Should You Skip Jelly and Embrace Sandwiches With Peanut Butter and Pickles, Lettuce, or Kimchi?

I have been a peanut butter and pickle sandwich truther for about a decade now. I don’t know where I initially read or heard about the depression-era sensation, but I know that it was love at first bite. In fact, the very first article I was ever paid to write (for the now defunct xoJane), was an elaborate peanut butter and pickle taste test with a wide variety of pickles.

It would be unfair to say that I owe my entire career to the combination, but it certainly set the tone for my future oeuvre, for better or worse. As such, I am always down to try “out there” peanut butter sandwiches. People from the United States have a tendency to think of peanut butter as a sweet ingredient, best baked into cookies or paired with with jelly or chocolate, but that’s a mistake. (Think Pad Thai, peanut stew, and a whole bunch of other fine dishes from Asian and African cuisines.)

To test the limits of the peanut butter sandwich, and hopefully find a new favorite, Joel and I began our flavor excursion with the classic PB & pickle (to ease Joel into this genre of sandwich). We then progressed to PB & lettuce and PB & kimchi. Making this video was a journey across textural peaks and valleys, with bold flavor combinations that surprised us both. (Well, mostly Joel. I wasn’t that surprised because I’ve been “into this kind of stuff” for a while now.)

I encourage you to taste along with us, and I encourage you to let these sandwiches inspire you to create your own unique and interesting peanut butter delicacies. (If you need even more inspiration, I’ve got more suggestions here.)