How to cook peanuts

Information for peanuts in our free cooking ingredients collection.

Peanuts

Despite their name, peanuts are not nuts at all, but the seeds of a legume. They are commonly thought of as nuts because of how they are used and because of their nut-like shells. The “shells”, however, are actually the fibrous seed pods of a legume, encasing one to three seeds wrapped in an edible, papery thin seed coat. These seed pods are easy to crack and range from less than an inch to about 2 inches long and have the same contours as the round seeds underneath.

Peanut plants are separated into either bunch or runner types. The bunch type bears seed pods close to the base of the plant, whereas the runner type has seed pods scattered along the branches. Runner types were introduced in the 1970s and are now more popular than bunch types, probably because runner peanuts are primarily used to make peanut butter, for which half of all peanuts are produced.

Spanish peanuts, a bunch-type peanut with small, round seeds covered by a reddish brown skin, are usually roasted, salted, and vacuum-packed. Virginia peanuts, which can be a runner or a bunch plant, are larger and more oval and are usually sold roasted in the shell.

Peanuts contain quite a bit of fat, but the fat in them is primarily monounsaturated fat. Peanuts are an excellent source of magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, niacin, and folate and a good source of iron.

George Washington Carver, an African-American botanist who worked in the late 19th century, is well known as the “Father of the Peanut Industry” for having ingeniously developed more than 300 uses for the peanut, including as an ingredient in shoe polish, soap, bleach, medicine, ink, paint, and ice cream. In 1890, an American physician invented what we now know as peanut butter to provide an easily digestible, nutritious food for his elderly patients. However, long before this, other cultures made similar edible paste from peanuts.

How to cook peanuts

Peanuts are available in a variety of forms, including raw, dry-roasted or honeyroasted, salted or unsalted, shelled or unshelled, peeled or unpeeled, whole or chopped, and as peanut butter. The young pods, leaves, and plant tips can be cooked and eaten in the same manner as a green vegetable. Unshelled peanuts can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 6 months, and shelled peanuts for up to 3 months. Peanuts also can be cooked, a process that generally takes about 30 minutes.

Serving suggestions

Although peanuts are usually consumed as a snack, turned into peanut butter, or used to make candy or baked goods in the United States, they are frequently used as a vegetable in African, Indian, South American, and Asian cooking. Peanuts can be cooked with fish, meat, and poultry and used to flavor sauces, soups, salads, and desserts. Peanut soup, a southern U.S. favorite, is a creamy, spicy-hot dish.

• Peas
• Soybeans
• Nuts and seeds
• Almond
• Beechnut
• Brazil nut
• Cashew nut
• Chestnut
• Ginkgo nut
• Hazelnut
• Lotus seed
• Macadamia nut

• Black beans
• Cranberry beans
• Kidney beans
• Pinto beans
• White beans
• Dolichos beans
• Adzuki beans (azuki beans)
• Black-eyed peas
• Lablab (hyacinth bean)
• Mung bean
• Lentil
• Lima beans

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