Most people in Kathmandu buy their first jar of peanut butter, use it on toast for two weeks, then let it sit at the back of the shelf until it's gone hard. That's a waste of a good jar, and it's mostly a recipe problem. Peanut butter isn't a bread topping. It's a fat and protein base that behaves a lot like sesame paste or ground peanut masala, which means it slots into Nepali food far more naturally than the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich ever did.
Here are eight things we actually eat at the factory in Pepsicola, plus which of our three varieties suits each one.
1. Chiura, banana, peanut butter
Take a bowl of chiura, add a sliced ripe banana, put a heaped spoon of peanut butter on top, and mix it with your hand until the chiura is coated. That's it. The peanut butter holds the flakes together so it eats like a loose granola instead of dry chiura falling off your fingers, and the banana does the sweetening. Crunchy All Natural is the right pick here, because you already have soft banana and the peanut pieces give it some bite. If you want it richer, a spoon of curd turns it into a proper meal.
2. Peanut butter on hot roti or paratha
Spread it on roti straight off the tawa while it's still hot, so the butter melts into the surface instead of sitting on it in a lump. Roll it up and eat it with your morning tea. This is the single fastest way to make a leftover roti worth eating. Creamy Classic American is best for this because it spreads without tearing the roti, and the salt in it plays well against plain atta. On a slightly crisp paratha, Chocolate turns it into something that tastes like a dessert but isn't one.
3. Momo and spring roll dipping sauce
This is the one people are most surprised by, and it's completely standard across Southeast Asia. Put two tablespoons of peanut butter in a bowl, add warm water a teaspoon at a time and whisk until it loosens into a pourable sauce, then add soy sauce, grated garlic, lime juice and chilli. Taste, adjust, done in three minutes. Use Classic American, since the sugar and salt in it are already doing work that you would otherwise have to add yourself. It's excellent with steamed chicken momo, and even better with veg spring rolls.
If you run a cafe or a momo shop, this is a cheap way to put a second dip on the table that nobody else in your area has. We sell 1kg jars straight from the factory for exactly this kind of use, with bulk pricing here.
4. The gym shake
Blend one ripe banana, a cup of milk or half milk half curd, and a big spoon of peanut butter. That's the whole recipe. Peanuts are naturally high in protein and fat, so this fills you up in a way a plain banana shake doesn't, and it costs a fraction of imported whey. Chocolate is the obvious variety for this because it tastes like a milkshake and takes no convincing. If you're tracking added sugar, use All Natural and let the banana carry the sweetness. Blend for a few seconds longer than feels necessary, or you'll get peanut grit at the bottom of the glass.
5. Oats with local honey
Cook your oats in milk, take them off the heat, then stir in the peanut butter so it melts through rather than sitting in a blob. Add honey after, not during. Creamy All Natural is the best fit because it lets the honey be the sweet thing in the bowl, and 100% peanut butter plus good honey is a genuinely better breakfast than most of the flavoured instant oats packets at the department store.
6. No-bake peanut butter laddu
Mix peanut butter with roasted oats or lightly crushed chiura until it's a thick, sticky mass, sweeten with a little chaku or grated gud, then roll it into balls with your palms and chill them for an hour. They hold their shape because peanut butter is the binder, so no eggs, no ghee, no oven. Crunchy Classic American works best since the sugar helps it set and the peanut pieces give the laddu texture. Keep them in the fridge and they'll last a week, assuming nobody finds them.
7. Rice cakes, apple slices, and other five-second food
For a 4 pm snack that isn't biscuits: peanut butter on rice cakes, on apple slices, or on a slice of cucumber if you want something savoury. It works because you're adding fat and protein to something that is otherwise just water and carbohydrate, so you actually stop feeling hungry. Creamy spreads more easily on anything thin and brittle. Crunchy is better on apple.
8. Peanut sauce for salad and noodles
Loosen peanut butter with warm water the same way as the momo dip, then take it in a different direction: lime, a little sugar, soy or fish sauce, and mustard oil if you like the bite. Toss it through shredded cabbage and carrot, or through cold noodles. Classic American is the safe default. All Natural gives you a cleaner peanut flavour if you'd rather control the salt and sugar yourself.
A note on stirring and storage
If you buy All Natural, the oil will rise to the top, because there's nothing in the jar but peanuts. Stir it back in properly once when you open it, then keep it in the fridge and it stays put. Classic American and Chocolate contain GMS, a stabiliser we list on the label, so they stay mixed on the shelf. If you're not sure which one suits your kitchen, we wrote a full comparison of natural versus regular peanut butter, and if you're mainly eating it for the nutrition, start with whether peanut butter is actually healthy.
The reason we're comfortable telling you to eat this much of it is that we know what's in every jar. No palm oil, no soybean or sunflower oil, no artificial preservatives, and a batch-specific lab report you can pull up by scanning the QR code on the lid or checking our published reports.
Pick two ideas off this list and try them this week. Our guess is the momo sauce is the one you keep making.