It’s easy to see why the peanut was given its own national holiday. With its heart-healthy “good” fats, 30+ essential vitamins and minerals, and its ability to reduce your risk of cancer and heart disease, there are tons of benefits to making this legume part of your regular diet. Raw, roasted, or made into butter, the peanut is great as a snack and as an ingredient in other dishes. Peanuts are also used in shampoo, flours, fuel, dyes, and other products thanks to George Washington Carver, who discovered over 300 uses for the peanut during his lifetime.
Peanut butter is really easy to make at home in a food processor. Just blend any variety of raw peanuts on high with a little bit of salt and oil if needed until they become creamy. Kayle of The Cooking Actress has a great series of pictures on her blog of what your peanut butter should look like as you’re processing it. This DIYversion is much healthier than store-bought peanut butter, which often contains extra sodium and preservatives.
So what are our favorite things to do with peanuts?
Use them as a yogurt topping with grapes and jelly like they do at Chobani Soho:
Nicole is an NYU graduate with a degree in Media, Culture & Communication and a Food Studies minor. She loves food and is always looking for ways to make "unhealthy" dishes better. She's a dancer, theater kid and Jersey girl with a soft spot for superheroes, video games and cult TV shows. Email her at [email protected] with any questions or comments about the site, or to get her opinion on why shows like Arrested Development and Flight of the Conchords should never have been cancelled.
Peanut butter is really easy to make at home in a food processor. Just blend any variety of raw peanuts on high with a little bit of salt and oil if needed until they become creamy. Kayle of The Cooking Actress has a great series of pictures on her blog of what your peanut butter should look like as you’re processing it. This DIY version is much healthier than store-bought peanut butter, which often contains extra sodium and preservatives.
