Don’t limit yourself to fudge just during the holidays, Easy Peanut Butter Fudge is simple enough to make year round for every occasion!
Easy Peanut Butter Fudge Recipe
For some reason unknown to me, fudge always seemed intimidating. A lengthy process with many ingredients.
Little did I know that most fudge recipes are super easy and take just minutes to prepare. Minus the refrigeration time, of course.
This was my first ever attempt at making fudge. And now you can see, I make a lot of it! It is easy, uses whole ingredients (not sweetened condensed milk) but takes some of the tricky fudge-making parts out of the equation.
Perfect for any peanut butter lover and full of natural peanut butter flavor, this easy recipe turns out perfectly every single time.
Why You’ll Love This Peanut Butter Fudge
There are endless reasons why we love this soft fudge, but here are just a few.
- Easy to make – While a lot of candy making requires a candy thermometer, this recipe requires no special equipment and is really easy to make.
- Simple ingredients – No sweetened condensed milk needed for this recipe! These basic ingredients are probably already in your pantry.
- Perfect for peanut butter lovers – Full of peanut butter flavor, this no bake dessert can be make any time of year, for special occasions and simple get togethers alike!
Ingredients
Homemade Peanut Butter Fudge only has 6 ingredients, 5 if you don’t want chocolate chips, but let’s honest, who doesn’t love chocolate and peanut butter together? It is a match made in flavor heaven!
- Butter – I always prefer to use unsalted butter when baking or cooking. That way I can control the amount of salt in a recipe. However, salted butter is fine for this recipe too.
- Brown sugar – You can use either light brown sugar or dark brown sugar. Just keep in mind the dark brown will have more of a strong molasses flavor.
- Milk – Be sure to use full fat milk here (also known as whole milk.) Using skim and 2% milk will result in loose fudge that doesn’t set up properly.
- Peanut butter – I prefer to have a smooth fudge with nuts added on top, so I use creamy peanut butter. If you like a little texture to your homemade fudge, you can also use chunky peanut butter.
- Vanilla extract – I love using pure vanilla extract here. It can be a little pricier, but the flavor is so much better than imitation vanilla.
- Powdered sugar – Powdered sugar adds sweetness to this easy fudge recipe, but also helps to hold everything together a little bit.
- Chocolate chips – I’ve found that mini chocolate chips work best, but you can use full size or even peanut butter chips if you’d like to take the peanut butter flavor up a notch.
How to Make Peanut Butter Fudge
With no candy thermometer necessary, you are going to love how easy it is to make this sweet treat.
- Prepare baking dish. Line a 8×8 square pan with plastic wrap. You can also use parchment paper, aluminum foil or wax paper if that’s what you have on hand.
- Melt butter. In a heavy bottom medium saucepan, heat butter over medium-high heat.
- Add brown sugar and milk. When melted, add brown sugar and milk, stirring to combine. Bring to a simmer. When you start to see bubble, time about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Mixture should be smooth. Do not overheat, it will separate.
- Whisk in peanut butter and vanilla. Remove from heat and whisk in peanut butter and vanilla.
- Add to powdered sugar. Pour peanut butter mixture over powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix until smooth.
- Add to baking dish. Pour fudge mixture into prepared pan. Pat mini chocolate chips into the top of half of the fudge.
- Chill until firm. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm.
- Cut and serve. I prefer to keep my fudge chilled until ready to serve.
Variations
We love this old fashioned peanut butter fudge recipe exactly as written. However, there are plenty of ways that you can make it your own.
- Toppings – Instead of plain chocolate chips, you could top this perfect treat with coconut flakes, white chocolate chips, a drizzle of melted chocolate, dark chocolate chips or even small pieces of cookie dough.
- Mix ins – If creamy fudge isn’t your thing, you can choose to add some things in to give it texture. Nuts or chocolate chips would both be great additions.
- Make it festive – If you’d like to to add this creamy peanut butter fudge recipe to your cookie trays for the holiday season, you could certainly dress them up with festive sprinkles.
Tips and Tricks for Perfect Fudge
There are three points during the fudge making process that folks get tripped up on.
- The first is simmering and combining butter, brown sugar and milk. If the mixture heats too high or isn’t stirred frequently, it will separate. Do not bring to a full rolling boil and keep stirring to prevent this from happening.
- The second slip up while making easy fudge is to simmer it for too long. You want to have the ingredients marry and dissolve, preventing having a grainy fudge, but not heat them too high. I suggest waiting until you see consistent bubbles, the start of a low boil, then timing 3 minutes before removing from the heat source.
