How to Make Homemade Peanut Butter

This recipe shows you that homemade peanut butter is a breeze to make using either a high-powered blender or food processor. Moreover, you have the option of making smooth or chunky peanut butter or flavoring it to your taste.

What are the Ingredients in Peanut Butter?

Peanut butter at its simplest form is just peanuts and salt. Sometimes homemade peanut butter recipes will add some peanut oil as well to help the mixture blend into a creamy consistency faster, but peanuts have so much oil in them that this is unnecessary. This version utilizes just peanuts and salt to ensure that you have the most natural homemade pb possible.

If you would like to get creative with the flavours, though, feel free to try adding some vanilla, honey, or cinnamon to the mixture. You could even add some cocoa powder or crunchy mix-ins like chocolate chips or chocolate-dipped pretzels for extra interesting texture and chocolate peanut butter flavour.

How Do You Make Peanut Butter from Scratch?

For this homemade peanut butter, you will want to start with either roasted or unroasted peanuts. If you use unroasted peanuts, you will have the added step of roasting them yourself in the oven. Roasting gives the peanuts a more robust, full flavour that is delicious in peanut butter. Roasting the peanuts also encourages them to release their oil which is essential for turning them into nut butter. They should cool down though before continuing with the recipe.

Next, you need to blend the peanuts and salt (if using) to either a food processor or high-powered blender like a Vitamix or Blendtec. The motors of regular blenders or small food choppers just aren't quite up to the task of grinding whole peanuts into a smooth paste. The salt is optional if you start out with salted peanuts. If your peanuts were unsalted, though, add the salt to really make the peanut taste pop.

Three Peanut Butter Blending Methods

For the Food Processor Method: The total time for this method takes about 5 minutes. You will simply add the peanut to the processor bowl and run it until the peanuts break down, clump into a ball, and gradually release their oil so that they turn into a buttery paste. You will need to scrape the sides of bowl down once in a while to ensure that everything can be blended with the food processor blades.

Vitamix Peanut Butter: This method only takes 1 to 2 minutes, so it is super fast. You simply add the peanuts and blend them until smooth, using the tamper to push the peanuts down into the blades to make sure all of the nuts blend evenly into smooth peanut butter.

Without a tamper the process takes much longer because you will have to stop the Vitamix frequently and scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula.

Making Peanut Butter in a Blendtec Blender: For this method, add the peanuts to a Blendtec twister jar and start to blend on low speed to break down the peanuts. Then, increase to high speed to blend the peanuts into a smooth paste. While doing this, you will need to twist the lid counterclockwise, which will reduce the need to scrape the sides of the twister jar.

You can also make peanut butter in a regular Blendtec blender jar (like the Wildside+). Here you also need a rubber spatula to move the peanuts towards the blades and scrape down the sides once in a while.

How Do I Make Chunky Peanut Butter?

Once your peanut butter blends to a smooth consistency, you can stir in additional chopped peanuts. These peanuts can be as finely or coarsely chopped as you like them, so feel free to get creative with your version of this peanut butter recipe.

How Long Does Homemade Peanut Butter Last?

Once you have made your homemade peanut butter, you should store it in the fridge in an airtight container to keep it fresh and buttery. It will keep well for at least three to four weeks, however, you are likely to consume the batch long before that. Of course, the time frame will depend on how fresh the peanuts were that you had at the start. To tell if it has gone bad, the peanut butter will have a rancid smell and flavour.

Is Homemade Peanut Butter Healthier?

Homemade peanut butter can be healthier than some store-bought varieties because it doesn't contain all the added sugar and other oils. For example, a generic store brand might contain soybean oil, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, and sugar, which are not the healthiest ingredients to consume.

However, there are more natural peanut butter products on the market these days that contain only peanuts like this homemade peanut butter recipe. When I don't make my own, I like to use the Kirkland brand of natural peanut butter from Costco.

If you would like to have some control over what you are consuming in your peanut butter, this recipe is a great place to start. You can even get creative by using honey roasted peanuts or adding cinnamon or honey to the finished peanut butter for an extra intriguing breakfast butter.

Can I Use this Recipe to Make Other Nut Butters?

Yes, this method will work to make almond butter, cashew butter, pistachio, pecans or even coconut butter and other kinds of tasty nut butter. These nuts all have different quantities of fat, though, so some may take longer than others to blend into butter. For example, cashews and pecans are very fatty, so they will blend into butter quite quickly, whereas almonds have much less and will take quite a while to blend into tasty almond butter. Once you have your almond butter or whatever type you decided to make, you can store it in the fridge to enjoy for the upcoming weeks.

Recipes Using Peanut Butter You'll Love:

• Banana Peanut Butter Overnight Oats
• No Bake Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies
• Peanut Butter Banana Ice Cream
• Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
• Coconut Flour Peanut Butter Cookies

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