The Best And Worst Brands Of Natural Peanut Butter, Ranked

Peanut butter is a tried-and-true ingredient. The peanut (Arachis hypogaea) has made its way into cuisines across the globe. And while it may be renowned for its starring role in your PB&J, it also comes in such a dizzying array of options that it's hard to tell the best ones, and even harder to decide based on health. Therefore, I found and ranked the best natural peanut butters for you.

I should clarify, though, that "natural" is a subjective term. The United States Food & Drug Administration does not, in fact, regulate the term. Instead, it loosely defines it as including no artificial or synthetic ingredients. And peanut butter must contain at least 90% peanuts or else it is considered a spread. The Peanut Institute further restricts "natural" to containing no sugar or salt, though most contest this definition, saying salt is allowed.

Using this definition, I taste-tested natural peanut butters to find out which was the best. For the purposes of this ranking, the peanut butters in this list include only peanuts and maybe salt or peanut oil. Anything that includes sugar, other sweeteners, palm oils, or shelf stabilizers was excluded (for that, check out this ranking for all types of peanut butter).

The results are ranked worst to best, so No. 1 was my favorite, while No. 10 was the dead-last, it's-too-late-for-us-but-you-can-still-save-yourself brand. On the expert team: one writer, one husband, one small girl, one small boy, and a few pooches who seemed equally enthusiastic about all brands (their ratings have, of course, been discounted). Now to the good stuff. Prices may vary based on location.

But first, the bad stuff. MaraNatha Organic Crunchy Peanut Butter was $6.53 when I purchased it, but it has since shown some interestingly varied prices online, so right there that's a tally in the con column. Most people, and certainly most parents, want to know that a staple like peanut butter isn't going to change wildly in price over time, so MaraNatha lets us down there.

As for its other attributes, they aren't much more impressive. Taste: not great. Creaminess: no. Spreadability: also no. Would I eat it alone? I would not, earning this option from MaraNatha an overall 1.9 score. It tied with Adams (points system explained in the methodology section at the bottom), but lost out because no one wanted to actually put it in their mouth when forced, and it got rock-bottom ratings of 1.75 out of a possible 4 points overall.

This writer feels compelled to reveal, however, that this company makes some of the yummiest peanut butter spreads around, as long as you're comfortable with an infusion of sweeteners and palm oil. Such ingredients aren't as natural as you might be looking for, but boy are they the spoonful of, well, sugar, needed to make the medicine go down.

Adams 100% Natural Peanut Butter seems like a good deal at $5.99, but its taste was universally panned. It's important to note that we did order the crunchy kind, which might seem like enough reason to fire it right there, but that's not a dealbreaker in this household. What was Adams' dealbreaker, then? Everything else about it: flavor, the impossibility of spreading it, the lack of consistent creaminess, and its character as a whole. Its ultimate ranking out of a possible 4 points was 1.9, just like MaraNatha, with a slight edibility edge.

Also important to state: Making natural peanut butter spreadable is somewhat of a challenge. There are numerous ways to do it: inserting a single handheld beater and stirring it; turning it upside down in the cupboard for a few days and then carefully righting it before opening; or using the maddening stir-with-a-knife strategy. Whatever you do, you cannot simply open and taste for good results. Still, even well-stirred Adams missed the mark. Although it has a 4.6 rating on Amazon, we remain unmoved.

On a final note, Adams No-Stir Creamy Peanut Butter is still unsweetened and somewhat natural, but much more palatable due to the addition of palm oil. If you like the brand, you might want to start there. As for the all-natural version, the small girl said, "Here's my advice: Don't eat it!" So there you have it, from the mouths of babes.

Ferris Coffee & Nut Co. Peanut Butter is one you'll want to purchase in the store, if you opt to do so at all. It's hard to get online unless you're willing to commit to a small pallet of peanut butter, which is unlikely. You can also get it through Instacart, but that depends on your area. It was available at our nearby grocery store at a reasonable price ($4.49), which is the only thing Ferris really has going for it.

Here's the thing: gritting doesn't really begin to describe it. This peanut butter was certainly natural, with only peanuts and salt. The flavor of the peanuts themselves was pretty good, so that's not the problem. The question is more about what constitutes a peanut butter, and the answer is: not this. Ferris Coffee & Nut peanut butter was so gritty and crunchy that you almost couldn't tell the difference between that and a partially macerated handful of nuts. Putting it on a sandwich or eating it out of the jar was, to say the least, unappealing.

