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Okay friends, today I have a fun treat for you. Peanut butter and chocolate puffed rice treats!!!
If you are like “umm, Emily, that is NOT puffed rice you have pictured there. That is rice crispy cereal.” Yes, you are correct. But if you came to this recipe to specifically used puffed rice cereal, then never fear, you can use either type of cereal – puffed rice cereal, or rice crispy cereal!!!
And if you have already made this recipe as the old version, the only actual change to the ingredients is the rice crispy cereal VS the puffed rice cereal. Those two are an even 1 for 1 swap, everything else stayed exactly the same. All I did was update the photos and make the directions of the recipe more cohesive to how I currently write my recipes.
The original post for puffed rice treats was shared in 2014, back when I was a baby, brand new food blogger. That was back in the days when I didn’t test my recipes before sharing them here. I had a recipe idea. I made said recipe, crossed my fingers and hoped that it turned out okay, and photographed it in the same day. Occasionally that worked out for me, such as these puffed rice treats turned out great. Hence, the reason I didn’t need to change anything when I tested them recently to update the post.
However, not all recipes were so lucky. I soon realized that I needed some sort of quality control. I needed to perfect my recipes before photographing them and posting them here. I mean, how else was I supposed to feel confident that I was sharing quality recipes with you?
The first few months of blogging though, I just wanted to skip over that step and go right to the good stuff. Don’t we all kind of want to fast track things in life? That was a good lesson learned from blogging, quality over quantity – always. Man, I could write a blog post just on the topic of “Real life things I have learned from food blogging.” There are a lot of good life lessons in blogging.
Anyways, back to puffed rice treats!!!
What’s the difference between puffed rice and rice crispy cereal?
- Puffed Rice
- literally is rice that is fried until it’s puffed.
- the texture is crunchy, yet dense and hearty.
- crispy rice cereal
- rice that has been cooked as normal, dehydrated , or dried out – and then fried.
- more traditional to what you think of when you think of a rice crispy treat.
- very crunchy, but more light in texture and delicate than puffed rice cereal.
- Both are made from rice.
- Both are crunchy.
- Both are delicious.
- Both can be made from brown rice instead of white rice, just gotta look for the right brand.
- Both can be gluten free. Just make sure to look for a certified gluten free brand.
Now that you know the difference between puffed rice cereal and rice crispy cereal, you can feel confident that you can use either one in this recipe.
I found that I much prefer the texture of the rice crispy cereal, but either one is super delicious, and super tasty. You do you.
Ingredients for peanut butter and chocolate puffed rice treats:
- coconut oil
- salt
- honey (or sub agave nectar for vegans)
- peanut butter (or sub any nut butter or seed butter you like)
- dark chocolate (chocolate chips, or chopped chocolate bar)
- rice crispy cereal or puffed rice cereal
That’s it! Super simple ingredients and just as easy to make.
How to make peanut butter and chocolate puffed rice treats:
- line a 9×13 baking sheet with parchment paper, and grease.
- melt the coconut oil, salt, honey, and peanut butter in a sauce pot over medium heat. Melt chocolate.
- Stir in your rice cereal of choice.
- Transfer to prepared pan and spread it out.
- Chill until cooled and hardened
- cut into squares
- DEVOUR!!!
That’s all there is to it. Super simple dessert.
These puffed rice treats are super crunchy, chocolate-y with a hint of peanut butter and just the right amount of sweetness. They are tender and slightly chewy. Peanut butter and chocolate puffed rice treats won’t last a full week in your house. Guaranteed.
These puffed rice treats are a slightly healthier option to the traditional rice crispy treats that are made with marshmallows. They are refined sugar free, and contain some healthy fats and protein from the peanut butter – always a nice way to help slow down the way our bodies process sugar.
They are also dairy free, vegan adaptable, and gluten free adaptable. You can even swap the peanut butter with any type of nut butter or seed butter you like.
Peanut butter and chocolate puffed rice treats are a great dessert to make during the summer, no baking needed. They only take 15 minutes of hands on time to make! Who doesn’t need that kind of recipe in their life?! They are the perfect treat for packed lunches, or to bring to pretty much any party.
