Peanut butter is one of the best and most versatile ingredients you can have in your kitchen. It pairs just as well with chicken and prawns as it does with banana and chocolate. ManiLife offers a really wide range of peanut butters, from deeply roasted, toasty crunchy peanut butters to smooth and sweet salted caramel peanut butter. They're a great choice, and would work well with any of the recipes on this list, sweet or savoury.

And while most people know it’s delicious drizzled over porridge or brownies, or mixed into a simple sauce for chicken satay, that’s only the beginning. The cuisines of Sierra Leone, the Philippines, Thailand and many other countries use peanuts and peanut butter throughout their cooking, sometimes just as a little accent and sometimes as the main flavour.

Below are some of our favourite simple recipes using peanut butter, to help you get the most out of your jar or tub!

This delicious fish ball stew from Maria Bradford was inspired by her mother’s economical recipe, designed to make a little bit of white fish and onions go a long way. The haddock is minced up with Scotch bonnet, ginger, onions and peanut butter, and then deep-fried and served with a rich caramelised onion stew.

Inspired by the all-American PB&J, these jammy dodgers have a surprise peanut twist. Peanut butter is mixed into the biscuit dough, so even though they look like standard jammy dodgers they taste like a PB&J! These come together in a flash using simple store-cupboard ingredients, and is a great last-minute bake.

This rich fondant uses peanut butter in the gooey ganache filling and in the rich ice cream, for an unrepentantly sweet and nutty dessert. Although this dessert has several different components, each one can be made in advance and then assembled just before serving.

Satay sauce is good for so much more than just chicken. This cauliflower satay from Marcus Wareing is really simple to make. All the ingredients are added to a blender once and then poured over the cauliflower, giving it a rich, spice-encrusted exterior and soft and tender interior. 

Kare kare is a Filipino stew made with beef – frequently oxtail – cooked in shrimp paste, peanut butter and shallots. Jeremy Villanueva here uses beef brisket instead of oxtail, another cut which responds well to slow, gentle cooking and pairs beautifully with the rich, nutty sauce.

This three-ingredient snack from Maria Bradford is made with garri, peanut butter and sugar. Garri is made from dried cassava that has been treated to make it safe to eat, and has a texture similar to semolina. 

Rukmini Iyer brings together the classic combination of chocolate and peanut butter here with a generous pinch of sea salt in these sweet and salty peanut butter-filled treats. Rukmini Iyer also recommends using the filling as a topping for toast, or sweet sandwich filling.

This Thai-style coconut curry soup is made with a fresh red curry paste, and served with crunchy peanut croutons made with peanut butter. They are so tasty it’s hard to resist eating them all as soon as they’re made, so it might be worth making a double batch!