Food & Drink

The Best All-Natural Peanut Butters

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2 / 8

by Shane Barnes

Big Spoon Roasters’ Peanut Butter

Perhaps the current king of small batch nut roasters, Durham, NC’s Big Spoon makes a peanut butter that is heavy on the roast and just about perfect on the honey and sea salt. The small, charmingly designed jars of must-stir butters are packed with a butter the consistency of brownie batter, crunchy and sweet but with the spotlight shining straight on a perfectly roasted peanut.

The gist: This is one of the priciest butters on this list, but also the one with the most flavor. Best enjoyed with a spoon, or, if you need an edible vehicle for your peanut butter, maybe a crisp celery stick.

Price: $13.95 for a 10 oz. jar.

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3 / 8

Teddie's Smooth Peanut Butter

Peanuts and salt: that’s it. That’s all Teddie’s “All Natural Old Fashioned” peanut butter needs to be one of the best widely available nut butters around. Founded in 1925, they’ve had a long time to perfect the recipe, which, even without any hydrogenated oil or honey or, I don’t know, straight-up dairy, manages to be the most buttery of all the butters on this list, even if there’s a mysteriously bitter finish.

The gist: Eat it however you want, but its salty edge makes it a fine friend to a strawberry jam.

Price: $4.49 for a 16 oz. jar.

4 / 8

Whole Foods 365 Every Day Value Smooth Peanut Butter

Don’t be alarmed upon opening the jar of this Whole Foods butter: there’s a solid half-inch of oil on the surface, but the excess simply makes for an easier stirring process. (And, yeah, after testing six or seven of these things, stirring in oil becomes a bit of a tedium.) Once it’s fully integrated, the peanut butter is still absurdly thin. Refrigeration helps, and the taste is certainly solid, a kind of grown up, subtle Jif, but, still: not ideal for a sandwich.

The gist: Passable for spoon-to-mouth consumption, but one of the rare butters that probably works best in less conventional cooking, like as the base for a Thai sauce or a Vietnamese dressing.

Price: $3.95 for an 18 oz. jar

5 / 8

Vermont Peanut Butter Creamy

The “proprietary blend of oil roasted blanched and unblanched” nuts contained in this “super”natural peanut butter highlights the necessity for a properly roasted peanut. The lack of roasting of what seems to be a good portion of this butter’s nuts kind of flattens the flavor, its pleasantly gritty texture weighed down by the fact that, should you get too greedy and take too big of a bite of this stuff at once, it tastes alarmingly like eating an entire package of peanuts at once.

The gist: A definite go-to as one part of a classic PB&J, but not distinct enough to make for a high calorie, high shame jar-by-the-spoonful midnight snack.

Price: $6.99 for a 16 oz. jar.

6 / 8

CB's Nuts Creamunchy Peanut Butter

The only peanut butter on this list that truly contains peanuts and only peanuts, CB’s “creamunchy” peanut butter is unapologetically thick, like a beautiful peanut tar, and its absurd namesake is spot-on. It is, when it comes down to it, pure peanut, and that purity — a thing that would, removed of the context of the wider world of nut butters, seem boring — is refreshing. What’s that thing people say — less is more? Works here, too.

The gist: Use it for whatever you want — its pure peanut flavor is the most versatile on this list, even if it’s not the most show stopping.

Price: $8 for a 16 oz. jar.

7 / 8

Smucker's Creamy Natural Peanut Butter

The gateway natural peanut butter, the brand I bought in college when I wanted to feel like I was doing my body good by eating peanut butter for dinner, Smucker’s Natural Peanut Butter holds up well to these more “specialty” offerings, even if it doesn’t surpass them. It’s mostly peanuts, with a negligible amount of salt, and it’s certainly on the thin side, but it makes for solid, guilt-free fuel for an all-nighter.

The gist: Here’s a hint from my college self: try this stuff on a grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Price: $5 for a 16 oz. jar.

8 / 8

PB Crave Coco Bananas

Alright, alright, hear me out: this isn’t traditional peanut butter, and it’s kind of unfair to include something with chocolate and banana flavors, but this showed up on our doorstep and couldn’t be ignored. If it had lived up to its name and been, essentially, a jar of candy, we’d have second-guessed including it here. As it is, this stuff is wonderfully subtle but undeniably delicious. This is still peanut butter, through and through, but don’t try to eat it with pickles. Don’t try to eat it with anything, actually — just use a spoon.

The gist: Good for a less healthy change of pace, but certainly not the dessert you might be expecting.

Price: $5 for a 16 oz. jar.

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