Which Peanut Butter Is Better: Walmart Or Aldi's Brand?
We'll admit it. We are the ultimate peanut butter lovers. But really, who doesn't love peanut butter? We love it so much that we will go out of our way to try to find ways to incorporate peanut butter into our meals and snacks. However, our favorite ways to enjoy peanut butter are often the simple classics: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apples and peanut butter, or peanut butter and chocolate chips spread on graham crackers. Mmmm ... our mouths are watering.
While it is fairly easy to make your own peanut butter at home, and we've enjoyed doing this before, we usually reach for a trusty jar in our pantry to satisfy our peanut butter cravings. Most of the time, we do not have the stamina or the time to make our own peanut butter at home from scratch.
When it comes to choosing a store-bought peanut butter brand, we've tried them all. And there sure are a lot of them. True peanut butter lovers will not discount the generic store brands, either In all honesty, these store-brand peanut butters often stack up well against the big names.
We decided to have a creamy peanut butter showdown between the Walmart store brand, Great Value, and the Aldi store brand, Peanut Delight, in an effort to determine which peanut butter is better. Read on to get our take on these two grocery store brand peanut butters.
Let's look at the ingredients
In the Walmart peanut butter, the ingredients are peanuts, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil (cottonseed oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil), dextrose, salt, molasses, and monoglycerides. The Aldi peanut butter is made with dry roasted peanuts, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil (rapeseed, cottonseed, soybean), salt, and molasses. It looks as though the only differences in ingredients are the use of specifically dry roasted peanuts in the Aldi brand and the addition of monoglycerides in the Walmart brand.
So what are monoglycerides anyway? According to Medical News Today, monoglycerides are a type of fatty acid that is often used as a processed food additive to enhance texture and lengthen shelf life. They also act as emulsifiers that prevent the liquids and solids in foods from separating, which could explain their presence in the Walmart peanut butter. This means no stirring is required. However, we will note, even though the Aldi brand does not include these emulsifiers, that brand of peanut butter does not require any stirring either.
Price and availability
For one 40 ounce jar of Walmart peanut butter, we paid $3.68 at our local Walmart store. For the same size jar of Aldi peanut butter, the price was $3.15 at our local Aldi, so Aldi definitely wins the price round, though both brands are quite affordable. The prices in your area may be slightly different.
These store-brand peanut butters aren't going anywhere. They're pantry staples and people seem to enjoy them. According to Walmart reviews of the Great Value creamy peanut butter, many people love this brand just as much as name-brand equivalents. Many reviewers love the low price and the delicious taste of this generic option. This leads us to believe that this product will be around for a long time. And if the Product of the Year Awards are any indication, people love Aldi-brand products too. Both of these peanut butters should be available at any Walmart or Aldi store.
If you haven't tried store-brand peanut butter, what's stopping you? You may find that the generic brands taste just as good as your preferred option. Save some money and stock up on these nationwide store brands.
Other store brand nut butters
In addition to the creamy peanut butter, Walmart carries a remarkable variety of nut butters including hazelnut spread, organic creamy peanut butter, no-stir natural creamy peanut butter, organic crunchy peanut butter, honey roasted creamy peanut butter, crunchy peanut butter, peanut butter and jelly combined in one jar, and powdered peanut butter, per its website.
In addition to the creamy peanut butter, Aldi carries crunchy peanut butter, creamy almond butter, organic creamy peanut butter, and hazelnut spread (via Aldi).
Walmart definitely carries more nut butter options under its store brand, Great Value. The company also, we should mention, carries many other brands of nut butter in addition to the store brand. You will not be lacking should you go to Walmart to shop for nut butter, that's for sure. But if all you need is basic peanut butter, Aldi has you covered, and if you like the Aldi brand significantly more, it won't really matter that Walmart has more options.
Nutrition
When it comes to nutrition, these two store brands are remarkably similar. Remember, they are from almost the exact same ingredients so the nutrition information shouldn't be far off. Both brands contain 180 calories per 2 tablespoon-sized servings. Additionally, both the Walmart and the Aldi brands contain 7 grams of protein per serving. They also both contain 15 grams of total fat, 4 grams of total sugar, and 2 grams of added sugars.
However, the brands differ when it comes to sodium. The Walmart brand contains 135 mg of sodium per serving, while the Aldi brand contains 120 mg of sodium per serving. Additionally, the Walmart brand contains 2.5 grams of saturated fat, while the Aldi brand contains 3 grams of saturated fat. These differences are very minor. If you happen to be watching your sodium intake, you may be better off with the Aldi brand, because it is slightly lower, but the saturated fat difference is not significant enough for us to recommend one brand over another.
The verdict: taste test
Being faced with the challenge of tasting two brands of creamy peanut butter was quite possibly the best assignment we've ever received. As self-declared peanut butter lovers, we thoroughly enjoyed this taste test. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.
After a spoonful of each peanut butter, we were convinced that these two brands tasted practically identical. After a few more spoonfuls, we determined that the Aldi brand tastes ever so slightly sweeter than the Walmart brand. This is likely because the Walmart brand contains more sodium, making the salty to sweet ratio a bit higher in the Walmart brand peanut butter. For us, that slight increase in sweetness was enough to make us prefer the Aldi brand peanut butter. If you like your peanut butter a bit more savory, the Walmart brand will be perfect for you. But no matter how you slice it, both of these peanut butters are tasty. You will be happy with either option.