Justin's Cinnamon Almond Butter

Rating: 6.5/10

• Served with: Stovetop oatmeal porridge (made with lactose free dairy milk and sweetener), cinnamon, Chobani Fit salted caramel Greek yoghurt, sliced strawberries, sliced banana
• 🥜 Category: Almond, Smooth, Flavoured
• Country of origin: USA

OK, OK, OK. I couldn't talk a big game about my 'famous stovetop oatmeal porridge' and not actually make it for breakfast sometime this week. Saw a perfect opportunity when I looked at my work calendar first thing in the morning and found a very chock-a-block morning awaiting me. CoolGruel/Fuel to the rescue.

I couldn't be bothered bringing back entire jars of nut butter this time since I was only in San Francisco for a short business trip. I only found 3 types of Justin's sachets when I went to the Safeway closest to my hotel so sadly this is the last of my mini-haul. As predicted, though, it turned out to be my favourite.

Texture was pretty similar to the Justin's Maple Almond Butter, a slight graininess as is expected from an almond butter, but I find it's much less noticeable if you use it as a topping on oatmeal rather than on toast (even adds a bit of a contrast). This one seemed to be even more homogenous/consistent than the other one though - points for this.

As I've found with the other Justin's products I've tried, the advertised flavouring was quite mild; I definitely had to enhance my breakfast with a generous dusting of cinnamon of my own. I have read online reviews saying that it's not a bang for your buck product - I don't remember how much I paid, and for the purposes of this blog I didn't prioritise this - but I do see what they mean.

All in all, not a bad little nut butter number. If they had these next to the oatmeal bar that some airport lounges have, I'd definitely add some on top of my bowl, along with that really sweet compote they often provide (too specific?).

Justin’s Maple Almond Butter

Rating: 5.5/10

• Served with: 2 slices of toasted Helga’s wholemeal & seeds bread; half a sliced overripe banana; cinnamon
• 🥜 Category: Almond, Smooth, Flavoured
• Country of origin: USA

The first of the sachets I bought from Safeway and brought back with me on a whirlwind trip to the States!

Subtle maple flavour from the maple sugar, not too sweet and quite a nice balance with the saltiness. Texture honestly wasn’t awful (yes, I did follow the sachet directions!) for almond butter, but this was probably because of the added palm oil. Still snagged the bread a little but no major dramas. No staleness but flavour was unremarkable, if not a little bland. May have been nicer just with plain Greek yogurt, but that wasn’t really what I was after for late breakfast/brunch.