I hope you enjoy these puffed rice treats as much as we do. It’s always fun to see an old recipe that gets some love from some readers (read a few comments below), and then to update the post to make it an even better experience for you. Also, it’s fun to see how far I have come as a content creator.
I can’t even imagine not testing a recipe these days. It literally makes me want to hyperventilate just thinking about it. Besides, recipe testing is one of my favorite parts of my job. Looking back to 2014, when I started blogging, the idea of recipe testing felt so stressful to me. Funny how that works out.
Until next week, friends. Hope you have a good one.
More No Bake Treats:
- crunchy no bake chocolate cookies
- 3 edible cookie dough flavors
- Vanilla cashew butter cups
- turmeric chocolate snack bars
- homemade chocolate turtles
Did you make this recipe? The best way to say thank you is by leaving me a comment down below along with a star rating. I enjoy hearing from you, and it helps my blog to reach more people. Also, if you know anyone who might enjoy this recipe, please share it with them. Thanks friends!
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Peanut Butter and Chocolate Puffed Rice Treats
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 5 mins
- Total Time: 15 mins
- Yield: 12 to 14 1x
- Category: dessert, easy, 10 ingredients or less, no bake, 30 minutes
- Method: melting
- Cuisine: Dessert, chocolate, gluten free, dairy free, vegan, refined sugar free, vegetarian
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
Peanut butter and chocolate puffed rice treats are a slightly healthier version of rice crispy treats. Only requires 6 ingredients and 15 minutes to make.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup unrefined coconut oil
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 cup honey, (or sub agave nectar)
- 3/4 cup natural peanut butter
- 3/4 cup (3.50 ounces) dark chocolate chips (or dark chocolate bar, chopped)
- 3 3/4 cup rice crispy cereal (or puffed rice cereal) – (see notes)
Instructions
- Prepare: Prepare a 9×9 baking dish by lining it with parchment paper, leaving some overhang on two sides. Grease the parchment paper and the remainder of the exposed sides of the pan with a neutral tasting oil (such as avocado or grape seed oil). Set the prepared pan aside. Also at this time measure all of your ingredients and have them ready, this recipe moves fast.
- Melt: To a medium sized sauce pot add the coconut oil, salt, honey (or agave nectar), and peanut butter in the sauce pot. Turn on the heat to medium low and stir just until everything is melted and well combined. Add the chocolate and stir until all the chocolate is melted and well combined. Remove from the heat.
- Stir in the cereal: Once off the heat immediately stir in the rice crispy cereal until all the cereal is well coated.
- Press into the pan: Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish. Use a spatula to evenly distribute the mixture into the pan so that it’s in a smooth layer. Press gently, just so that everything is well compacted.
- Cool: Allow the pan to cool at room temp for 15 minutes. Then pop it in the freezer for 15 minutes, or just until everything is firm.
- Cut: Run a butter knife around the edges of the puffed rice treat to loosen it. Use the parchment paper tabs to help pull the entire thing out of the pan. Use a sharp knife to cut into squares.
- Enjoy/store: Enjoy immediately or store in an air tight container at room temp. If you kitchen is too hot you might want to pop them in the freezer to firm up for about 10 minutes, before eating them – however, you don’t want to store them in the fridge otherwise the cereal might get soggy.
Notes
rice crispy cereal or puffed rice cereal: The original recipe was written to use puffed rice cereal, which is not the same as rice crispy cereal. I prefer to make this dessert using rice crispy cereal. However, you can use either kind of cereal. Both are delicious, both work really well. Puffed rice has a more dense texture while rice crispy cereal has a more light and airy, tender crunchy texture. Again, both work really well. And you can use a brown rice version for a slightly healthier treat.
A note on puffed rice cereal: If using puffed rice cereal, you may want to use less than the called for amount if using rice crispy cereal. Puffed rice is more dense, meaning you might need less of it in the recipe. I would say you will need about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of puffed recie cereal.
