Skippy vs Jif: Which Is The Best Peanut Butter?
Skippy wins the Skippy vs Jif battle and that is a great thing if you are going to eat the peanut butter by itself.
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Jelly’s better half. Great friends with bananas and apples. Mix it with chocolate and you’ve got yourself a sweet winner. Peanut butter goes well with many things and we’re about to tell you which brand peanut butter name is the best. Here’s the winner of Skippy vs. Jif…
Skippy Vs. Jif Competition Results:
- Jif is better on sandwiches
- Jif costs less.
- Skippy is better for dipping.
- Skippy is better in cookies.
- Skippy is better nutritionally.
- Skippy wins blind taste tests.
Find out if each category went to the right peanut butter, below…
SKIPPY VS JIF: JIF IS BETTER FOR SANDWICHES
When matching Skippy and Jif, we decided to start with the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It’s an American staple that has seen many a lunch box and many a late-night meal.
Peanut butter and jelly are almost the perfect salty-sweet combination. To win this hotly contested debate, the peanut butter should be able to complement both the jelly, obviously, but also the bread. On top of needing the sweetness to stand out on the bread, the peanut butter must also dance that delicate balance of being smooth enough to spread and not tear the bread, but not too smooth to lose its grip on the jelly.
On this occasion, Jif took the sandwich test victory. It offered the perfect blend of sweet and salty on top of its easy-going spreadability.
SKIPPY VS JIF: SKIPPY IS BETTER FOR DIPPING
The dipping category is more difficult to judge. The reason being sweet peanut butter goes well with salty products such as pretzels, while the saltier peanut butter pairs well with sweet fruits like bananas or apples.
Taking both Skippy and Jif and giving them sweet and salty dippers, the winner was quite easy to choose. Skippy takes home the victory, but only on the sweet end of the deal. Its saltier taste went amazingly well with the sweet fruits.
On the salty end, Jif is the clear-cut winner. Its sweeter taste paired great with salty foods like pretzels. Looks like this one ends in a tie.
SKIPPY VS JIF: SKIPPY IS BETTER IN COOKIES
For those of you who love peanut butter cookies (not this guy), you may know that actually cooking with the product may present a challenge or two. You need the perfect cooking peanut butter to remain moist throughout the entire cooking process, you want the peanut butter to stay smooth enough for a well-textured cookie, and the peanut butter should be salty enough to balance out the sweetness of the sugar added to your peanut butter cookie recipe.
With that in mind, Skippy takes the cake (pun intended). Skippy offers a saltier taste whereby it balances out the cookie a little better than Jif. Don’t get us wrong, Jif lovers will find their brand also makes a decent cookie, nearly as good with its smooth approach, but Skippy’s salt blend offers a more balanced cookie.
SKIPPY VS JIF: SKIPPY IS BETTER NUTRITIONALLY
When stacking Skippy and Jif next to each other on the nutrition front, you won’t find much of a difference between the two brands. Two tablespoons of each will get you virtually the same results. Both of the peanut butter weighed in at 190 calories and 16g of fat. Jif came in at 3.5 grams of saturated fat while Skippy topped out at 3 grams.
Skippy’s sodium content (the reason it took the cookie contest) was 150mg compared to Jif’s 140mg. As far as carbs go, Skippy takes that with 6 grams versus Jif’s 8 grams.
SKIPPY VS JIF: SKIPPY WINS THE BLIND TASTE TEST
With the first three tests combing Skippy and Jiff with other products, we decided the ultimate test would be a blind taste test. A spoonful of each and see who wins.
Using both kids (middle schoolers) and adults (at-home workers) samples of both peanut butter were handed out. As expected, both brands received high marks. Skippy was given the more “natural tasting” peanut butter crown, while Jif was noted for its better texture.
All in all, Skippy took the taste test victory, though tasters did say that Jif held its own and would be a worthy alternative on a sandwich, as a dipper, or even in a cookie.
SKIPPY VS JIF: JIF COSTS LESS
When it comes to peanut butter, there are a few different styles. You have your creamy and crunchy, you have super chunky, and no sugar added. There also are different packaging choices from the jar to the squeezable. For our price comparison, we went with the original creamy, 1lb jar version.
Skippy checked in at $3.49 on Amazon, this was for 16.3 oz. Jif offers a better price at $2.39 on Amazon, but you also get 3 oz’s less in their jar.
SKIPPY VS JIFF – WE HAVE A WINNER
Blindly speaking, Skippy wins the Skippy vs Jif battle and that is a great thing if you are going to eat the peanut butter by itself. When mixing the peanut butter with other items, Jif more than holds it own, especially with peanut butter and jelly lovers in the crowd.
SKIPPY VS JIF – A “NUT” BUTTER HISTORY
It probably won’t be much of a shock to find out that peanut butter (or various forms of it) has been around for hundreds of years as it has been traced back to the Incas and the Aztecs. Here in the United States, it was John Harvey Kellogg (he of the Kellogg’s cereals) who got the peanuts buttering in 1895. In 1898, Kellogg was issued a patent for a “Process of Producing Alimentary Products.” This original patent didn’t specify what type of nut Kellogg was to use, so he experimented with a few different nuts to include almonds and peanuts.
Skippy is one of the elder statesmen when it comes to peanut butter. First sold in 1932, it began auspiciously when food packer Joseph Rosefield began selling it using the “Skippy” name. The problem was that Skippy was a popular comic strip, novel, daytime children’s radio serial, and a 1931 Oscar-winning film of the same name. Percy Crosby, the creator of everything “Skippy”, stopped Rosefield from getting the Skippy trademark. Rosefield wasn’t daunted and persisted until Crosby was committed to an asylum. The Lanham Act of 1946 allowed Rosefield to get the Skippy trademark.
Jif, on the other hand, had a much easier entry into peanut butter lore. Initially, the brand was called Big Top peanut butter. Procter & Gamble bought it in 1955. After a few years of refining their formula, Jif was introduced (both creamy and crunchy) in 1958. Procter & Gamble continued making Jif until 2001 when The J.M. Smucker Company bought the brand.
