15+ Healthy Recipes With Peanut Butter
Looking for some creative recipes with peanut butter? This collection of healthy peanut butter recipes are created by a registered dietitian and are all SO easy to make. You’ll find everything from peanut butter balls + snacks, savoury dinners with peanut sauce, peanut butter smoothies, and more!
Tap to the following sections or keep scrolling to explore all peanut butter recipe ideas:
Peanut Butter Nutrition Benefits
Peanut butter is best known as a source of heart-healthy, monounsaturated fats. These fats provide a number of health benefits – from helping to slow digestion (keeping you full + satisfied), to managing blood sugars, and helping your body absorb fat-soluble nutrients from the rest of your meal.
While the high fat content of peanut butter makes it a calorically-dense food, it is not something I ever shy away from! Minimally-processed or whole foods that are both calorically-dense AND nutrient-dense (like peanut butter) play an important role in our diets. We need calories to provide the energy for every single process in our body, and for getting through our daily activities. These foods actually help to keep us full for longer, which may in turn lead to less over-eating in the long run.
Beyond fats, peanut butter is also a source of plant-based protein, providing 8 grans of protein in a standard 2 tablespoon serving.
While peanut butter may not be a complete protein, it still contributes to your protein intake! Just be sure to pair it with other sources of protein in your diet, too 😉
Many people don’t realize that peanut butter is also a source of dietary fiber. It provides about 2 grams of fiber in that 2 tablespoon serving as well – which is about 7% of your daily fiber needs.
From a micronutrients, peanut butter is a good source of different vitamins + minerals. In a 2 tablespoon serving, peanut butter provides:
- vitamin B3 (about 28% of the daily value)
- manganese (about 21% of the DV)
- vitamin E (about 20% of the DV)
- copper (about 18% of the DV)
- magnesium (about 12% of the DV)
- vitamin B6 (about 10% of the DV)
- folate (about 6% of the DV)
Peanut butter also contains vitamin B5, iron, potassium, zinc and selenium in smaller amounts.
Tips For Purchasing Peanut Butter
Not all commercially-available brands of peanut butter are created equally, however. Many of them can contain added sugars, oils, or emulsifiers.
When purchasing peanut butter, I always recommend checking out the ingredients list on the back of the jar. Aim for peanut butters that are made only with peanuts (and maybe a little salt, if desired).
While there are SO many great local and/or smaller brands out there, some of my widely-available (and affordable) favourites include the Kirkland brand at Costco, the unsweetened peanut butter from 365 by Whole Foods, and the Valencia peanut butter from Trader Joe’s.
Peanut Butter Balls
Peanut butter is the perfect base for these healthy, no-bake snacks. You can make them in advance and store them in the fridge or freezer for when the craving hits.
1) No-Bake Peanut Butter “Cookie Dough” Balls
2) Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Crispy Balls
***BONUS: While the recipe title calls for almond butter, you could easily swap that for peanut butter in these almond butter oatmeal balls!
Other Peanut Butter Snacks
Beyond energy balls, peanut butter is a key ingredient in these snack ideas below. As a source of protein and healthy fats, peanut butter helps to make these snacks more filling and satisfying. This helps to actually keep you full and energized between meals!
3) Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites
4) Peanut Butter Greek Yogurt Bowl
5) No-Bake Trail Mix Granola Bars
6) Baked Apple Nachos
Recipes With Peanut Sauce
Moving on to savory peanut butter recipes, below are all the recipes from my site that use peanut butter as part of a sauce. It’s the perfect addition to a stir-fry or a rice/noodle bowl!
7) Miso Peanut Sauce
8) Tempeh Stir-Fry With Miso Peanut Sauce
9) Noodle Bowl With Spicy Peanut Sauce
10) Mackerel Rice Bowl With Peanut Sauce
Peanut Butter Smoothies
Peanut butter will forever be one of my go-to smoothie ingredients. It helps to make them thick, creamy, and filling! Some of the recipes below may list almond butter as an ingredient, but peanut butter is a super easy swap.
11) Apple Banana Smoothie
12) Chocolate Banana Smoothie
13) Strawberry Oatmeal Smoothie
14) Creamy Green Smoothie
***BONUS RECIPES: While these smoothie recipes call for different nut or seed butters, they can SO easily be swapped for peanut butter and taste equally as delicious:
More Breakfasts With Peanut Butter
Beyond smoothies, below are some breakfast recipes made with peanut butter. I’ve also included a handful of breakfast recipes that use peanut butter as a TOPPING, because that’s truly one of my favourite ways to use it in the morning 🙂
15) Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Baked Oatmeal
16) Nutritious Breakfast Cookies
**PEANUT BUTTER AS A BREAKFAST TOPPING: While these recipes below don’t explicitly call for peanut butter, I will personally top them with peanut butter 100% of the time ;). Peanut butter adds a nice source of healthy fat to things like overnight oats, porridges, or pancakes!
More ingredient roundups to explore:
- 25+ Recipes With Oats
- 15+ Recipes With Tahini
- 15+ Recipes With Miso Paste
- 30+ Recipes With Avocado
- 30+ Recipes With Greek Yogurt
And there you have it – 15+ Easy, Healthy Peanut Butter Recipes to cook and enjoy. I so hope you found some inspiration from this list!
If you make any of these recipes, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram or Pinterest – seeing your creations always makes my day. You can also subscribe to my email list to never miss a new recipe or nutrition education post!
Get the Recipe: Easy, Healthy Peanut Butter Recipes: No-Bake Peanut Butter Balls
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter, unsweetened
- 2 Tbsp honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup + 2 Tbsp almond flour
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips
- Pinch of sea salt
Instructions
- Line a small baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, add peanut butter, honey, and vanilla extract. Stir until well-combined.
- In a separate large bowl, mix together almond flour, chocolate chips, and sea salt. Be sure to break up any clumps in the almond flour.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, then stir to combine well until the mixture resembles cookie dough.
- Scoop about 1-2 Tbsps of mixture into your hands and roll into balls. Place onto lined baking sheet and repeat until all mixture is used up. Depending on the size of your energy balls, this recipe as written will make about 12 balls.
- Place in the freezer for a minimum of 2 hours to harden. Be sure to allow balls to thaw for a few minutes before eating. See notes for additional storage tips!
Notes
- If you find the texture of these balls is too soft that they don’t hold together, you can add a touch more almond flour.
- If it’s too crumbly, add a touch more peanut butter or honey. It should work as written, but sometimes it’s hard to get totally accurate measurements when we use measuring cups!
- If you think you’ll eat these peanut butter balls within a week, you can keep them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 7 days.
- If you’d like to keep these energy balls for longer than a week, you can store them in a freezer-safe container in the freezer. Simply thaw the balls for a few minutes before you enjoy them (or else they will be too hard to bite into)!
- Peanut butter can be swapped for unsweetened creamy almond butter. The flavour profile will be different, but equally as delicious 🙂
- While I love the flavour of honey with these, you can try swapping the honey for maple syrup if desired (or if vegan!) If you find they’re not quite sticking together as well, try adding a touch more almond flour.
Nutrition
As a dietitian, I create recipes with whole food ingredients that provide the nutrients needed for optimal health. My nutrition philosophy does not focus on numbers; however, I understand that this information can be helpful.
Do note that the nutrition info provided is an estimate and I cannot guarantee correctness of the displayed values. These numbers will differ depending on brands used, recipe modifications, and amount eaten. If you require specific nutrition information due to medical reasons, please consult with your dietitian or physician.
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