What to use instead of peanut butter
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Fat and protein that thicken a savoury sauce (satay, mafe, kare-kare)
Ground peanut is roughly half fat and a quarter protein, so in hot liquid it emulsifies and bulks the sauce at the same time. The roast flavour is what makes it read as a sauce rather than as thickened stock.
Sunflower seed butterNut-free
1:1
Slightly bitter and greener-tasting, and it thickens the same. In a peanut stew it needs an extra pinch of sugar to sit right.
Tahini plus a little sweetnessNut-free
1:1, plus 1 tsp sugar or honey per 1/4 cup
More bitter and much looser, and it splits more readily. Whisk it into warm liquid rather than boiling.
Almond or cashew butterRan out
1:1
Milder and sweeter, so the sauce needs more fish sauce or salt to stay savoury. Cashew makes it noticeably creamier.
Roasted peanuts blitzed with hot waterRan out
1/4 cup peanuts + 2 tbsp hot water per 1/4 cup peanut butter
Slightly grainy and it separates faster in the pan, but the roast flavour is fresher and considerably stronger.
What doesn't work: Peanut oil. It is the fat with every solid stripped out, so it slicks the pan and thickens nothing; a satay made with peanut oil is a thin oily marinade that will not cling to the skewer.
Binder and fat in a no-bake sweet (buckeyes, energy balls, no-bake cookies)
Nothing here is being cooked into structure. The mixture sets purely because the peanut butter solids and its stabilised fat firm up as they cool, which is what holds the shape.
Conventional stabilised peanut butterRan out
1:1 for the natural kind
Sets firm and stays set. This is the one job where the shelf-stable jar is the correct ingredient and the natural one is not.
Sunflower seed butterNut-free
1:1
Sets a shade softer, and the mixture can turn grey-green over a day or two if there is any baking soda in the recipe.
Cookie butter or speculoos spreadRan out
1:1, and cut the sugar in the recipe by about a quarter
Much sweeter and it sets softer, with obvious cinnamon and caramel through it.
Smooth almond butter plus 1 tbsp melted coconut oil per 1/2 cupRan out
1:1 with the coconut oil added
The coconut oil supplies the firm set that almond butter lacks. It softens fast out of the fridge.
What doesn't work: Natural peanut butter, the kind you have to stir, in buckeyes or no-bake cookies. Its oil is unstabilised, so it weeps out at room temperature and the balls stay tacky and slump instead of setting.
Powdered peanut butter has the fat pressed out of it. It will flavour a sauce and it binds and thickens almost nothing, so do not use it where the recipe is relying on the fat.