11 Sauces Made with Peanut Butter

Peanut butter turns up in 11 recipes from 11 different chefs, split mostly between nut sauces (4) and vinaigrettes (3). Almost half, 45 percent, are shake-ready, so a peanut vinaigrette can go straight into a jar with no cooking. Reach for the nut-sauce route, closer to a satay, when the dish needs a spoonable, clinging sauce for grilled meat or noodles. The peanut vinaigrette and the red pepper sauce sit closer to a pourable dressing, thinner and easier to toss through salad or slaw.

Peanut sauces want heat and acid to balance the fat, and here that acid leans on rice vinegar and lemon juice, tied at 2 recipes each. Add fresh chile or a squeeze of lime if the sauce tastes flat straight from the jar; peanut butter mutes acid more than oil does, so these recipes tend to need a firmer pour than a standard vinaigrette. The median ratio measured across the group runs close to even, about 1 part fat to 1 part acid, which is lean for a nut-based sauce.