Much like a two-sink bathroom spawns happiness, so does housing at least two peanut butters in your cupboard. Not so each person has their own jar (though, that’s not a bad idea), but because not all PBs are equal—and that’s a good thing. At minimum, I strongly believe every household needs a cooking peanut butter and a snacking peanut butter.
As a 90s kid, when it came to peanut butter, I mostly saw the hydrogenated likes of Skippy and Jif. It’s hella sweet, salty, and always the same creamy consistency. Then the natural, peanuts-only kind popped off with its robust nutty flavor and an inch of oil surfing on top. You have to stir it yourself to make it smooth, and get peanut oil all over the outside of the jar to really understand the appeal.
I loved (and continued to love) peanut butter flavored cakes and cookies, so I started to use the natural type as an ingredient in my baking. From there I’d also use it in cooking, as a subtle way to add richness to a stew, or a bold way to add depth to a meat sauce. I use the same peanut butter on cheeseburgers that I do for my single-serving cheesecakes, natural and unsweetened.
Natural peanut butter is the one to keep in your cupboard as a versatile, flavor-packed ingredient for cooking and baking. I opt for chunky, unsalted natural peanut butter. It’s like having tahini paste versus sesame seeds, or orange juice instead of oranges. Unlike homogenized peanut butter, which has a list of added components, natural peanut butter is just ground peanuts. It won’t throw off your recipe with added salt or sugar, and the fats disperse easily into a recipe.
Snacking on peanut butter happened later in life for me, and I’ll tell you what—natural peanut butter is a mess to snack on. It tastes great, but boy is it runny. If you scoop some onto a piece of toast, do not eat it on the go. Unless it is the most emaciated scraping of peanut butter, that layer will drip right off the edge and onto your pants. Forget dipping apple slices or celery into it and giving it to your five-year-old. A grown adult can’t eat the stuff near a computer.
This is when that classic, sweetened, and always-spreadable peanut butter is needed most. The hydrogenated oils in the likes of Peter Pan and some store brands helps keep the oils and peanut particles suspended. Plenty of sugar and a bit of salt just round out the snackability of the spread, making it something of a main course all on its own. This kind of peanut butter is ideal for smearing onto fruit, toast, muffins, or waffles. The thick, stable consistency makes it trustworthy for both adults and children to handle (save a run-of-the-mill mess).
If you ever needed it, now you have an excuse to buy multiple jars of peanut butter. And as added good news, you can actually use either type in your morning peanut butter latte.
