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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
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Last Updated on February 22, 2023
I sadly haven’t seen newsroom. To be completely honest I am so wore out in the evenings tv just doesn’t happen, lol! Now, I would definitely make time for these bars and since their skinny eat lots of them!!! 😉
I never watched Parks and Recreation when it was on tv, but I recently started binge watching it on Netflix. Now I love it…of course I also feel behind the times by about five years. Haha. 🙂
As someone who has a deep devotion to peanut butter, I’m so glad these peanut butter bars are lighter. And since I used to have peanut butter smeared on Ritz crackers and graham crackers as a snack back in the day, I really think I’d love these!
Love that you made peanut butter bars lighter! I’ll be trying these soon!
I love that you took a yummy treat and cut some of the extra sugar…and they still taste and look amazing!!! You rock girl!
Having thse in my kitchen = absolutely dangerous! LOL!
ooooh the texture of these bars looks irresistible! I love how you skinnified them, too!
Good thing these are skinny because I will want to eat the whole pan. Aarons Sorkin is actually why I write. I fell in love with The West Wing in sixth grade and knew I wanted to do that … even if I didn’t know what that meant yet. The Newsroom was great and had some showstopping moments. There’s this one with a Coldplay song in the background … OMG. ..I cried so hard. Btw, have you seen Moneyball? It’s my favorite movie.
Ooooh, I’ll have to try Moneyball!! I love Aaron Sorkin so much. 🙂
Wow right down my alley simple to make always have these ingredients on hand. Thanks for another great easy recipe. I
watched Newsroom when it was on cable and hated to see it
end
Enjoy Michelle! And thanks for reading!
These look so yum! Love that they’re lightened up- I always have a craving fro those PB bars that are loaded with powdered sugar and so when I read the first sentence of this post I was thrilled 🙂 Pinning!
Thanks for the pin!!
I love that you made these skinny! I read the title and thought, how did she pull this one of….love all your swaps! And yes to mini chips getting a bang for your buck with chocolate dispersed in every bite!
It wasn’t easy, believe me. I kind of love all that butter and sugar, lol.
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