Leftover peanut butter pasta

A few months ago I started doing a fun series on social media called Jar Scraps where I’m just trying to find fun ways to use up the back of a jar. I generally don’t actually post the recipes because most of the time there is hardly a recipe to post! But these peanut butter pasta have been my favorite leftover jar recipe so far, so I thought I might write down how I make these!

Here’s the first video of me making these silly pastas, with hundreds of comments from people finding things they hate about the recipe. But it’s not meant to be a sophisticated peanut pasta recipe. It’s a quick lunch fix that makes perfect use of the bottom of the peanut butter jar.

This is actually one of the scraps of glass I make the most. I’m really looking forward to finishing the peanut butter jars so I can make them!

Need a leftover peanut butter jar for this recipe?

The obvious answer is no. You can just add a few tablespoons of peanut butter to a bowl and stir in the other ingredients and you have the same sauce.

Still, there’s something special (and easy) about stirring up the sauce in a nearly empty glass. That means less washing up and just plain fun. (Cooking should be fun in case you didn’t know).

While you don’t need a peanut butter jar to make these, I recommend that you just bookmark the recipe or save it for later so you can try it safely when you have an empty jar.

Ingredients and preparation of the sauce for these pasta

I’ve tried to keep the ingredient list for these peanut butter pasta short so hopefully you get most of what you need.

• Peanut butter – obviously
• Garlic and ginger – that’s the only thing you really need to chop and I just use a microplane grater
• Soy Sauce – Always good
• Sesame Oil – Nice nutty flavor
• Honey – Just for a little sweetness
• Chili Crisp – If you don’t usually keep chili crisp in your pantry, you can substitute a sprinkling of your favorite hot sauce.
• Ramen Noodles – Nothing special is needed here. You don’t actually need the sauce pack, but I use some of the spice pack that comes with the ramen.
• Hot water – probably the most important part. 1/3 cup cooking water will emulsify the sauce into something wonderful.

To make this sauce, simply add all the ingredients except the pasta and the water to your jar! You may need to scrape the rims of the jar a bit with a spoon to get as much peanut butter out as possible.

Then pour some hot cooking water into the jar. Put the lid on and shake well! After just a few seconds you will have a smooth and delicious sauce. It might look a bit flimsy at first glance, but don’t worry about that.

Finish off these jar leftovers with peanut butter pasta

Once your noodles are cooked, drain and pour in the peanut butter sauce.

If the sauce looks too thin at the moment, just stir it in the saucepan off the stove and it will thicken quickly.

You could literally eat these peanut butter pasta out of the pot, but I like to toss them in a bowl and garnish with scallions and some toasted sesame seeds. Completely optional!

Substitutions and ideas for this recipe

There are some easy alternatives you can try for these peanut butter pasta!

The easiest hint is that you don’t have to use peanut butter for this recipe. The end of any nut butter jar or even tahini would be really good! Anything crazy would go great!

Feel free to change or substitute the ingredients in the sauce, but try to strike a balance between salty, sour, sweet, and hot. These are the key elements to a good peanut sauce. For example, you could substitute agave for the honey or sriracha for the chili crisp, but try to keep the flavors balanced.

Instead of ramen, you can try the sauce with rice noodles, soba noodles, or udon!

My peanut butter pasta recipe using an empty PB jar

Here are a few more great recipes to try!