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Lighter No Bake-Peanut Butter Bars are a way to satisfy your peanut butter craving without the guilt! You know those peanut butter bars? The ones with a whole stick of butter and a pound of powdered sugar? Yeah, these bars are just like those but lightened up!
Table of Contents
Easy Peanut Butter Bars
I love those no bake peanut butter bars that taste like a peanut butter cup, don’t you? While it’s totally fine to eat the real thing, my problem is I can’t stop once I start. That’s why I made these lightened up peanut butter bars – that way I can eat more of them!
Why you’ll love this recipe
- Easy and No Bake
- Lightened up ingredients like low fat crackers and white chocolate instead of a ton of sugar.
- I really liked these bars – they’re rich in peanut butter flavor, perfectly sweet without being overly so, and they’re crunchy from the Ritz. They also have the distinction of being dairy-free (if chocolate doesn’t bother you), which makes them a great party treat.
How to make Lightened Up Peanut Butter Bars
- White Chocolate: The original recipes uses butter, which has a lot of fat and calories. I used white chocolate instead, which has less fat. The chips have sugar, while butter doesn’t, but they help bind the bars together without all the bad fats from the butter.
- Honey: Have you seen how much powdered sugar goes into the regular peanut butter bars recipe? It’s a lot! I got rid of the powdered sugar completely by using honey. That, combined with the sugar from the white chocolate, makes these just as sweet as the originals, but more naturally so.
- Ritz Crackers Honestly, I don’t think there’s a huge difference between pretzels and graham crackers and Ritz. They’re all carblicious, but I used low-fat Ritz.
- Chocolate: Normally I coat the tops of these bars in peanut butter and chocolate. For these, I just mixed some mini chocolate chips into the dough. I love using mini chips because you get a lot of bang for your buck (you can use less and still taste them in every bite).
- Peanut Butter: Use regular no-stir peanut butter. For an even lower fat version, use reduced fat peanut butter.
Expert Tips
- One tube of Ritz crackers has about 31 crackers in it, which yields about 1 1/3 cups of crushed crackers.
- These aren’t a health food – they still have sugar, fat, and calories, but they’re just a lightened up version.
- Once you have all the ingredients you just stir them together and press them in the pan – super easy!
Lighter No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars
These EASY No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars have less calories and fat than my normal version. They use white chocolate instead of butter, honey instead of cups of powdered sugar, and low-fat Ritz crackers for binding!
Prep Time 20 minutes
Chill Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 cup (268g) creamy peanut butter (no-stir peanut butter only)
- ¼ cup (43g) white chocolate chips
- ½ cup honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 ⅓ cups crushed low-fat Ritz crackers (about 1 sleeve or 31 crackers)
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Line an 8×8” square pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
- Place peanut butter in a large bowl.
- Melt the white chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave on 50% power in 30 second increments, stirring between each, until melted and smooth.
- Add white chocolate to peanut butter along with honey and vanilla and stir until smooth. Stir in crushed Ritz crackers. (I crushed them by placing them in a large ziploc bag and rolling the bag with a rolling pin.) Stir in mini chocolate chips.
- Press mixture into prepared pan. Chill at least 3 hours, then cut into squares. These are firm from the refrigerator but get quite soft at room temperature, so be sure to plan for that.
Recipe Notes
- You can use reduced fat peanut butter if you want, but be sure to use a no-stir peanut butter no matter what flavor.
- One tube of Ritz crackers has about 31 crackers in it, which yields about 1 1/3 cups of crushed crackers.
- These aren’t a health food – they still have sugar, fat, and calories, but they’re just a lightened up version.
Recipe Nutrition
Serving: 1bar | Calories: 88kcal | Carbohydrates: 9g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.03g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 53mg | Potassium: 49mg | Fiber: 0.5g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 6IU | Vitamin C: 0.04mg | Calcium: 13mg | Iron: 0.3mg
Nutritional information not guaranteed to be accurate
Peanut Butter Favorites
Last Updated on February 22, 2023
Oooh! The honey-salty-crunchy-nutty thing you have going on here sounds so addicting. These are the kind of bars that you have to store in the back of the freezer to keep from decimating the entire batch.
Oh yes, for sure that!!
You have me totally intrigued. Both by the peanut butter bars which sound yummy and by the show you were talking about: Newsroom. Although I am so depressed already that this is the last season of Downton Abbey that I am not sure that I can handle being depressed about another show as well!
I need to watch Downton Abbey. It’s on my list!!
Girl these don’t look skinny at all!!! I mean not one bit. I have to try these.
YUM! I’m all for a little bit lighter treat that still taste fabulous and these are calling my name! I’m also all about binge watching 🙂
Love that you turned your regular bars into a skinny version!! Peanut butter and chocolate is a fave combo for me and I will have to make these bars! The only thing I’m concerned about is the white chocolate. I don’t like the taste of white chocolate, so will I taste it, or not? If so, do you think I could sub in something else like marshmallow fluff? Thanks Dorthy!
– Madeline<3
I didn’t taste it, but I know how sometimes when you don’t like something you totally can, does that make sense? You can use chocolate chips (but then they’ll turn out more brown in color) but they’ll taste just as good (or better, IMO!)
Ok thanks Dorthy! I love regular chocolate chips so I think I’ll try that, and yes, I what you mean about being able to taste something if you don’t like it. It’s happened to me before!
– Madeline<3
Sadly, I don’t have Amazon Prime so I can’t binge watch all these shows. If I did, I’d be snacking on your no-bake bars!
I’m not above eating sugar when I’m sad :). Looks delicious!
Om y gosh I just LOVED Newsroom! You should also try Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which was another Aaron Sorkin show – also great. In the meantime, I am absolutely loving these easy lightened peanut butter bars – YUM!
I’ll have to add that one to my list too! So many great shows. 🙂
Oh these bars look SO good! Anything that’s no-bake and involves peanut butter is a winner in my book. And I love that you used white chocolate in place of butter!
I so agree- peanut butter is so much better!
My students got me into Newsroom. The best scene is that very first one, where he goes into that long rant about why America is not the best country in the world. Amazing scene.
Now I’m busy binge-watching Heroes. I’m 10 years behind! But it’s really good.
I’m with you on the mini chocolate chips. Their flavor just goes everywhere, and you don’t need to use that many. Love this lightened version!
Oh yes. I could watch that scene over and over and over!
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