The Critical Eats reader, in my expertise, is quite a lot of issues. She’s passionate! She’s nuanced! She’s intense about the truth that peanut butter ought to all the time be crunchy! (I realized this about her after publishing a creamy peanut butter style check not too long ago.) I respect that, however I’m additionally somewhat frightened of her. I am additionally somewhat frightened of all of the Critical Eats readers who passionately disagree together with her and, with the publication of this chunky peanut butter style check, now have an entire new motive to ship indignant 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 Critical Eats and are capable of examine our personal within the title of taste-test objectivity.

So, the SE crew 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 approach by means of all of them in a quest to establish 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

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

The jars we procured have been all around the map texture-wise. About half may very well be described as skinny and slippery, nearly 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 Critical Eats crew was much less bothered by the distinct presence of artificiality on this check than they have been in the creamy peanut butter model. Actually, somewhat stabilization and emulsification went a protracted, nice approach—an indication that when PB goes crunchy, our tastes go junky?

Relatedly, those self same profitable 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 have the ability to open it and know you’re in for 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 enjoying in your own home after faculty). 

As with the creamy PB style check, we prevented “spreads” (it is a completely 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 are going to do one other check particularly for spreads!) Both approach, I stirred every peanut butter for 20 seconds a pop earlier than plopping every pattern right into a bowl and serving it to the crew with no accompaniments.

The Rankings

City Meadow Crunchy Peanut Butter, 3.8/5

You (famously, I feel) shouldn’t choose a guide by its cowl, however there’s nothing improper with judging a peanut butter by what you’re greeted with once you pull off the lid. Per my pre-testing notes, this Key Meals model (!) was “beautiful! There’s no separation and there are even chunks riddled all through.” From there, the feedback have 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 might positively eat this once more fortunately.” The chunks have been small, however they have been constantly small, they usually ate crisp-ily in every chew. Everybody was proud of this PB’s versatility, or, on the very least, not mad about having to eat quite a lot of these things. And on this home, we stan a begrudging near-consensus.

JIF Peanut Butter, Additional Crunchy, 3.7/5

HEheheheheheeeee! Megan: “This has bought to be Skippy or Jif or some such.” Kelli: “Creamy and nostalgic, this needs to be a typical model like Jif. That is clearly a brilliant contrived texture, meant to make me joyful, and it does.” Then, okay, high quality, Daniel: “This isn’t my most popular type 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 wanting to see the place this man would land, given Teddie’s middling rating  within the creamy peanut butter style check (regardless of being cherished by the crew of their private lives). It fared significantly better right here. Firstly, these things was fairly. It’s the colour of Three Musketeers filling—a viscerally good and necessary coloration. Secondly, it was accurately salty and savory with very constant chunking. “Completely satisfying. 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 mates, these items matter much less if it feels such as you’re masticating by means of candy glue. It is a excellent choice for a snacky, dehydrated human: One chew and also you’re assured a contact of candy and a pop of salt adopted by half your each day really helpful H2O consumption simply to attempt to wash it down!

WOODSTOCK Natural Crunchy Peanut Butter, 2.85/5

In joyful information, this oily providing stirred again collectively very simply. No a part of it tasted synthetic; in actual fact, it toed the road between naturally easy and artificially easy very properly. Megan described the expertise of consuming this peanut butter as “shocking,” as she didn’t love the looks, however was stunned 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 chew, and that the pattern re-puddled fairly rapidly.

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 recent and have become “stale and dusty” or if it merely was that approach upon bottling, the stale peanut style was plain for each tester. That stated, most remarked on the general taste being 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 likely to be high quality, if solely salt was there to raise it up.”) I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that just a few individuals felt the wistfulness that comes together with 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 might style pattern 1 first, whereas taster B will style pattern 6 first. That is to forestall palate fatigue from unfairly giving anybody pattern a bonus. Tasters are requested to fill out tasting sheets rating the samples for numerous standards that change from pattern to pattern. All information is tabulated, outcomes are calculated, and rankings are made to disclose probably the most neutral outcomes doable. Then we write a bunch of foolish interpretive nonsense about it which will or might not clarify what anybody was pondering.