These healthy peanut butter cups are nutritious, delicious and made with good-for-you ingredients. All you need are a few simple ingredients including all-natural peanut butter, cocoa powder, maple syrup, and Himalayan sea salt!
Linley and I recently gave this recipe a remake, by perfecting the creaminess and flavor. Since so many of you have flipped out with pure enjoyment over these so we thought we’d turn this easy, must-make recipe into a video! Why? Because it’s legit the best peanut butter cup recipe I’ve ever tried and better yet, they’re made with real, whole ingredients!
Can’t Eat Just One
If you’re anything like me, it’s going to be hard to eat just one of these. I mean…peanut butter + chocolate = love and that’s just the truth. This recipe is amazing for so many reasons, but mostly because I love peanut butter cups. I’m totally the type of person that always needs something sweet after dinner and these for sure hit the spot.
These healthy peanut butter cups double as a freezer fudge because, well, they’re made with coconut oil! They live in the freezer until you need to sink your teeth into them, but don’t worry, they don’t even need to thaw in order to eat them! Guess what else? They triple as a peanut butter fat bomb because they’re made with a peanut butter and coconut oil base, which make the healthy fats count super high. Here’s what you need to make these babes.
Healthy Peanut Butter Cup Essentials
- All-Natural Peanut Butter
- Coconut Oil
- Maple Syrup
- Cocoa Powder
- Himalayan Sea Salt
- Vanilla Extract
PS: if you’re allergic to peanuts, you can sub any nut butter. Feel free to also use honey or agave in place of maple.
Homemade Peanut Butter Cup Tips
Since these are a fan favorite and have been made time and time again, I thought I would give some tips on how to have the most success when making these homemade peanut butter cups.
Storage: Once your peanut butter cups have frozen, we suggest transferring them out of the muffin tin and into a large, freezer-safe gallon-size bag and storing them in the freezer. This is what we do at least! They should last for about 3 months or longer.
Coconut Oil: Unfortunately we don’t recommend swapping any other oil for the coconut oil in these healthy peanut butter cups. The only other alternative that I can think of is using extremely oily peanut butter, which essentially has more peanut oil in it than actual peanut butter!
Peanut Butter: We recommend using an all natural, drippy peanut butter for this recipe. Brands we love include Smuckers All Natural, Trader Joe’s All Natural, or Fresh Thyme All Natural.
Freezer: You’ll notice in the recipe that these homemade peanut butter cups need to live in the freezer. This is because they are part coconut oil, which melts easily. With that said, these cups will last in the freezer for up to 3 months!
Consistency: If your peanut butter cups are too thick, add a tablespoon more of coconut oil. If they are too thick add a tablespoon more of peanut butter!
More Healthy Peanut Butter Cups
- Crunchy Rice Crispy Peanut Butter Cups
- Protein Peanut Butter Cups
- Pumpkin Peanut Butter Cups
- Peanut Butter and Jelly Cups
- 6 Healthy Nut Butter Cup Recipes
- ALL Fat Bombs
Homemade Peanut Butter Cups Video
Healthy Peanut Butter Cups
These healthy peanut butter cups are nutritious, delicious and made with good-for-you ingredients. All you need are a few simple ingredients including all-natural peanut butter, cocoa powder, maple syrup, and Himalayan sea salt!
Ingredients
Bottom Layer (chocolate)
- 1/3 cup all-natural peanut butter, creamy*
- 2.5 tablespoons melted coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
Top Layer (peanut butter)
- 1/3 cup all natural peanut butter, creamy
- 2 tablespoons melted coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- Himalayan sea salt
Instructions
- Line a muffin tin with 12 muffin liners. Spray with coconut oil cooking spray and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, stir all ingredients for the bottom layer (chocolate) together until smooth. Set aside.
- In another medium bowl, stir all ingredients for the top layer (peanut butter) together until smooth. Set aside.
- Scoop a heaping 1/2 tablespoon of the chocolate layer into each muffin cup. Repeat until you’ve filled around 12 cups. Then, pick up the entire muffin tin and shake and tap until the layer is set evenly. You should get around 12 cups.
- Repeat the same thing with the peanut butter layer, plopping around 1/2 tablespoon on top of the chocolate layer. Pick up the entire muffin tin one last time and shake and tap until your cups are even.
- Finally, sprinkle each cup with some Himalayan sea salt.
- Place muffin tin in the freezer for 30 minutes or until firm. Enjoy!
- Store healthy peanut butter cups in the freezer to enjoy for later.
Tips & Notes
- Make sure you are using an all natural, drippy peanut butter for this recipe. We recommend Smuckers All Natural, Trader Joe’s All Natural, or Fresh Thyme All Natural.
- Store healthy peanut butter cups in the freezer to enjoy for later.
