Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie with Walnut Crust

Rich and decadent but a lot less sweet than other versions, this Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie will soon become one of your favorites to serve to family and friends for dessert! It's a quick, easy, and failproof pie that comes together so nicely. 

How did we come up with this recipe?  Well, the original version of the recipe came from the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummand. However, her recipe calls for twice the amount of sugar, as well as a chocolate cookie crust, and it has no cocoa powder in it.  We tried her recipe but found it way too sweet for our liking.  We were also concerned about how many carbs it contained. It definitely wasn't glycemic index friendly.  I began to play around with her recipe, adjusting the sugar, adding in cocoa powder, replacing the cookie pie crust with a walnut version, and viola!  We've made this pie several times over the past year, and it now occurs to me that it is worth sharing our version with everyone. We hope you like it!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie Recipe

Ingredients

Crust:

We recommend a pre-made Walnut Pie Crust by Diamond, as shown here. Diamond makes a Pecan version of this pie crust that is also fantastic in this recipe.

You can find the nut pie crusts in the baking aisle of the grocery store near where graham cracker crusts are located. Most grocery stores now carry these, including Walmart.

Filling:

1 cup peanut butter (either chunky or creamy - whichever you prefer!)

1 package cream cheese (8 ounces), softened

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tub Cool Whip (8 ounces), thawed

Instructions:

1. Using a stand mixer or rotary mixer, beat the peanut butter and cream cheese until smooth.  
2. Carefully stir in the powdered sugar and cocoa powder (so they don't go poof!), and then once it starts to come together, beat again until smooth. Then stir in the Cool Whip.
3. Pour the filling into the pie crust and smooth the top with a spoon or spatula.
4. Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

Additional Notes:

• It really does help to let your cream cheese and Cool Whip thaw before trying to mix them. But, if you're impatient (like me), it doesn't ruin the pie to try to use them before they've softened. It just makes for very hard mixing.
• To reduce the amount of sugar even more in the pie, you could use sugar free Cool Whip and a peanut butter that contains no sugar.  Just be careful that the peanut butter is not too runny, nor too dry, as anything with a less standard texture may affect the thickness of the pie.
• The pie keeps very well for several days in the refrigerator.  Keep it covered (we keep it in a cake container so nothing touches the top of it).