For years, I kept a jar of natural, organic, one-ingredient peanut butter in my pantry—wholesome, slightly oily, and always in need of a stir. This was back when I lived in the Hudson Valley, surrounded by health food stores on every corner. Abandoning my beloved Skippy for the all-natural “better” stuff was inevitable.
Before I knew it, my grocery tote had filled with maca-dusted goji berry–chia seed–flaxseed granola; grains each more ancient than the last; antioxidant superfoods by the handfuls; and—naturally—a jar of peanut butter made of just peanuts. But once I switched to natural peanut butter, the urge to dig a spoon straight into the jar suddenly disappeared—and with it, one of life’s small pleasures.
Living in New York City has a way of stripping the pretense from things. Since moving here, I’ve traded the open greenery of the Hudson Valley for Brooklyn’s neighborhood parks and corner bodegas. And just as I no longer think twice about eating a greasy slice of pizza at 1 a.m., I’ve stopped overthinking peanut butter. I’ll keep the natural kind on hand for stews and sauces, where it shines, but when I want a spoonful of something delicious or need the perfect PB for baking, I reach for the undeniably delicious, creamy, sweetened, emulsified stuff. Call it self-reclamation, call it a return to what feels familiar—either way, my jar of Skippy is back in my pantry where it belongs.
Why Is Creamy Sweetened Peanut Butter So Damn Good?
So what makes the sweetened conventional peanut butters such as Skippy, Jif, and similar store brands, so good? It’s more than just nostalgia, though that plays a part, for me at least. The real answer lies in the ingredients: a bit of sugar and salt, plus stabilizers and emulsifiers that keep everything smooth and shelf-stable.
Unlike natural peanut butter, which separates into a layer of oil and gritty solids, conventional supermarket peanut butter typically contains added oils—often hydrogenated vegetable oils—that act as stabilizers, preventing that separation. Through hydrogenation, hydrogen atoms are added to unsaturated fats, converting them into saturated or partially saturated fats. This alters the oil’s structure, making it more solid and smooth at room temperature and far less prone to separation.
Emulsifiers like mono- and diglycerides or lecithin are also commonly added to keep water and fat bound together. Meanwhile, a little sugar (or corn syrup) and salt round out the flavor. The result is a consistently creamy, stable spread that won’t split or seize when introduced to moisture.
When to Use Stabilized, Emulsified “Junky” Peanut Butter
That stability makes a big difference in baking. Emulsified peanut butter folds seamlessly into melted chocolate, butter, and batter without turning grainy or oily. It stays smooth in frostings, holds its shape in no-bake bars, and makes cookies softer and more cohesive. In pies and fillings, it blends evenly for a silkier finish. Natural peanut butter, on the other hand, can cause mixtures to seize, separate, or bake up dry and crumbly. Even outside of baking, creamy stabilized and emulsified peanut butter is more practical: It spreads effortlessly on toast, doesn’t need stirring, and delivers that clean, dense spoonful when you’re standing in the kitchen, looking for a quick pick-me-up.
When Natural Peanut Butter Is the Best Fit
That’s not to say natural peanut butter doesn’t have its place. Its rich, nutty depth of flavor and the fact that it’s typically not sweetened make it a better fit for savory dishes such as West African peanut stew or Sudanese mullah kombo, where the toasty flavor of the peanuts can come through without interference. Just be ready to give it a serious stir—without emulsifiers, the oil separates and needs a little effort to bring it back together.
A Comfort Worth Reaching For
For me, creamy emulsified peanut butter is a reminder that not everything in the pantry needs to be virtuous. Sometimes it just needs to taste really, really good. Sometimes a spoonful of lightly sweetened, perfectly smooth peanut butter straight from the jar is the kind of quiet, transcendent comfort that cuts through the cacophony. That, to me, is a simple pleasure worth keeping.
