include shortening for the melted chocolate, a peanut butter cup for each peanut butter pretzel bar.
You will also need some equipment to help you make your peanut butter pretzel bars. You will need a food processor, some parchment paper or foil, a brownie pan, a large mixing bowl, a rolling pin, a sharp knife, and a microwave safe bowl.
This is a no bake recipe so you won’t need any cooking spray or heat from an oven. Just make sure you have a working microwave and fridge!
Then, you are ready to start to make your no bake peanut butter pretzel bars!
Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars Prep Time
Before you start mixing your ingredients, you need to prepare your pan. Take your parchment paper and use it to line your pan. Cut the parchment paper to size and then you will have a prepared pan. If you don’t have any parchment paper, you can also use foil for this as this is a no bake recipe.
Now, let’s start with the ingredients!
First, take a microwave safe bowl and melt your butter in the microwave. You can use a pan and heat for this, but melted butter from a microwave works just as well.
In the food processor, crush your salty pretzels until they become fine crumbs (remember to save at least 1 cup for later). Then, pour those crumbs into your large mixing bowl. Add in the melted butter, peanut butter, sugar, and mix them all together in the large bowl.
Once that is ready, pour the pretzel mixture from the large bowl into your pan. You will need to press the pretzel mixture into your prepared pan. Make sure you press the mixture down into an even layer to serve as your peanut butter base.
In a separate microwave safe bowl, pour in your chocolate chips and melt them in the microwave. This requires little heat so it shouldn’t take long for those chocolate chips to melt into a smooth spread.
Take it out of the microwave a few times to mix, ensuring that all of hte chocolate chips are melted down. Spread your melted chocolate chips over the base crust as a middle layer. Make sure you spread evenly and leave a smooth layer.
Then, you sprinkle your reserved mini pretzels (or crushed pretzels) over the top layer for decoration. If you have any leftover melted chocolate chips, drizzle those over the top too. You can even add a peanut butter cup per slice if you have any but they are not necessary!
Now your peanut butter pretzel bars are completed, it’s time to refrigerate them. Cover them in foil and store them in your refrigerator. Leave them for an hour and then it’s time to serve them!
Serving Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars
After removing your peanut butter pretzel bars from the refrigerator, it’s time to slice them up. Using your knife, cut even squares into your bars and then lift them with ease.
If you want, you can add some powdered sugar for further decoration but if you have no powdered sugar to hand – no biggie! They taste just as delicious without powdered sugar!
So, now all that is left to do is tuck in and enjoy these delicious peanut butter pretzel bars!
Final Thoughts
No bake peanut butter pretzel bars are a great treat to try baking but there are so many recipes out there to try.
If you want to make sweet and salty chocolate and peanut butter bars with ease, then this is the recipe for you. The additional crushed pretzels help enhance the flavor and will leave you with the most amazing peanut butter bars with extra chocolate and pretzels.
With no baking and bars you can easily store for later eating, this recipe is definitely one you will want to try!
