Peanut Butter, Ranked From Worst To Best

Whether spread on bread and paired with jelly, stirred into a Thai curry, or just licked off a spoon as a late-night snack, there are few products as ubiquitous in the American kitchen as peanut butter. Crunchy, creamy, sweet, or salty, the beloved paste takes many forms, so I made it my mission to test and rank them.

I tested ten brands available at my supermarket, admittedly a non-exhaustive list. While I'm a fan of crunchy peanut butter myself, I stuck with the creamy side of things based on availability and for the sake of consistency. I tested twice: once with women in their 60s and 70s who have eaten peanut butter all their lives, once with Spaniards for whom "crema de cacahuate" was totally new (yes, I have a diverse group of friends). We tasted for flavor — peanuts, salt, sweetness — as well as texture.

The greatest takeaway was that peanut butter preference is based largely in nostalgia. What brings you back to those childhood memories of a hot day at camp? What did your mom put on celery and line with raisins as an after-school snack? Still, there are some versions that clearly are doing this better than others. Here are all ten brands, ranked from worst to best.

It's ironic that this peanut butter is called Once Again because I would consume it never again. The health-food-chic glass jar with a cartoon raccoon poking its head out from behind the label is charming, but like raccoons in the wild, you can appreciate its cuteness from afar rather than choosing to mess with it. This spread is intensely bland — to be fair, the label does warn it is unsweetened and has no salt added — and the consistency in my jar remained drippy and clumpy no matter how hard I tried to stir. Once again, there is no scenario in which I would reach for this jar again.

This is what happens when you try to get greedy. Smucker's has a good thing going with its jams and jellies (and its Goober Grape), so why colonize the whole sandwich? This natural peanut butter has a whole lot of neutral-flavored oil, but the peanuts themselves taste burnt. This spread is dark, grainy, and unappealing. With a name like Smucker's... you shouldn't be in the peanut butter business.

Peter Pan was the first major American peanut butter company, and while this might be the flavor of your childhood, try it again with a critical eye. While the texture has some redeeming qualities — it's super light and creamy, with almost a whipped consistency — the flavor is ultimately bland, bordering on nonexistent. This is the lowest-ranking peanut butter on the basis of flavor, because at least with Smucker's burnt-tasting spread, I taste something. The yellow-capped jar might have some fond memories associated with it, but it never really grew up.

As I have often found to be the case with Whole Foods products, this 365 brand peanut butter leaves much to be desired. It falls into the trap that often plagues natural peanut butters, separated oils and solids, but this separation seems even more extreme, impossible to emulsify. The flavor here is fine, kind of like a handful of raw peanuts chewed for a long time, but with none of the salt or sugar that wakes those flavors up. This is by design, of course, but it doesn't make for an enjoyable spread.

MaraNatha kind of sounds like the founders couldn't agree on whom to name the company after. Similarly, this peanut butter doesn't seem to land on what it wants to be. At first, it seems runny, like the caramel drizzle you might put on an ice cream sundae. But then you learn that runny consistency is a Trojan horse; as soon as you taste it, the peanut butter turns into a sticky cement that glues your mouth shut. The flavor saves this one a little, with a nice sweetness and natural peanut flavor, but the deceptive texture leaves it out of our top five.

Okay, this is actually a pretty damn good peanut butter. Its branding is big and bold and inviting: WE ARE MADE BY YOUR FAVORITE CANDY BRAND, it seems to shout. And it is on the sweet side, of course, but it isn't candy-like or cloyingly sweet. There's still a strong, peanut-forward taste, and I could easily use it in a savory preparation, but it would also be my go-to for a sweet dish, such as a whipped buttercream. Part of that might be the branding, but it is also because of the spread's light and almost fluffy texture. It's not the most elevated of peanut butters, but it certainly gets the job done.

I once ran into Steven Tyler, of Aerosmith fame, in a Whole Foods. He asked me which peanut butter to buy, so I pointed him toward Justin's because it was the most expensive. I can now confidently say I didn't steer him too wrong — there's a lot to love about this peanut butter. It's smooth, with just a little grit to remind you that it is, after all, made of peanuts. The only thing this spread is missing, for me, is a pinch of salt to brighten the flavor all around.

Jif (which was never Jiffy, despite what the Mandela effect might have you believe) is one of the granddaddies of the peanut butter world, and it's been America's favorite for nearly 40 years, surpassing Skippy in the '80s. It's a classic, with all the nostalgic flavor we've come to expect — and believe it or not, it is also owned by the J.M. Smucker Company! I wonder how this company feels about the peanut butter that bears its name being so vastly outperformed by Jif. This is the most savory of the leading peanut butters on the list, and it has a light, creamy consistency that earns high marks. It only falls short of the top two because there is less overall peanut flavor.

The top natural peanut butter on the list, Teddie, hits all the marks: sweet, salty, strongly peanutty, nicely spreadable, and adorned with a teddy bear suggestively lying on its side. Like Justin's, the texture of Teddie has a slight grit to it, but still manages to taste creamy, which I appreciate. The flavor leans on nutty, savory notes while eschewing any sweetener, so you can easily spoon it into your mouth at midnight without wondering if it'll keep you awake. (This is a common problem, right?)

Don't let the weird squeezable pouch pictured above fool you — this is the same Skippy peanut butter we all know and love. For those who like the no-stir, factory-emulsified experience, Skippy clearly takes the cake. It is like the platonic ideal of peanut butter. Sure, you might get the sense that it was made in a fluorescent-lit lab and not hand-ground on a prairie farm somewhere, but the results speak for themselves: thick and creamy without getting stuck in your cheeks, sweet and salty in perfect balance. Its peanut flavor is much stronger than many of the non-natural leading brands, too. The wide world of peanut butter is rooted in nostalgia, but no matter what you grew up with, Skippy takes the crown.