These protein-packed peanut butter bliss balls are melt-in-your-mouth delicious, made with whole foods and feature a surprising, undetectable ingredient! The perfect vegan post-workout snack idea that’s totally moreish.
Delectable, easy-to-make snacks are just the best! And these chocolate peanut butter bliss balls with juicy dates, oats and white beans are definitely among our favorite recipes.
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Once you’ve tried them, store-bought protein balls or bars just won’t have the same appeal anymore!
Super fudgy, surprisingly filling and filled with peanut butter flavor, these 6-ingredient protein bliss balls are kid-friendly, portable and great for meal prep.
If you enjoyed our chocolate bliss balls, coconut almond bliss balls, matcha pistachio bliss balls or Bounty balls, then you need to try this recipe!
You certainly cannot go wrong with this delicious date, cocoa powder and peanut butter combination, rolled into bite-sized soft and creamy peanut butter bliss balls!
Recipe overview & features
- Easy to make in around 10 minutes
- Gluten-free, vegan & sugar-free
- Customizable and not overly sweet
- No-bake dessert idea
- Protein and fiber-packed
- Kid-friendly and portable
Secretly healthy and made with white beans, our peanut butter bliss balls are the perfect treat for anyone looking to satisfy their sweet tooth.
All you need is 10 minutes of time, a small bowl for soaking your dates and a food processor. Keep on reading for the exact ingredients and instructions!
Ingredients needed
- Dates — our creamy base that naturally sweetens the bliss balls.
- White beans — healthy and creamy in texture, their taste is totally hidden underneath all those dates and peanut butter! Promised.
- Peanut butter — well, these are peanut butter bliss balls after all. Choose between smooth or crunchy!
- Oats — so that the texture isn’t too sticky! Plus, added complex carbs.
- Protein blend — our homemade 5-ingredient recipe which you can find below. Feel free to swap for any nuts or seeds of your choice or just use more oats!
- Cocoa powder — because peanut butter and chocolate just go so well together.
You can find the exact amounts in the recipe card below. We’ll also share some substitution ideas in a bit!
Here’s how easy it is to make these protein bliss balls.
How to make peanut butter bliss balls
Soak the dates
Before you start, place your pitted dates in a small bowl and cover them with hot water for around 10-15 minutes. This ensures that your food processor can create a really smooth, homogenous texture.
If you happen to have really soft and moist dates, you can skip this step.
Blend all ingredients
Drain your soaked dates and add them alongside your cooked and drained white beans to your food processor. Blend for 1-2 minutes until the mixture is somewhat homogenous.
At this point, add all of the other ingredients to the food processor. Blend again until everything is well-combined, stopping and scraping down the sides if needed.
Check with your fingers to determine whether your mixture is too sticky — if that’s the case, add more oats and blend again.
Roll the bliss balls
Now to the fun part! Wet your hands and roll individual bite-sized peanut butter bliss balls. Place them next to each other on a plate and enjoy immediately — or let the bliss balls cool in the fridge for half an hour so that they become firmer.
Tips & adjustments
Let’s go over some questions and customization ideas — if you want to learn more, check my full guide on how to make bliss balls here.
How to store these bliss balls
Our peanut butter balls are best stored in a sealed container in the fridge for around 1 week or in the freezer for 2-3 months. Just let them thaw in the fridge before eating!
Additionally, they can be left out at room temperature for a few hours but will start to get sticky.
Can I make this grain-free?
Sure, you can use almond meal or more protein blend instead of oats for these peanut butter bliss balls. Even some added PB2 powder could be an idea but we haven’t tested this!
How to make them more chocolatey
Double the amount of cocoa powder for this recipe, add some vegan chocolate chips or drizzle your bliss balls with melted chocolate.
How to make these bliss balls without dates
While we love using dates in our bliss ball recipes and for sugar-free baking, we understand that they are not the most accessible ingredient. You could use raisins instead or just any syrup of your choice to sweeten the bliss balls!
Although we haven’t tried this swap ourselves, about ⅓ cup of maple or rice syrup will probably be enough.
Is this a gluten-free recipe?
Make sure you use certified gluten-free oats or replace them with almond meal for an allergy-friendly version.
What is this vegan protein blend?