- Lastly, when combining with powdered sugar, people experience lumps. I suggest sifting your powdered sugar to get rid of pesky lumps and also mixing well with a stand mixer or electric hand mixer for 3-4 minutes.
Follow all of these steps and you will be well on your way to making Easy Peanut Butter Fudge or any other easy fudge recipe.
Storage and Freezing
Storage: I like to keep my fudge chilled until ready to serve, rather than at room temperature. Be sure to store in an airtight container.
Freezing: This easy recipe also freezes really well. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap then store in an airtight container for up to two months.
Frequently Asked Questions
I suppose the secret to any good food is following a good recipe. But for fudge in particular, you need to make sure to heat the ingredients to a high enough temperature to get the ingredients to meld.
If you used 2% milk and not whole milk, it will cause your fudge to be a little loose. You also might not have heated it to a high enough temperature.
This can be caused by heating the fudge mixture just a little too high for a little too long. You might have also not added enough liquid.
More Delicious Fudge Recipes
- Microwave Peanut Butter Fudge
- Peppermint Fudge
- Christmas Coal Fudge
- Almond Fudge
- 19+ Delicious Fudge Ideas
Easy Peanut Butter Fudge
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups powdered sugar , sifted
- 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Line a 8×8 square baking dish with plastic wrap. Set aside.
- In a heavy bottom saucepan, heat butter over medium-high heat.
- When melted, add brown sugar and milk, stirring to combine. Bring to a simmer. When you start to see bubble, time about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Mixture should be smooth. Do not overheat, it will seperate.
- Remove from heat and whisk in peanut butter and vanilla.
- Pour peanut butter mixture over powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. You will get the best results using an electric mixer versus hand mixing and pre-sifting your powdered sugar.
- Mix until smooth, approximately 4 minutes.
- Pour into prepared square baking dish. Pat mini chocolate chips into the top of half of the fudge.
- Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, approximately 8 hours.
- Cut and serve. I prefer to keep my fudge chilled until ready to serve.
- If you’ve tried this recipe, come back and let us now how it was!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
I am excited to be a part of a group of bloggers that love to celebrate, what? FOOD!!! We’ll be gathering the best blogger recipes around for popular food holidays and sharing them with you.
This month we are celebrating National Peanut Butter Lovers Day (March 1st.) Check out these and few more of my favorites and tell me WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WAY TO EAT PEANUT BUTTER in the comments!
- Peanut Butter Lovers Pancakes – Crumb
- Triple Peanut Butter Cake – Ashlee Marie
- Peanut Butter Butterfinger Cookies – Creations by Kara
- Reese’s Peanut Butter Bars – Pretty Providence
- Peanut Butter Pie – Simply Stacie
- Creamy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pie – An Italian in my Kitchen
- Homemade Nutter Butter Cookies– The Baker Upstairs
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies – 365 Days of Slow Cooking + Pressure Cooking
- No Bake Peanut Butter Protein Balls– Heather Likes Food
- Easy Peanut Butter Granola – Real Mom Kitchen
- Peanut Butter Doughnuts with Chunky Peanut Butter Glaze – Premeditated Leftovers
- Peanut Butter Cookies – Namely Marly
- Peanut Butter Twix Pie – My Mommy Style
- Instant Pot Peanut Butter Caramel Cheesecake– Super Golden Bakes
Holy , this is the best fudge I’ve ever tried/made in my whole life
Oh, Savannah, you made my day stopping by to let me know! Enjoy!
Awesome, love these 10 minutes of prep recipe! Can’t wait to try this for the kids. Thanks!
This fudge looks divine and like something I could easily make. I don’t like complicated.
Yum! This looks so creamy and delicious! I would definitely want the chocolate chips on top. Peanut butter and chocolate is a match made in heaven. 🙂
I’m an equal opportunity fudge eating machine! I love fudge. Your peanut butter fudge reminds me of something my grandmother LOVED. Though it was called Panuche and it reminded me of peanut butter but I have no clue if it had any in it! I have to make your delicious recipe so I can take a trip down fudge eating memory lane!
My husband loves fudge and we usually only make it at Christmas. I will have to give this a try, as I love peanut butter.
Oh yes! Chocolate and peanut butter, my favorite combo! Perfect!
Yum…this sounds really good & easy enough!
Fudge always seemed intimidating to me too. Yours looks incredible! I love the chocolate chips on top.