Easy Peanut Butter Jelly Bars Recipe – A Tasty After School Snack!

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These Peanut Butter Jelly Bars make the perfect after school snack! It’s all of the flavors of a PB & J sandwich but in bar form! If you are looking for a tasty snack idea for your family, these bars mark off all the requirements. They are full of savory peanut butter, sweet strawberry jam, and topped with crunchy salted peanuts. And they’re super easy and quick to make – score!

A stack of Peanut Butter Jelly Bars on a wooden board sat on a red checkered cloth. Similar photos of the recipe/dish from various angles are used throughout and with different text overlay unless otherwise described.

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Peanut Butter Jelly Bars

The full ingredients list and instructions are found in the printable recipe card at the end of this post. I highly recommend reading the blog post all the way through so that you don’t miss any tips or substitution suggestions and to ensure that you have all the ingredients and equipment required as well as understand the steps and timings involved.

I don’t know about you and your kids, but the afternoon slump – especially after school – is real! When my son was in school it was always about the afternoon snack to tide him over until dinner time.

Of course we want to feed our children (and ourselves) with healthy and nutritious foods, but a sweet treat every once in a while is just fine.

These peanut butter jelly bars are really easy to make, have that sweet and salty thing going on, and if you love PB&J sandwiches you’ll love these!

We used crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam as the filling, and there is extra crunch from a sprinkling of salted peanuts on the top.

You may have most of the ingredients in your pantry already, so what are you waiting for?!

Make a tray of these peanut butter bars and wrap in wax paper for an easy grab-and-go snack, or to pop into lunchboxes (if your kiddo’s school allows peanut products).

Ingredients & Equipment Used In This Recipe

For your convenience, any specialized ingredients and equipment needed for this recipe have been linked to Amazon below. The full list with measurements is found in the recipe card.

This recipe uses American cups. They’re a handy piece of kitchen equipment to have along with a kitchen food scale. Having both in your kitchen means you’ll be able to make all of the different recipes on my blog as I use both cups and weighted measures.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars Recipe

More Recipes Using Peanut Butter

One of the hero ingredients in this recipe is peanut butter here are some more recipes using the same:

Do You Want More Treat Bars Recipes?

Treat bars are a quick and easy snack to make and great for an afternoon treat.

Mix It Up!

Why not trying using different nut butter, jams (or preserves), and types of nut? Here are some combo suggestions for you to try – just follow the recipe card, but replace the peanut butter, jam, and salted peanuts with these variations:

How Do I Make Peanut Butter Jelly Bars?

Just check out the recipe card below with full ingredients, instructions, and demonstration photos. You can print the card out too (don’t worry, the pics don’t print to save your ink!).

Save my PB & J Bars Recipe tutorial video to your YouTube Recipe Playlists so that it’s always there when you need it – don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube Channel while you are there!

Peanut Butter Jelly Bars

Peanut Butter Jelly Bars

Michelle Ordever
These sweet and salty peanut butter jelly bars make a great afternoon snack and are so simple to make!
No ratings yet
Prep Time 7 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 37 minutes
Course Baking
Cuisine American
Servings 12
Calories 421 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • cup all-purpose flour plain flour
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • ¾ tsp salt
  • ½ cup unsalted butter softened
  • 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
  • ¾ cup brown sugar packed
  • 1 large egg room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ cup salted peanuts
  • 1 cup strawberry jam

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 7 x 11" baking pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang.
  • Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl and set aside.
  • Using an electric stand or hand mixer, beat the butter, peanut butter, and sugar on medium until smooth and combined.


    Peanut butter, sugar and butter in a bowl
  • Add in the egg and vanilla extract to the mixing bowl and beat until all the ingredients are well combined.


    Egg added to mixture
  • Add the flour mixture into the peanut butter mixture and stir together with a large spoon or spatula to form a thick, almost dough-like batter.


    Flour added to mixture
  • Place three-quarters of the batter into the prepared baking pan and press to flatten evenly.
  • Spread the strawberry jam evenly on top of the dough batter.
  • Break off small pieces of the remaining one-quarter batter and scatter over the jam.


    Dough added to pan
  • Then sprinkle the salted peanuts on top of the jam and dough.


    blank
  • Place in oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.
  • Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely in the pan.
  • Lift out using the parchment paper overhang and cut into bars.

    Peanut Butter Jelly Bars

Video

Notes

  • You can use different flavored jams if you want to!
  • Or try the recipe with different nut butter such as cashew or hazelnut!

Nutrition

Serving: 1 | Calories: 421kcal | Carbohydrates: 50g | Protein: 9g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 13g | Cholesterol: 36mg | Sodium: 314mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 26g

Nutritional information is always approximate and will depend on the quality of ingredients used and serving sizes. If you need exact calories and macros, please do your own calculations.

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Make It A Meal!

Yes, you can enjoy these PB&J Bars as a snack, but they’d also make a tasty dessert too – here are additional recipes to make a full meal!

There are 500+ Recipes on The Purple Pumpkin Blog for you to enjoy – please feel free to check them out too!

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