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 cup Calories: 157 Sugar: 5 Fat: 13 Saturated Fat: 6 Carbohydrates: 8 Fiber: 1 Protein: 4Keywords: Peanut Butter Cups
Amazing… nice recipe, love it
★★★★★
Made these and topped with my FAVE flaky salt- Maldon Salt! So delish! Sharing this recipe with all pb/choc lovers!!
★★★★★
OH WOW love that salt idea!
Both me and my spouse loved this! I made mine in a 12 piece silicone mold tray and used monk fruit sweetener powder instead of maple syrup to reduce sugar. The only downside is the calories and hard to stop eating too many LOL
PS: I believe Himalayan pink salt is a mountain salt not sea salt. I used sea salt and I’m sure it works great with pink salt too.
★★★★★
SOOOO good, right?!
These look great and I’m really eager to try them! I just recently started keto and also want to substitute erythritrol for the maple sugar. How does that change the calories / carbs?
Made this today and it is absolutely amazing
I doubled the choc mixture and put more again on the top as I didn’t have enough.
But it is seriously delicious! Will make again.
Thank you 😀
★★★★★
These were so delicious. My first time making them and they’re pretty much no fail. Except that I noticed mine melt quite quickly after taking them out of the freezer to eat, i.e., within 5 mins. Any way to keep these together for longer ?
Absolutely amazing! I love this recipe. The second time I made it, I used sunflower seed butter-equally delish!
★★★★★
These were amazing! I made mine in tiny muffin cups (the kind you’d use for holding a small caramel or other candy) – perfect snack sized treat for my partner and I at the end of the day.
I did find the coconut flavour from my oil was a bit strong, I think next time I would put shredded coconut in the plain peanut butter filling so it felt more like it belonged. For those of you with a less pungent coconut oil I think the flavour would be perfect.
★★★★★
SO GOOD! I have such a sweet tooth and this has been a life saver this week for when a craving hits (usually right after dinner). Absolutely delicious.
★★★★★
These are so easy to make and absolutely delish! Yummmmmm!!!
★★★★★
Made this and loved it. Thank you!!!
★★★★★
Hello!
I haven’t made this recipe. Two Comments:
1. I found this recipe via a link on “Eat This, Not That, at: https://www.eatthis.com/peanut-butter-recipes-for-flat-abs/ (It is recipe #4). However, they list the nutritional information for your recipe as: 106 calories, 9.8g fat (4.9g saturated), 1mg sodium, 3.1g carbs, 1.2g fiber,0.9g sugar, 3g protein.
2. In your notes, above, you wrote: “Consistency: If your peanut butter cups are too thick, add a tablespoon more of coconut oil. If they are too thick add a tablespoon more of peanut butter!”
I am thinking that the second sentence should read: If they are too THIN add a tablespoon more of peanut butter”
Thanks for all you do.
I love these. I substituted mint extract for the vanilla for a Twist. I prefer it. I also make them mini instead. The larger ones were too rich for me.
★★★★★
You put peanut butter in the chocolate mix to me the two layers look the same is this correct ?
These were easy and tasted amazing, I went ahead and added unsweetened coconut flakes to some of them and it also tasted amazing, 100% would make these again my husband already requested them for his work potluck.
★★★★★
I am going to makes these! THANKS
Has anyone successfully tried an alternative from coconut oil? Still planning to make them, but my boyfriend is allergic to coconut so I’d loved to find an alternative from him to enjoy too!
★★★★★
Why does the link to this recipe show different nutritional information than it shows here?
What link are you referring to?!
I am very uncomfortable with calling maple syrup a healthy alternative to sugar. According to Healthline.com,
“Maple syrup contains some minerals and over 24 different
antioxidants. It’s slightly “less bad” than regular sugar, but you
shouldn’t go out of your way to eat it.”
(source: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/natural-sugar-substitutes#section3
That same article suggests Stevia, Xylitol, and Erythritol as the best sweeteners for people trying to maintain a healthy diet that limits blood sugar spikes. If we all just gave up all added sugars altogether, we’d be a lot healthier, and the rates of type 2 diabetes would plummet!
FYI: I wonder why my review is centering each line?! Hope it doesn’t post that way, because it looks awfully weird!
Is this recipe Vegan? I want to make them for a friend but I wasn’t sure…
It sure is!
I made these on a Sunday and doubled the ingredients for a qty of 24. On Tuesday night I had to make another 24! We ALL absolutely loved them! They are addicting! Thanks so much for such a great recipe.
★★★★★
LOL! Yasss that’s amazing!
Made these yummy cups today
I was wondering if coconut oil could be reduced?
★★★★★
Hi! If you use drippy enough nut butter, you can reduce the coconut oil!