Tired of stirring your natural peanut butter? Try this!
There are few things more trusty in my fridge than a jar of natural peanut butter. It’s one of those ingredients that comes in handy when I’m in a bind (or when I’m just plain old hangry).
After all, the salty, sweet, decadent stuff is not just made for PB&J’s—I rely on it for smoothies, an afternoon snack on some apples or celery, a powerful breakfast combo smeared atop a rice cake with honey, or as the secret ingredient to a perfect weeknight stir fry. And I'm not even mentioning all its potential dessert applications!
There is one thing I don’t like about natural peanut butter and that’s when it separates in the jar—the oil pools on top and the ground peanuts solidify underneath. I think of myself as a strong and able-bodied person, but boy oh boy does that jar give me a run for my money! Just the forearm strength alone required to reintegrate the oils and the solids makes me second-guess my hankering for a spoonful sometimes.
Plus, I always wind up with oil spilling over the jar’s edge onto my hands or the countertop, and the vigorous stirring gets the entire spoon covered in peanut butter all the way up the handle. Am I right to think you know exactly what I'm describing?
The Simple Trick for Storing Natural Peanut Butter
Luckily, however, I stumbled across a no-mix solution to this PB dilemma on the internet. It’s quite simple actually. All you have to do is store the peanut butter jar upside-down in the fridge. Once you’re ready to spread or scoop just flip the jar over, open it, and scoop—no stirring required!
I know, I also thought this easy hack seemed too good to be true, but after trying it out for myself I was truly amazed. All those years of struggling, stirring, and (dare I say?) cursing were for not! Who knew just a simple inversion of the jar would cure me of my snack-time woes?
Why Does Storing the Jar Upside Down Work?
Natural peanut butter will separate because it’s not loaded with any additives or stabilizers (stuff like hydrogenated oils and other stabilizers that prevent highly processed peanut butters from separating). So, without something binding the oil to the solids, the oil floats up to the top of the jar.
The reason why this method for storing works is because by inverting the jar, you’re forcing the oil to move through the solids as it attempts to travel up to the surface. By keeping it in the fridge, you stop the oil from traveling all the way through the solids and up to the other side—it'll firm up before it separates again. So, by proxy, you’re having the oil re-incorporate itself for you. Which, to be honest, I think it deserves after making me do all the hard work for all this time.
All you have to do is store the peanut butter jar upside-down in the fridge. Once you're ready to spread or scoop just flip the jar over, open it, and scoop—no stirring required!
See, the liquids that separate from the solid body of peanut butter rise to the top. Storing it upside-down will force the oils at the top to travel back through the butter, mixing right in themselves. And if the oil all travels to the bottom of the jar, just store it right-side-up until you use it again.
A knife will do the trick if you want to avoid buying an extra tool. It works just as well as long as you stir vigorously for at least a minute and a half. Either way, keeping your natural peanut butter in the fridge will help keep the oil incorporated after stirring.
By storing it upside down, you're essentially moving the oil from the top of the jar to the bottom and back every time you grab the jar. This is like a slow shaking of the jar that requires no shaking and the peanut butter will stay smooth.
Palm oil is tropical fruit oil derived from palm trees, and because it's semi-solid at room temperature, it's added to natural peanut butter to stabilize it, reduce oil separation, and keep the butter uniform and emulsified. In other words, palm oil is basically the way to get a no-stir natural peanut butter.
Natural peanut butters (i.e., those made just from peanuts and salt) are clearly healthier, but we have one key complaint: separation. Highly processed peanut butters contain hydrogenated oils and other stabilizers for a reason: to keep the ingredients from separating.
"Conventional peanut butter does not need to be refrigerated because it has added oils that stabilize it to keep the oil from separating out and to extend its shelf life," says Cooper. Additionally, conventional peanut butter has low water activity, which means microbes generally can't grow in it.
Since natural peanut butter is made without the use of added stabilizers (such as, hydrogenated oil), the peanuts' natural oils separate and rise to the top of the jar.
Because natural peanut butter (peanuts and salt, basically) doesn't use stabilizer oils to keep it hom*ogenized, you have to stir the peanut butter thoroughly when you first open the jar.
Commercially, fully hydrogenated vegetable oils, such as soybean, cottonseed, palm, and rapeseed, are added to peanut butter to prevent oil separation and sensory degradation [7]. These stabilizers develop a matrix that resists oil separation and makes a hom*ogenous peanut butter mixture [8].
Peanut butter is high in fat, but the majority of that fat is monounsaturated fat, which is healthier for you. When paired with the protein and fibre in peanut butter, these fats can help people feel satiated for longer periods of time, keep their blood sugar steady, and sleep better.
How the peanut butter approach to business is a recipe for unprofitability and mediocrity? When businesses spread their resources and capital too thin across various functions, I call this the peanut butter effect. This approach can lead to mediocre execution and underperformance.
Attach just one beater to a handheld electric mixer and stick the beater in the jar of nut butter as far down as it will go. (Make sure the power is off before you plug it in—trust me!!) Hold on to the jar as tightly as you can to keep it from moving. I repeat, HOLD ON TIGHT.
Our culinary editor Genevieve recommends adding in a few drops of neutral oil—essentially reincorporating what was extracted from the nut butter—to get it to stir, or tossing it in a blender if it's a larger amount.
If the oil is separating from the sauce a bit (this can happen from the oil in the coconut milk and the peanut butter, but it's easy to fix!), add water a few drops at a time and whisk until it comes smoothly back together.
Keep in mind that oil separation is normal for natural peanut butters because they may lack stabilizer ingredients. It's not a sign that the peanut butter has gone bad.
An open jar of peanut butter stays fresh up to three months in the pantry. After that, it's recommended to store the peanut butter in the fridge (where it can maintain its quality for another 3-4 months). If you don't refrigerate, oil separation can occur.
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Introduction: My name is Virgilio Hermann JD, I am a fine, gifted, beautiful, encouraging, kind, talented, zealous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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