Butterscotch Haystacks

Butterscotch haystacks are an easy 4 ingredient no-bake dessert that come together in under 10 minutes. This recipe uses chow mein noodles and peanut butter for a sweet-and-salty treat that's always a hit at parties.

I've been enjoying this recipe since I was a kid. It's one of those ones that always showed up at holiday gatherings and family get-togethers and disappeared much too quickly (just like deviled eggs and puppy chow!).

A quick mix of melty peanut butter and butterscotch act as the glue that holds crunchy chow mein noodles and peanuts together in these snackable little clusters.

I think my family actually called them peanut butter haystacks, but the butterscotch flavor definitely feels more prominent than the peanut butter. Both of those ingredients add to the hay-like color of the final product.

Jump to:

• 🧡 Why we love this recipe
• 📝 Ingredients
• ✅ How to make this recipe
• 📌 Tips
• 🍽️ Still hungry? You may also like...
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

🧡 Why we love this recipe

• No bake desserts always come in handy!
• This is a 4 ingredient dessert that comes together in just minutes.
• They're fun to make with kids.
• You can easily scale this recipe up to make more (and trust me, you'll probably want to make more!).

📝 Ingredients

Here's everything you need to make these butterscotch haystacks (see recipe card below for ingredient amounts and full directions):

• Butterscotch chips (also called butterscotch morsels) - you can find these in the baking aisle by the chocolate chips
• Peanut butter - we're using creamy peanut butter here, and its a great use for my homemade peanut butter recipe
• Chow mein noodles - you can find these at the grocery store near the Asian condiments and noodles
• Salted peanuts

✅ How to make this recipe

1. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat, parchment paper, or wax paper.
2. Melt the butterscotch chips and peanut butter together until smooth.
3. Stir in the chow mein noodles and peanuts.
4. Drop the mixture by forkfuls onto the prepared baking sheet and let sit or chill until solidified.

See recipe card below for full instructions.

📌 Tips

You can melt the butterscotch chips and peanut butter together in the microwave or in a double boiler on the stovetop.

My preferred method is the microwave. I heat it in 30-second increments, stirring after each increment, until everything is nice and melted and smooth.

Stir everything together gently, but thoroughly. You want all of the dry bits to be coated in that butterscotch and peanut butter mixture. This is what acts as the "glue" to help hold these little clusters together.

I like using 2 forks to help grab little piles of chow mein noodles. They're called "haystacks" because they look like piles of hay and they aren't supposed to be perfect. Lean into the imperfect and inconsistent quality!

You can make them smaller or larger, as desired. I find that I get about a dozen haystacks from a single instance of this recipe.

These clusters will firm up at room temperature after sitting for a while, but I like to pop them in the fridge (or even the freezer) to make the process go more quickly. Once they're firm, they're fine to store at room temperature, as long as it's not really hot where you're storing them.

This last tip is going to sound a little weird, but hear me out. The first time I made this recipe for a game day party, I decided to cover the trays lightly with plastic wrap and set them outside to chill and firm up. It was February, so it was nice and cold out.

What I didn't realize was that squirrels are not deterred by things like a flimsy layer of cling wrap. So when I went out to gather my haystack clusters, I saw that squirrels had eaten the peanuts out of every.single.cluster.

Luckily they're easy to put together and I had enough of the ingredients left to make another batch. But trust me, this is a mistake that I've never made since.

Some people call these little no-bake desserts cookies, some call them candies. Whatever you call them, they're DELICIOUS.

When I made these most recently (and decided to shoot new photos so spruce up this post from 15 years ago!), my son said they were the best dessert he's ever eaten.

I hope you enjoy these as much as my family does!

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