With an overall ranking of 2.1, it barely beat out our other losers. As if our personal feelings weren't enough, it was impossible to find a star rating for it online, which can't be good. Give this one a miss.

While Wild Harvest Organic Creamy Old Fashioned Peanut Butter is not available on Amazon where we sourced many of our other nut butters for this trial, it only costs $5.99 at our grocery store and is listed on Instacart in our area as $6.29. (Keep in mind that with Instacart pricing, this doesn't include the delivery and shopping fees.)

Despite being a little more difficult to source, this natural peanut butter from Wild Harvest is worth inclusion on this list, because the small boy rated it "Amazing!" That said, the rest of us (minus the dogs) thought it was pretty abominable. His delighted reviews were the only thing keeping it afloat, still only earning it an overall 2.3. It's hard to weigh this against the opinions of the public at large since there aren't any online ratings to be had, at least where this writer was looking.

If you really enjoy paying exorbitant amounts for nut butters, then good news: Wild Friends Foods Classic Creamy Peanut Butter is your actual friend. And its pricing is indeed pretty wild, at $14.34 per jar if you order it online. Yes, that's for a regular-sized, 16-ounce jar. It's a bit less in the store, but my neighborhood store didn't have it, so I went online. Potentially the pricing is because the company is shuttering so online inventory is rarer, but since it was one of the most commonly recommended natural peanut butters, I wanted to give it a shot.

Overall, Wild Friends natural peanut butter is okay. It got low scores for willingness to eat it alone because it was pretty runny, but creaminess and spreadability were higher. It earned a 2.4, tying with the Once Again brand but losing out because I was slightly more likely to want to eat the latter alone. And because Once Again has a really, really compelling fan, as you'll soon discover.

Finally. You put in the time and now you made it: The good half of the list. From here on out, you can safely assume that these peanut butters are not terrible and more or less worth your time and money. Congrats!

I'll start with Once Again Unsweetened Creamy Peanut Butter, which earned at 2.4 out of 4 (still not great) and costs $8.99, another factor tarnishing its reputation. The main reason it wasn't a big seller in this household is that, beyond the fact that it doesn't contain sugar (a strike against everything on this list, according to small boy and small girl), it has kind of a weird flavor. It is only fair to mention that its online reviews are very positive, though, in the 4- to 5-star range.

Also, it has strong anecdotal evidence in its favor. When I was shopping for peanut butters at the store, a woman in the grocery aisle told us how much she loved this brand and insisted I include it in the ranking (literally going so far as to press a jar of it into my hands). When I asked why, she said she adores peanut butter and, while undergoing chemotherapy, she tried every brand under the sun, but they all made her sick. Once Again was the exception, earning her undying love and my mad respect.

At $7.79 for a beastly 26-ounce jar (most of the ones on this list are 16 ounces), 365 By Whole Foods Market Peanut Butter Creamy Unsweetened is definitely a good bet money-wise. It's got pretty good reviews from internet shoppers and received decent ones in my household, as well. Although it only earned an overall 2.5, you have to keep in mind that this isn't a straight-across 1-5 score, but rather requires weighing a lot of factors. Since 365 was not that spreadable and people were meh about eating it alone, the fact that it got high creaminess and taste points kind of got lost. Overall, it was more or less a winner.

Where this peanut butter doesn't shine is in how easy it is to use for a sandwich or eat from a spoon. Now, I work pretty hard to stir our peanut butter (this writer having been subjected to many unpaid hours of labor performing that task in my draconian home of origin, you understand). But despite my best efforts, 365 is just kind of runny. If you're baking with it, it will be fine and has a nice flavor.

Although it is among the pricier peanut butter options at $7.99, Santa Cruz Organics Crunchy Dark Roasted Peanut Butter was decently good. It has an okay flavor, but not great, but it is nice and spreadable if you mix it up right. It's pretty creamy, too, even with those crunchy pieces in it (which some of us liked and some of us didn't). Unfortunately, it's going to cost you more at the store (when I went, it was $1 extra), than it will if you order it online.

