Homemade Nut Butter

Making nut butter is easier than you’d think. It’s almost so easy that it doesn’t warrant a written recipe, but I know I would have written it off as something that you just have to buy if I didn’t look into it. Turns out it only takes about 20-30 mins in total.

After allowing the roasted nuts to cool, place in a food processor along with salt.

Reasons to make this nut butter (a sales pitch for a free recipe):

1. You’re like me and you love to bake but you don’t always want 100s of cookies in your house staring back at you every evening. Of course you want that sometimes (I’ll post a few of my favorite non-fitness cookie recipes soon in honor of fall), but maybe not every time?

2. You like the idea of seeing how different blends taste (can you buy cashew/almond/sunflower butter anywhere? Even if you can I’d guess its something like $20 a container.)

3. You want your entire house to smell like roasted nuts throughout the process.

4. You want to be in control of the saltiness. You can adjust the salt content by small amounts as you blend this butter so you’ll end up your ideal salt content.

5. You want an easy homemade gift to bring friends!

6. Something fun to do with family and kids!

Ok, I assume that’s enough to sell you. Here we go:

The nut butter will appear dry part way through the process. This is normal - just continue to blend until the nuts release the oil they contain naturally.

Ingredients:

• 1/2-3/4 tsp salt

• 1 lb 5oz raw nuts, I used equal parts:

  • sunflower seeds (healthy + much much cheaper than nuts)

  • cashews (adds a nice mild and buttery flavor)

  • walnuts

  • almonds

Equipment:

• Cookie sheet

• Food processor

• Rubber spatula

• Clean/sterile mason jars (or similar) for storage

As the nuts begin to release their oil, the nut mixture will begin to look more like nut butter! Scrape sides to make sure everything blends evenly.

Directions:

Total time start to finish: 30 mins

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Spread nuts and seeds evenly across cookie sheet. Ideally, there should be only a single layer so that they roast evenly.

3. Roast nuts for ~15 mins (10-20 mins), or until they’re slightly browned and the kitchen smells really nice.

4. Take the nut mixture out and let it cool a little bit.

5. Throw the nuts and 1/2 tsp salt into the food processor. Blend until smooth. Scrape the sides of the food processor with the rubber spatula as needed so that the nuts blend evenly.

6. Add more salt to taste. I ended up with about 3/4-1 tsp salt at the end.

7. Using the rubber spatula, spoon the finished nut butter into the mason jar(s). This should keep in the fridge for a few weeks easily! I would probably eat it for longer past that, but I’m not sure I can officially recommend it.

   Let me know how you will use your nut butter! I’d love to hear about the blends you experiment with. I’m sure you could even experiment with adding cinnamon or other festive seasonings for fall, especially to a butter that’s heavy to cashews (a more mild nut than the rest that can carry fun flavors really well).

Put in one medium jar or a couple little guys to store!