What to Eat With Peanut Butter?

What Can You Eat With Peanut Butter?

Peanut butter is perhaps one of the most recognizable and popular spreads on the planet.

This is not a matter of opinion, but fact.

If you ask anybody if they have used peanut butter for anything recently, you will very rarely hear that they have not.

If you ask anybody if they have any peanut butter in the place that they live, you will very rarely hear that they do not.

Peanut butter is indeed a household staple for anybody, no matter who they are.

And the options about what you can eat with it or use it for are endless.

As endless as these options are, they are certainly worth exploring

And they will be explored today, especially options that you may have not considered or have heard of.

Before exploring the various options that you have available to you when it comes to combining peanut butter with other food items, it is useful to get some understanding and background of peanut butter and its many forms and properties.

As you will see, there is more to peanut butter than peanut flavored spread.

The Many Forms and Properties of Peanut Butter

Although it appears very simplistic in its form, there exist a few forms of peanut butter that you should know about.

Peanut butter generally takes three different forms, each one offering similar but different textures.

The first of these textures is crunchy peanut butter. This gives peanut butter a type of texture that is more crunchy than it is smooth.

Then you have peanut butter that is a combination of crunchy and smooth. The texture of this kind of peanut butter is not as rough as crunchy peanut butter.

Finally, you have peanut butter that is perfectly smooth. This is by far the most common peanut butter and it is the one type of peanut butter that can not only be used as a spread, but can also be used in other recipes as you will soon see.

Peanut butter also has different properties that you should definitely be aware of. The first of these is that they instantly make anything that you cook with it that much more viscous. This will be covered later.

It is not only possible for peanut butter to make food items more viscous when you cook with it, but it is also possible for peanut butter to make cold food items more viscous.

Now that you know about the properties of peanut butter and the different textures of peanut butter, it is time to explore exactly what kinds of dishes that it can be used in.

Peanut Butter as an Ingredient

We all know what peanut butter combines well with. You won’t hear any argument against chocolate or jelly being a good supplement for peanut butter.

Nearly anything with sugar in it can be eaten with peanut butter. This fact is painfully obvious and does not need to be explored in any vast context.

For example, nearly every cookie in existence can be “modified” if all you do is add peanut butter to the recipe.

What should be explored in a vast context, however, is how peanut butter can be used as an ingredient in certain foods.

The first of these is pad thai noodles. Peanut butter is so important to pad thai noodles that they are part of most pad thai recipes.

Why is this?

It is because peanut butter makes most pad thai recipes much more flavorful than they would be without adding peanut butter as an ingredient.

If you want proof of this, try ordering nearly any given pad thai dish without peanut butter. It will not taste the same. You’ll notice a significant difference in the texture and overall flavor.

Oatmeal is something else that you can add peanut butter to.

The thing about oatmeal is that it contains very little protein content and it will lack texture if you mix it improperly.

Adding some peanut butter to oatmeal will solve both of these problems. If you add just a little bit of peanut butter to your oatmeal mix, you’ll add much needed texture to it as well as increase its protein content.

And since peanut butter is nothing more than a nutty flavored spread, adding it to oatmeal will not alter the flavor of it in the slightest. You will not notice a difference at all.

You never thought that you could use peanut butter as a marinade for chicken, could you?

Well, you can. If you combine peanut butter with coconut milk and greek yogurt, you’ll get a creamy marinade for chicken that is just as flavorful, fatty, and effective as any other given marinade..

Peanut butter can even be used to make salad dressing. Combine some peanut butter with rice vinegar and sriracha and you’ll create a salad dressing that is not only much higher in protein content than most other salad dressings, but also just as flavorful as any other salad dressing.

There are dozens more uses for peanut butter as an ingredient, but these are the most significant examples that hardly anybody thinks of.

Peanut butter is a lesser known ingredient, but there are also some instances where you can use peanut butter as a spread, a dip, or a filling.

Peanut Butter as a Dip, Spread, or Filling

The most obvious use for peanut butter as a dip, spread, or filling is when it is used in sandwiches.

Nearly everybody in existence is familiar with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But peanut butter can be used for more than a spread that accompanies jelly (or any fruit-based spread) in sandwiches.

Peanut butter can also be used as a dip. It is just thick enough to function as a dip but not too thick to where it will overpower whatever you are dipping in it.

Celery is a fantastic example of this. Peanut butter functions very well as a dip for celery, as it is a very popular snack for children; because celery is practically tasteless, dipping it in peanut butter makes it instantly flavorful.

Peanut butter can also be used as a filling, especially for crepes.

Something that crepes suffer from is that the filling can run, resulting in a fairly messy dining experience.

Using peanut butter as a filling for crepes will solve this problem, even if you use very little peanut butter in the filling.

These are just a few uses that peanut butter has as a filling, dip, or a spread.

Conclusion

There’s no denying that peanut butter is one of the most versatile food items in existence.

But despite all of its fantastic qualities, there are still dozens of recipes where peanut butter can be used that very few know about.

Whether it is for a marinade, part of a full meal, or a salad dressing, you’ll be able to use peanut butter in more recipes than you realize, and it is a very good idea to explore them. You’ll be surprised with what you find.

And of course, peanut butter can be consumed with other kinds of things. It can be used as a dip, a spread, or a filling that will greatly enhance food items.

The options are endless when it comes to what you can eat with peanut butter. Whether it is as a recipe or a supplementary item, you will never run out of possibilities.