Peanut butter: You can swap the peanut butter for any other kind of natural nut butter or seed butter you like.
Gluten free: To make this dessert gluten free make sure to use puffed rice cereal, or rice crispy cereal that is gluten free.
Vegan: to keep this recipe vegan make sure to use vegan chocolate and agave nectar instead of honey. I think agave nectar will work best here because the consistency is more similar to honey.
Dairy free: to keep this recipe dairy free make sure to use dairy free chocolate.
These turned out great, these are so good. But next time I think I’ll use less peanut butter. Thank you for this delicious & healthy recipe!
Glad to hear you enjoyed the recipe Tayla. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Delish. Thanks for the recipe
I added dries cranberries
The cranberries sounds like a delicious addition. Glad you enjoyed the recipe. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I’ll try this soon in lockdown
Awesome. Let me know how you like them. 🙂
Very delicious!
Thank you, Alina. Glad to hear you liked the recipe 🙂
Mine tastes great but it melted too fast… I had then in the freezer for almost 1 hour. I didn’t have chocolate so I used hazelnut spread. Could this be why?
Yes. chocolate has cocoa butter in it, which is what turns it into a solid state when the chocolate is cold or at room temp. The hazelnut spread is made from hazelnut butter, and cocoa powder, and it likely has other oils in it. Even if you freeze it, it won’t solidify, it will stay mostly in that soft, spreadable state. The chocolate is what helps to hold everything together in this recipe. Hope this helps. 🙂
Would love to make these but how do I convert from cups to grams please? Thanks
Hi, sorry for the delayed response.
This wasn’t available before, because I needed to update the recipe card…but now, you should see a little box that says “US” and “M” to the right of the ingredients. If you click on the “M” it will convert the ingredients to metrics. The only one that doesn’t seem to convert is the salt. A quick google search says that 1/4 teaspoon is 1.4 grams of kosher salt. Also, the chocolate, should convert from 3/4 cup to 96 grams (according to google).
I hope this helps.
If the conversion button still isn’t visible for you, or doesn’t work, please let me know.
Hope you enjoy the recipe. Thanks.
Yes it does work thank you. Something to try over the bank holiday weekend. 👍
Glad to hear it works. Thanks for letting me know. Hope you enjoy the recipe 🙂
Though I can see how this recipe would be delicious I found that there was not enough batter for the puffed rice. It was very crumbly and not coated well. I used a scale and followed the recipe as written. I would just use less puffed rice next time – maybe go a cup at a time.
Sorry to hear that the recipe didn’t fully work out for you. That is a good point to go add the puffed rice cereal one cup at a time. It is more dense than the crispy rice cereal, so that might be the difference there. I will add that to the notes of the recipe to add less puffed rice cereal than the called for rice crispy cereal. Thanks for pointing this out. 🙂
Thank you for this recipe! I made two batches: for the first, I followed the recipe exactly. For the second, I subbed sunbutter for PB and “pumpkin spice flavored” baking chips, and skipped the honey since the pumpkin spice chips are sweeter than the dark chocolate ones I used from the same brand. The chocolate peanut butter batch turned out perfectly: delightfully crispy, but not crumbly or melty! To my dismay, though, the pumpkin spice sunbutter batch never quite set up. I left them both on the counter overnight, but the sunbutter bars were still melty and falling apart this morning. I put them in the fridge to harden, but I wonder what I should’ve done differently for that batch to turn out better? I’m sure I’ll keep experimenting; the bars were extremely popular with my four kids and my husband! 😉
Hi Rachel, I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the recipe. Thanks for taking the time to leave such a detailed comment.
My guess of why your sunbutter batch didn’t hold together is because you omitted the honey. The honey does help everything to stick together, and if the mixture is too dry it won’t stick together well either.
I hope this helps! 🙂
hi, I am about to make this, do I need coconut oil to make them? 🙂
Hi, Yes, you do need the coconut oil to make this recipe. The coconut oil will solidify when cooled, which helps the bars to hold together. Also, without the coconut oil the bars will be too crumbly and dry and not as nice of a texture. I hope this helps.