We like to mix different nuts and seeds and blend them into a whole food vegan protein powder at home which we can use for bliss balls like these! You can find our protein blend recipe here.
If you’re not up for making this first, simply replace it with almond meal, ground chia seeds, hemp seeds or oat flour! Store-bought vegan protein powder works, too.
Can’t have peanut butter?
Any other nut butter, especially almond butter or cashew butter tastes great in this recipe. Add some more spices for a more distinct flavor if you like!
More healthy vegan snacks
Make healthy eating and following a plant-based diet super easy by having bliss balls or any of the following delicious vegan snacks on hand!
- Peanut Butter Stuffed Dates
- Coconut Oat Bars
- Tofu Chocolate Mousse
- Edible Cookie Dough
- 20+ Vegan Bliss Balls
Did you make our peanut butter bliss balls? We’d love to read about it, so be sure to leave a review and tell us more in the comments below. You can also Pin this recipe here!
Peanut Butter Bliss Balls
These protein-packed peanut butter bliss balls are melt-in-your-mouth delicious, made with whole foods and feature a surprising, undetectable ingredient! The perfect vegan post-workout snack idea that’s totally moreish.Â
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups dates, pitted (8 oz, 225 g)
- 7 oz white beans, cooked & drained (200 g)
- 4 oz peanut butter (113 g)
- 2 oz oats (57 g)
- 2 oz vegan protein blend (57 g)
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder (20 g)
- Pinch of salt
Optional add-ins
- Roasted peanuts
- Chocolate chips
- Cinnamon
- Vanilla extract
Instructions
- Soak the pitted dates in a small bowl in hot water for 15 minutes if needed, then drain well.
- Add the dates along with the cooked and drained white beans to your food processor. Blend for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the rest of the ingredients for the bliss balls and blend again until a homogenous and well-combined dough forms. Stop and scrape down the sides if needed.
- If it turns out too sticky, add more oats and blend again.
- Wet your hands and roll the mixture into bite-sized peanut butter bliss balls!
- Enjoy immediately or store in the fridge for half an hour before serving to let the balls firm up.
- The bliss balls can be kept in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer for 2-3 months.
Notes
- You can make higher protein peanut butter bliss balls by using more white beans and fewer dates while also swapping the oats for more protein blend.
- Instead of our homemade protein powder, you can use any blended nuts or seeds, oat flour or traditional, store-bought vegan protein powder.
- Both small and large white beans work. Black beans result in darker bliss balls but can be used, too!
- For more sweetness, add 1 tbsp of vegan liquid sweetener.
- Both smooth and crunchy peanut butter works well! If you can’t have peanuts, replace this ingredient with another nut or seed butter of your choice.
- Nutrition information has automatically been calculated without any add-ins.
- Find more tips and ingredient swaps in our article above!
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1 bliss ballAmount Per Serving: Calories: 121Total Fat: 6gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 47mgCarbohydrates: 11gFiber: 3gSugar: 1gProtein: 7g
Nutrition information is a rough estimate calculated automatically, their accuracy is not guaranteed. Just focus on whole plant-based foods and eat until satiety!
Alena Schowalter is a Certified Vegan Nutritionist who has been a vegetarian since childhood and vegan since 2012. Together with her husband, she founded nutriciously in 2015 and has been guiding thousands of people through different transition stages towards a healthy plant-based diet. She’s received training in the fields of nutrition, music therapy and social work. Alena enjoys discussions around vegan ethics, walks through nature and creating new recipes.
These taste great! It did cause my blender to give up on life so will need to find a better way to combine these (note I have a vitamix so that should be the blender than can handle this…)
thanks for the feedback and sorry to hear about your Vitamix! Ours (cheaper model) did just fine…
What type of white beans do you use? Pinto, navy, canellini?
usually cannellini beans :)
I just made these, used canneli beans and had to substitute 1/2 cup of prunes for a 1/2 cup of the dates cause i didn’t have enough, took a little while in the cuisinart to get it to grind them up…but the balls are HUGE if we make them into 12…i think I’m gonna go for 24 instead, i used pea protein mix (no flavorings, no sweeteners, just pea protein) and used 2 scoops.
edit: i used canned Dakotas Pride great northern beans, not cannelli, and the recipe did taste good!