The First Thing to Do with a New Jar of Peanut Butter

Shifrah Combiths
Shifrah Combiths
With five children, Shifrah is learning a thing or two about how to keep a fairly organized and pretty clean house with a grateful heart in a way that leaves plenty of time for the people who matter most. Shifrah grew up in San Francisco, but has come to appreciate smaller town life in Tallahassee, Florida, which she now calls home. She's been writing professionally for twenty years and she loves lifestyle photography, memory keeping, gardening, reading, and going to the beach with her husband and children.
published Sep 16, 2021
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Someone holding jar of peanut butter.
Credit: Sarah Crowle

Peanut butter is one of the most versatile kitchen ingredients. It pairs nicely with apples, bananas, celery, and crackers. And you can use it to make sandwiches, cookies, smoothies, brownies, and even savory noodles. That’s sure a lot of peanut butter — especially this time of year, during the back-to-school season! — and so many opportunities to open a fresh container.

Beyond eating peanut butter straight from the jar or using it in cooking, the tasty treat has another surprising use in the kitchen: removing pesky stickers and that lingering sticky residue. The next time you open a new jar of peanut butter, use it as a cue to stop and think about which dishes and trays still have those annoying stickers. (It works with labels on glass jars, too!) Then, take a few minutes to get rid of them. It takes a little bit of patience, but it’s super easy to do!

Related: The Best (and Easiest!) Way to Remove Sticky Labels from Glass Jars

Credit: Sarah Crowley

Use Peanut Butter to Remove Sticky Labels on Dishes and Glass Jars

Removing annoying sticky spots left by price tags is satisfying in and of itself. And getting those labels off cleanly from jars offers plenty of ways to be resourceful through repurposing. For instance, I store dry beans in large pasta sauce jars and keep homemade salad dressing in glass enchilada sauce bottles. But I don’t like the look or feel of sticker glue or a label that doesn’t match the contents of the repurposed container. Using peanut butter to obtain a “blank slate” in the form of perfectly good jars is both frugal and convenient. 

To use this peanut butter trick, simply use a spatula and your finger to apply a small amount of peanut butter directly on the sticker, label, or sticky residue. Let it sit for a while — at least a good 30 minutes — so the oil in the peanut butter penetrates the label you’re trying to remove or the residue you want to get rid of. Then, wash off the peanut butter under hot water with soap, and watch your sticky spots melt away!

How do you remove sticky stickers from your plates and jars? Tell us in the comments below.

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