The Simple Trick To Make Spreading Peanut Butter So Much Easier

Whether you're putting together the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich or making peanut butter toast, the process of throwing together a simple meal can easily become more time-consuming and annoying if the peanut butter doesn't spread easily. After all, there's nothing worse than the bread tearing because the peanut butter is too difficult to spread. Luckily, there's an easy way to fix this: heat up the peanut butter before spreading it.

You may think that you don't want the peanut butter in your PB&J to be too hot, but there's no need to worry — just about five seconds in the microwave should do the trick. Put the desired amount in a microwave-safe bowl, then pop it in for a few seconds. After that, it should be softened enough to spread quite easily without tearing up the bread.

Another option is to heat up a small amount of oil — about 2 tablespoons — and add that directly to the peanut butter jar, then give it a good stir. That should soften the peanut butter enough to spread it more easily. This is a good option if you need to soften up a larger amount of peanut butter, such as if you're making a large quantity of peanut butter sandwiches or if you're using it in a baking recipe.

If you want to take it a step further, you can microwave the peanut butter for a bit longer, which will result in a sauce-like consistency. The simplest way to melt peanut butter in the microwave requires just a few easy steps. Scoop the desired amount into a microwave-safe bowl and heat up for 30 seconds. Give it a stir, then heat for another 30 seconds, and repeat if needed.

Melted peanut butter is the sauce that peanut butter lovers didn't know they needed. You can use it to drizzle over ice cream, either a simple bowl of vanilla or as the final topping of an ice cream sundae. Or, you can drizzle it over homemade fudgy brownies to make them more exciting and unique — without committing to a brownie recipe with peanut butter swirled into the batter. Another option is to use it as a dip, such as for shortbread cookies. Overall, melted peanut butter works great if you want to add extra flavor to something without the extra sweetness, as there are no other ingredients added.