We Style-Examined 8 Grocery store Crunchy Peanut Butters—Right here Are Our Favorites

The Severe Eats reader, in my expertise, is numerous issues. She’s passionate! She’s nuanced! She’s intense about the truth that peanut butter ought to at all times be crunchy! (I discovered this about her after publishing a creamy peanut butter style take a look at lately.) I respect that, however I’m additionally slightly terrified of her. I am additionally slightly terrified of all of the Severe Eats readers who passionately disagree together with her and, with the publication of this chunky peanut butter style take a look at, now have an entire new motive to ship offended emails.

In all seriousness, crunchy peanut butter is divisive, as are most staples that individuals voluntarily carry from childhood pantries into grownup ones. Emotions run robust, however we’re professionals right here at Severe Eats and are capable of test our personal within the identify of taste-test objectivity.

So, the SE staff has pulled collectively eight manufacturers of crunchy peanut butters you are prone to discover in your native grocery store, and methodically, empirically, scientifically! tasted its method by all of them in a quest to determine the easiest. And we cherished each minute of it!

The Contenders

• JIF Peanut Butter, Additional Crunchy
• Nature’s Promise Peanut Butter Crunchy Natural
• As soon as Once more Crunchy Peanut Butter
• Skippy Tremendous Chunk Peanut Butter 
• Smucker’s Pure Peanut Butter
• Teddie All Pure Peanut Butter, Tremendous Chunky
• City Meadow Crunchy Peanut Butter
• WOODSTOCK Natural Crunchy Peanut Butter

The Standards

crunchy peanut butter boasts minimal oiliness (after mixing in any oil that separated throughout storage) and important savoriness. Our prime contenders skewed a lot saltier than they did candy; additionally they had chunks that, regardless of various sizes, had been typically described as “crispy.” Contrastingly, our less-loved jars had mushier and even “uncooked”-tasting nuts.

The jars we procured had been everywhere in the map texture-wise. About half could possibly be described as skinny and slippery, virtually like consuming a damaged French dressing. The opposite half was like studded nut-butter velvet (thick! constant!), not a touch of oil slick to be discovered. The Severe Eats staff was much less bothered by the distinct presence of artificiality on this take a look at than they had been in the creamy peanut butter model. Actually, slightly stabilization and emulsification went a protracted, nice method—an indication that when PB goes crunchy, our tastes go junky?

Relatedly, those self same successful jars hit our testers with a pleasant lil’ dose of nostalgia. If a chunky peanut butter is doing its job, per our findings, it is best to be capable of open it and know you’re in for a superb time simply by smelling the stuff. Like, simply the motion of smelling it ought to hit like listening to Coolio (or TLC, or Gloria Estefan, or…no matter was taking part in in your own home after faculty). 

As with the creamy PB style take a look at, we prevented “spreads” (it is a totally different product with fewer nuts and extra stabilizers, so please, please cease emailing me to ask why Justin’s has not made an look in these exams—we’ll do one other take a look at particularly for spreads!) Both method, I stirred every peanut butter for 20 seconds a pop earlier than plopping every pattern right into a bowl and serving it to the staff with no accompaniments.

The Rankings

City Meadow Crunchy Peanut Butter, 3.8/5

You (famously, I feel) shouldn’t decide a guide by its cowl, however there’s nothing flawed with judging a peanut butter by what you’re greeted with if you pull off the lid. Per my pre-testing notes, this Key Meals model (!) was “attractive! There’s no separation and there are even chunks riddled all through.” From there, the feedback had been fascinating, starting from: “This jogs my memory of soy sauce? Like a charred barbecue taste? Would this be good for peanut sauce?” to “Very tasty! I’d undoubtedly eat this once more fortunately.” The chunks had been small, however they had been persistently small, they usually ate crisp-ily in every chunk. Everybody was pleased with this PB’s versatility, or, on the very least, not mad about having to eat numerous these items. And on this home, we stan a begrudging near-consensus.

