Peanut Butter Day: seven things you never knew you could do with peanut butter

Peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich lovers rejoice: today is Peanut Butter Day (though for people like me, who love the stuff, pretty much any day is, really...)

Here, to celebrate this important occasion, are seven more unique ways to use the nutty spread. Happy munching.

1. Make hummus with it

It sounds peculiar, but Nigella's Lawson's trick of swapping the traditional tahini for good old-fashioned peanut butter really works. Very useful if you get a sudden urge to whip up hummus without going to the shops.

2.  Use it as a thickener

Smooth peanut butter is excellent at giving  body to soups, stews and casseroles, and is less overpoweringly nutty than you might think. It's especially good in the Mexican chicken dish mole - try this BBC Good Food recipe.

3. Make an easy stir-fry sauce

If you like satay sauce, you'll love this. Simply mix 3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter, 3 tbsp sweet chilli sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce, a grated clove of garlic and a generous glug of oil, then mix with stir fried vegetables and noodles for an easy, satisfying weeknight dinner.

4. Turn it into a cocktail

What's even better than a cocktail? A cocktail with peanut butter in it, that's what. Genius mixologist Tristram Stephenson of London's Worship Street Whistling Shop makes a mean Old Fashioned using peanut-butter-and-jam-infused whisky, which you can buy pre-bottled from Master of Malt. Or get experimenting yourself.

5. Replace butter with it

Many sweet recipes that call for butter work well with less-fattening peanut butter (though, of course, they will have a distinctly peanutty taste). Try Deliciously Ella's peanut butter flapjacks for a healthier take on the classic.

6.  Stop hiccups

Scientists in the US spent five years studying hiccups, and how to stop them. The best remedy? Slowly eating a large spoonful of peanut butter. As you concentrate on chewing, and the butter coats your throat, your breathing patterns usually stabilise.

7. Clean your house

If you're trying to use fewer chemical cleaning agents, peanut butter is surpisingly versatile. Fans swear by it for cleaning leather - simply rub the butter in, leave for a few minutes, then rub away with a buffing cloth -  cars, and even for removing scratches from wood.