Thicken Soup And Give It A Nutty Twist With Powdered Peanut Butter

Whether your homemade soup is a glowing success worth bragging about or a sad learning experience all comes down to how well you handle the broth — that flavorful liquid that serves as the foundation and gives your soup the desired consistency. Even if you've nailed every other step in your recipe, if the broth turns out too thin, it still won't taste very satisfying. Typically, home cooks turn to starches like cornstarch and flour to thicken their soups. While these do the job well, they don't add any flavor. If that doesn't sit right with you, the next time you're whipping up a batch of soup, try this potentially game-changing tip: incorporate peanut butter.

But not the regular PB&J variety, oh no — we're talking about powdered peanut butter! This fine powdered form of peanut butter effortlessly blends into your soup, serving as both a thickener and flavor enhancer. The bonus? It also introduces a nutty taste to your soup of the day.

Needless to say, powdered peanut butter is very different from the spreadable type that you probably have in your pantry right now. To make powdered peanut butter, after raw peanuts are roasted, all of the oils are pressed out, leaving dry husks behind. These are then ground down into a very fine powder.

What's great about powdered peanut butter is its fine texture. You can just stir the powder into the soup, and within minutes, it'll dissolve into the broth and work its magic. Just imagine having to stir regular peanut butter into your soup and you'll realize right away it's a bad idea. It's just too thick to dissolve in liquids.

The only "downside" is that powdered peanut butter has a subtler peanut flavor since all the peanut oils have been pressed out. However, this isn't a bad thing in this case. After all, you'll want the powdered peanut butter to thicken your soup and enhance existing flavors without overwhelming its taste.

As amazing as this unique thickening agent is, it's essential to use it in the right recipes. A one-pot tomato soup, for example, may not play very well with it since you wouldn't usually expect a tomato soup to have a nutty undertone. Instead, if you're experimenting with this trick for the first time, stick with tried-and-true soup recipes where nuts already play a central role, like African sweet potato stew, Thai coconut chicken soup, or even a pot of chili. A sprinkle of powdered peanut butter can add an extra layer of nuttiness that beautifully complements their existing flavors.

When it comes to the practical side of using powdered peanut butter, it's not all that different from adding in starches as thickeners like in your usual soup dishes. There's no official substitution ratio for starches with powdered peanut butter, so you'll have to experiment a bit.

You can start by adding a quarter or half a cup of powdered peanut butter to your pot of simmering soup and stir until it dissolves completely. As you continue cooking, taste and adjust as needed. If it starts getting too thick, you can balance it out by adding a bit more liquid to the pot. It might take some experimenting to find the perfect flavor balance, but once you do, it may just be your go-to trick to give nutty-tasting soups an upgrade!