JIF Peanut Butter, Additional Crunchy, 3.7/5

HEheheheheheeeee! Megan: “This has received to be Skippy or Jif or some such.” Kelli: “Creamy and nostalgic, this must be a standard model like Jif. That is clearly an excellent contrived texture, meant to make me comfortable, and it does.” Then, okay, nice, Daniel: “This isn’t my most well-liked model of PB, however so far as processed ones go, this one is nice.” Genevieve: “That is very thick with seen chunks of peanut. Barely sticky/gummy. Good crunch when consuming.” Me, in those self same keeper-of-the-key pre-test notes: “Utterly unnatural matte asteroid of pleasure.”

Teddie All Pure Peanut Butter, Tremendous Chunky, 3.7/5

I used to be desperate to see the place this man would land, given Teddie’s middling rating  within the creamy peanut butter style take a look at (regardless of being cherished by the staff of their private lives). It fared significantly better right here. Firstly, these items was fairly. It’s the colour of Three Musketeers filling—a viscerally good and essential coloration. Secondly, it was accurately salty and savory with very constant chunking. “Completely pleasurable. Very properly chunked,” Daniel wrote. Genevieve pointed to hints of wasabi (!?) whereas Kelli famous how “actual” it tasted. A contented—however not nostalgic!—confluence of peanut butter issues.

Skippy Tremendous Chunk Peanut Butter, 3/5

You’ll discover the drop of .7 factors right here. That will appear shocking provided that this feature checked the oh-god-I-miss-the-’90s field and was additionally pleasantly roasty and chunky, however, my buddies, this stuff matter much less if it feels such as you’re masticating by candy glue. It is a excellent possibility for a snacky, dehydrated human: One chunk and also you’re assured a contact of candy and a pop of salt adopted by half your day by day beneficial H2O consumption simply to attempt to wash it down!

WOODSTOCK Natural Crunchy Peanut Butter, 2.85/5

In comfortable information, this oily providing stirred again collectively very simply. No a part of it tasted synthetic; the truth is, it toed the road between naturally clean and artificially clean very properly. Megan described the expertise of consuming this peanut butter as “shocking,” as she didn’t love the looks, however was shocked by the extent of “good toasted-ness.” Daniel appreciated the sweetness, noting it wasn’t overly so. The less-happy information was that that preliminary oiliness made an look in nearly each subsequent chunk, and that the pattern re-puddled fairly shortly.

Smucker’s Pure Peanut Butter, 2.49/5

A pleasant peanut butter that tasted as if it’d been sitting on a shelf for greater than a minute. Although we’ll by no means know if it as soon as tasted contemporary and have become “stale and dusty” or if it merely was that method upon bottling, the stale peanut style was simple for every tester. That mentioned, most remarked on the general taste being a superb mixture of salt vs. candy.

As soon as Once more Crunchy Peanut Butter, 2.15/5

The award for Singular Remark That Made Me LOL This Time goes to: “This wants salt and one thing else–perhaps peanuts??” by Megan O. Steintrager. (Daniel echoed this sentiment, writing “I feel the peanut taste is perhaps nice, if solely salt was there to raise it up.”) I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that a number of individuals felt the wistfulness that comes together with a superb crunchy peanut butter, however I’d even be remiss if I didn’t point out they talked about it in a “Play-Doh” and “gummy lipstick” capability.

Nature’s Promise Peanut Butter Crunchy Natural, 1.8/5

Uh oh!

Our Tasting Methodology

All style exams are performed fully hidden and with out dialogue. Tasters style samples in random order. For instance, taster A could style pattern 1 first, whereas taster B will style pattern 6 first. That is to forestall palate fatigue from unfairly giving anyone pattern a bonus. Tasters are requested to fill out tasting sheets rating the samples for varied standards that change from pattern to pattern. All information is tabulated, outcomes are calculated, and rankings are made to disclose essentially the most neutral outcomes attainable. Then we write a bunch of foolish interpretive nonsense about it that will or could not clarify what anybody was pondering.