Put Some Psyllium Chips in Your PB&J

“Put some potato chips in there” is such an outdated sandwich trick that I hesitate to characterize it as anything more than conventional wisdom. What sandwich wouldn’t benefit from extra salt and texture? Who really prefers a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the hidden layer of fried potatoes (preferably with salt and vinegar)? What if you used it to combine – and elevate – two classic sandwiches: PB&J and Elvis (commonly understood as peanut butter and a banana between two slices of bread, usually toasted)?

My inspiration for this attempt at pairing two iconic sandwiches was born out of desperation: Yesterday I waited too long to make dinner and didn’t have time to pick up my scheduled meal (falafel with rice from a Target cart) before the meeting, but we also didn’t have chips, and this meant that my hasty replacement (PB&J) was bound to be disappointing. If only… Noticing Trader Joe’s psyllium chips in the pantry, I thought, after all, why not? Why don’t I make a crunchy alternative to Elvis, which I always found too uniform in texture to satisfy; I’ll save the sandwiches I can eat without teeth until I have them. (It shouldn’t be too long! Dental care is prohibitively expensive!)

So I talked about the idea of ​​the local Lifehacker sandwich guru, Claire Lower:

With this blessing, I proceeded to make sandwiches and jams in my usual way (peanut butter to jelly ratio 75/25 – although I actually prefer raspberry jam), but instead of salt and vinegar or dill chips, I covered the side with peanut butter. a dense layer of psyllium chips. The results are really fucked up, blending the texture-pleasant variety of PB&Js and chips with the banana essence that defines Elvis, and not throwing in the nasty fresh fruit into the mix. And I didn’t even toast the bread. This is probably a fuck too, but I have to ask Claire.