No-bake chocolate-covered Peanut Butter Balls recipe, also known as chocolate dipped buckeye balls, are the best tasty treat perfect for the Christmas season. Learn how to make these homemade Reese's peanut butter cups that are so easy and made with only 3 ingredients plus the wonderful flavor of vanilla!
Why This Recipe is the Best
These no-bake Peanut Butter Balls are a nostalgic treat that never goes out of style. With a creamy peanut butter center coated in rich chocolate, they're perfect for both holiday celebrations and everyday sweet cravings. We love how easy they are to make with simple pantry staples, and how versatile they are-decorate them for Christmas, serve them chilled in the summer, or stash them in the freezer for anytime snacking. It's a foolproof recipe that always disappears fast!
Try our other chocolate-dipped recipes like chocolate covered pecans, chocolate covered blueberries, and chocolate covered cashews.
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Key Ingredients
Below is a list of ingredients needed for this recipe. Follow our tips on each ingredient for best results.
- Peanut Butter- Skippy, JIF, and Peter Pan are the best brands to use. Don't use natural peanut butter for this recipe; it will make it too runny and hard to form the balls. We recipe tested this multiple times with natural peanut butter and had to add so much extra powdered sugar to make them that they weren't worth it.
- Melting wafers or chocolate- For best dipping experience, I recommend Ghirardelli. Often off-brand chocolate has weird melting properties, making it hard to have a clean, beautiful dipped ball.
How to Make Peanut Butter Balls
Use these process shots to help get the results you want. The pictures can help with texture and be a visual guide for best results.
- Whip the peanut butter, butter, and vanilla until it's light and fluffy. You'll want to use an electric hand mixer.
- Add in the powdered sugar and mix. It will get a little tougher to mix and will make a dough-like mixture.
- Form the peanut butter dough into small balls. Place on parchment paper.
- Stab the balls with a toothpick and dip them into melted chocolate. Place them back on the parchment paper to set.
Hint: Mix the peanut butter and butter together until completely smooth. If it is lumpy at all, your completed peanut butter balls will be lumpy too.
Common Mistakes
If the chocolate cools and starts becoming too thick, simply place it back in the microwave in 10-second intervals until desired consistency is reached. While testing this recipe, I found that each time I made it, I re-microwaved the chocolate about 4 times!
Top tip
I recommend doing this in a cool environment, if possible. About 72° F or less. If it's warmer, the peanut butter balls can get goopy, making them harder to form into balls and harder to dip in the chocolate.
Recipe
Easy Peanut Butter Balls
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup peanut butter not natural
- 5 Tablespoons butter softened, I used salted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 10 ounce melting wafers or chocolate I recommend Ghirardelli
Instructions
- Using a mixer, beat the peanut butter, butter and vanilla together on high until completely smooth, 1-3 minutes. Beat in the powdered sugar on low until well combined, around 30-60 seconds. See process photos above for a visual on what this should look like.
- Form the mixture into 1" balls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Chill for 20-30 minutes. Mine made about 40.
- In a microwave safe bowl, microwave the chocolate in 30 second intervals, stirring after each interval until fully melted. Using a toothpick or a cake pop stick, poke it about halfway into the peanut butter ball. Dip in the chocolate until completely covered, then place back on the parchment lined baking sheet. Microwave the chocolate for 15 seconds if it starts to thicken to make it thin again.
- Dip all the balls then place remaining chocolate in a ziploc baggy and snip off a tiny corner. Use the chocolate to make designs on the chocolates, if desired. Chill for 10 more minutes then enjoy!
Notes
- Use a scale to get the measurements exact, for more uniformity in size, if desired.
- Store at room temperature (but not above 76°F) for up to 5 days.
- Freeze for up to 2 months. We recommend if you freeze them, to only partially thaw them before serving as they may get a little gooey and/or weep a bit.
- Check out our variations section above for directions on how to make these with oats, Rice Krispies, Cheerios or Corn Flakes.
- Don't try to roll these in cooled chocolate or it will just clump everywhere and your peanut butter will come off into the chocolate. Instead, as it cools just microwave it another 15 seconds to warm it back up.
- Don't skip the chill time! While recipe testing we found the peanut butter balls too difficult to work with if they hadn't been chilled. If working with double or triple batches, don't get all the peanut butter balls out at once, or they will thaw too much. Just get out a few at a time.
Nutrition
If you are looking for a Christmas-style treat, try making these with our Grinch Truffles, Christmas Crack recipe, and Sugar Cookies Truffles. They make great gifts.
Variations
We love switching things up when we're in the kitchen. Try any of these variations for something a little different.
- oatmeal, rice krispies, Cheerios, or corn flakes- To add rolled oats and make this oatmeal style, decrease powdered sugar by ¼ cup and add ¾ cups oats, krispies, Cheerios, or corn flakes. Add more peanut butter if necessary to loosen.
- Graham cracker- For a honey ball taste, reduce powdered sugar by ¼ cup, then add ½ cup crushed Graham.
- Coconut - add in sweetened coconut flakes to the peanut butter mixture.
- Dates- To sweeten without sugar, try adding ½ cup blended dates to the peanut butter instead of powdered sugar. The texture will be different, and you may need to add a cereal or rolled oats to thicken it up.
- Oreos- Make these Oreo-inspired by crushing up ½ cup of Oreos and adding them to the peanut butter mixture. Roll as usual and then sprinkle more crushed Oreos on top of the melted chocolate for a decorative look.
- Pretzel- To add a pretzel taste, you can either crush up ½ cup of Pretzels and add it to the mixed "dough", or you can add a pretzel rod to the dipped balls to use as an edible lollipop stick.
- No chocolate- Make this a honey ball with no chocolate by using the powdered milk, or oatmeal variation. Or just skip the melted chocolate portion and enjoy these sweetened peanut butter bites.
- White Chocolate or Almond Bark - These tasty no-cook balls can be dipped with white chocolate instead of milk chocolate.
Storage
Store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Or store them on the counter, in an air-tight container, for 5 days.
You can also freeze this tasty treat and a freezer-friendly container for 2 months. Enjoy frozen or thaw partially in the refrigerator before serving. If you thaw them all the way, they get goopy.
FAQ
Making this tasty no bake dessert is so easy. It uses only 3 ingredients and vanilla to add an additional tasty flavor. To make this tasty dessert simply add peanut butter, butter, and vanilla to a mixing bowl. Add in the powdered sugar until a dough is formed. Roll the dough into balls and dip them into melted chocolate. Let set and enjoy!
Yes! They are so yummy when frozen, but eat frozen or nearly frozen/ slightly thawed or they will get gooey.
The best way to dip peanut butter balls is to place a toothpick into the formed ball of dough. Dip the ball into the melted chocolate, holding onto the toothpick. This will help you get all the sides of the dough. Place on a parchment paper to rest and set.
Try refrigerating the dough for 30 minutes to harden the dough. Or you can coat your hands in oil before rolling. If you need to, add more powdered sugar to the mixture to thicken.
This tasty treat is so simple and easy it's made with 3 simple ingredients. Using peanut butter like Skippy or Jif, whip the peanut butter, softened butter, and vanilla together. Roll in melted chocolate.
Andrea says
No-bake chocolate peanut butter balls are so tasty! My family loves making them. It's like a chocolate covered buckeye!