What it does have going for it is the fact that it is organic, whereas many of the peanut butters on this list are not. Indeed, for a list of "natural" products, it's a bit shocking that only five of them claim to be organic. If you care about that, then Santa Cruz isn't a bad product to buy, especially since it has a low salt content of 1% or less of the total ingredients. For anyone whose doctor is wagging a finger, that's a major plus. If you really like salty peanut butter, though, not so much.

Let's start with the bad news: If you don't have a Trader Joe's near you, then you're not likely to indulge in Trader Joe's Organic Peanut Butter Creamy Salted Valencia. It costs $13.84 to buy it online, which is simply too much for one 16-ounce jar, but it is considerably cheaper in the store. However, there are some serious Trader Joe's deserts in this world, so it all depends on where you live.

On the plus side, this peanut butter is yummy. It scored 2.6 overall, which, aside from the No. 1 winner, is really pretty good. It lost points because people weren't jazzed on the idea of eating it overall, probably because it had an overwhelming peanut flavor that wasn't cut by nearly enough salt. When your label says "salted," you should at least taste salty enough, no? Still, TJ's peanut butter is beloved enough that fans are excited to report Costco's Kirkland brand peanut butter is a good substitute, so it must have a following. If you're a member of the fan club but can't get it where you are, maybe try your nearest Costco.

Enter... the winner. The first thing to say here is that it's mighty impressive that anything on this list scored an overall 3.6 out of 4, because by the end of the test, I was starting to think that wasn't possible. In fact, one of the biggest takeaways from this experiment was that peanut butter without sugar really is a completely different animal than that which contains it, which underscores the official decision to label it a "spread" if it has less than 90% peanuts. Woodstock Organic Smooth Peanut Butter is, however, worth the delicious rating it earned in my home, and that's without a lick of sugar.

It really comes down to creaminess and spreadability for this bad boy. Three out of four humans (and two out of two dogs) loved this peanut butter and gave it all 4/4 rankings: It's that good. However, the small boy rated this "dusgusting" (not to be confused with "dasgusting," which was the epithet MaraNatha earned from him), and still couldn't drag the ranking down that much because he was forced to give it high marks in the creamy, spread-y categories. Suffice it to say, Woodstock is the brand most likely to make your family happy.

Whether you make homemade nut butter, only shop organic peanut butters, or opt for natural or spread versions, there are a few things to know when storing peanut butter. First, your nut butter will last a lot longer in the fridge, especially the natural kind with no preservatives. If you're going to take that route, make sure you don't make the mistake of simply sticking it in there. Instead, stir your PB well beforehand, because there's no getting that oil and nut paste to mix once it's cold.

If you're a card-carrying member of Team Cupboard, that's fine, but the United States Department of Agriculture advises that "You can keep peanut butter in the pantry for six to nine months (unopened) and two to three months (opened)." Keeping it in the fridge after opening can extend its shelf life by another three to four months. Moreover, if you put it in the fridge, it will stay stirred. If you store natural peanut butter in the cupboard, you should expect it to separate again after a few days.

Now, peanut butter is a very subjective thing, with many strong opinions and myths surrounding it. Plus, it's a free country, and you are thus free to dismiss the opinions of one very loudmouthed family and two very undiscerning dogs. However, this writer did make an effort to take the most scientific approach possible.

This blind taste test was admittedly only blind in three out of four cases, given that I was handing out samples and collating results. However, the other participants did not know what they were eating, as proven by the fact that they continually and confidently predicted all the brands incorrectly. Once distributed, all four of us tried the peanut butters, ranking them on a possible 4-point scale. Categories: creaminess, taste, spreadability, and whether you'd eat it alone. When the tasting was over, I averaged the score in each category and the overall score for each natural peanut butter, then created this ranking based purely on points. In the case of a tie, I awarded the win to the peanut butter people would most likely want to eat off a spoon.

These rankings should be taken with a grain of salt because the brands all have other flavors and versions of peanut butter to try: with sugar, palm oil, no salt, creamy or crunchy, and so on. Your tastes will obviously play into your final choice. Where uncertain, you can check out online ratings as well (bearing in mind that folks are more likely to rate a product when they have a positive experience versus a negative one).

On a final, final note, you should know that the husband had this to say: "The chick handing out the samples was a hottie." So, there you have it. That's important information. You're welcome, and enjoy your natural peanut butter.