Homemade Peanut Butter

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Homemade Peanut Butter — This recipes breaks down how to make peanut butter with just 1 ingredient! I’ve also answered some FAQs about making peanut butter so you know exactly what to expect from the process. 

Homemade Peanut Butter in glass jar

Easy Homemade Peanut Butter Recipe

Once you make peanut butter at home, it will be very difficult to get excited about store-bought peanut butter ever again. Not that eating peanut butter of any kind would ever be a chore because I love it so much, but homemade peanut butter is a delicacy. And a nearly effortless delicacy at that.

It’s akin to savoring a piece of high-end dark chocolate that’s rich and pure, uncomplicated by fillers, additives, or ingredients that have no place being in chocolate; and then grabbing a milk chocolate bar in the checkout line at the grocery store, which is likely tasteless, grainy, and waxy.

Apples and oranges. Store-bought peanut butter versus homemade.

Once you have something amazing, it’s hard to get excited about any less than. That’s this peanut butter.

Sure, all peanut butter is good, and some is better than others, but this is in its own league. It’s similar in taste to store-bought varieties of “natural” peanut butter. It tastes like real peanuts and nothing else.

At room temperature, it’s similar in consistency to a stir-free natural peanut butter, thicker than almond butter, but thinner than conventional Jif or Skippy.

Homemade Peanut Butter in glass jar

Homemade Peanut Butter Ingredients

For this peanut butter recipe, you’ll need a 16-ounce bag or jar of peanuts. You can use honey roasted, plain, salted, unsalted, or even a jar of mixed nuts. You won’t need oil or salt, just peanuts.

For this particular recipe, I used honey roasted peanuts because I love how flavorful they are, but if I know I’ll be using my homemade peanut butter in dipping sauces or specific baked goods, I stick to plain peanuts. This way, I can add salt and other seasonings as needed to the peanut butter to prep it for the recipe at hand. 

Bag of Trader Joe's Honey Roasted Peanuts

How to Make Homemade Peanut Butter

Making peanut butter from scratch takes less than 5 minutes. Simply add peanuts to the canister of the food processor, turn it on and watch it go. 

The peanuts go through various stages in the five minutes it takes to go from peanuts to peanut butter: crushed peanuts, peanuts crushed into a fine powder, a paste, a thicker paste, and then a big peanut butter “dough ball” will form.

And just like that, the big ball will magically break down and turn into a gritty peanut butter. Keep processing and the peanut butter will get smoother, creamier, and thin out.

No oil was ever added at any point during processing — just the natural oils from the peanuts are being released.

Keep processing until you’re certain the peanut butter is smooth enough for your liking, another minute or so. (I like my peanut butter very smooth, like buttah.)

The peanut butter will be a little on the thinner and runnier side immediately post-processing because it’s warmed from the motor and is similar in thickness to store-bought almond butter. After refrigeration, it thickens up a bit.

container with peanuts in it

Blended peanuts in blender

Blended peanuts

Blended peanut butter in blender

blended peanut butter in blender

blended peanut butter in blender

 

How to Make Flavored Peanut Butter

You can flavor your homemade peanut butter with anything you want, from vanilla or coffee extract to cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice or even cocoa powder. This is your peanut butter, get creative! 

If you don’t trust your gut when it comes to making flavored peanut butter, start with one of my recipes instead. Some of the flavored peanut butters I’ve made include:  

blended peanut butter with cinnamon, vanilla extract, and Bailey's bottles

Other seasonings or flavorings to try and add in the final moments of processing are: cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, cardamom, brown sugar, vanilla extract, coffee extract, a pinch of cayenne or chili powder, cocoa powder, or chocolate/white chocolate/butterscotch/peanut butter chips. Just pulse to incorporate whatever flavoring you use!

You could even add egg-less cookie dough chunks, dried fruits like raisins or dates, a splash of Bailey’s Irish Cream, Kahlua, Frangelico, Chambord, or Godiva Liqueur. Have fun with it! 

If you’re unsure how a flavoring will turn out, I suggest removing half the peanut butter or two-thirds of it, placing it in another container, and flavor a smaller portion, to taste, before flavoring the entire batch with one particular seasoning or flavor. Or get two or three flavors from one recipe based on how inspired you are.

Homemade Peanut Butter in jar

How to Store Peanut Butter

I store my homemade peanut butter in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and although I could keep it at room temperature I’m sure it will keep longer being refrigerated and I prefer my peanut butter on the thicker side. Storing it in the fridge helps it to stay thicker and less runny, especially since my house is warmer now during the summer.

Interestingly, my peanut butter has turned out to be “stir-free.” It has not separated into oil and a solid mass, which is something I detest about natural peanut butters; the oil slick on top and that stubborn dry blob on the bottom that never really wants to re-accept the oil.

Homemade Peanut Butter in jar

How Long Does Peanut Butter Last?

Because homemade peanut butter contains just peanuts, it’ll last for up to 3 months if kept in an airtight container in the fridge. You’ll know if the peanut butter has gone bad if it smells rancid (trust me, you’ll know if it’s gone bad!). 

Can I Make Peanut Butter Without a Food Processor? 

Not that I’m aware of. Blenders aren’t powerful enough to process all those peanuts, so a food processor is a must. 

Homemade Peanut Butter in jar

Can I Make Chunky Peanut Butter? 

Of course! To make homemade chunky peanut butter, you need to make this recipe as instructed. Once the peanut butter is creamy, add in another cup or so of peanut and pulse until it reaches your desired consistency. 

Homemade Peanut Butter in glass jar

Can I Make Another Type of Nut Butter? 

You can make almost any nut / seed butter you’d like using the method listed in the recipe card below. Just keep in mind that certain nuts (like almonds) are much coarser than peanuts and therefore will take more time to make. If your food processor starts to overheat, turn it off and let it cool down before continuing. 

peanut butter in glass jar

Can I Double This Recipe? 

If your food processor can hold that many peanuts, yes. Just keep in mind that the more nuts you use, the longer you’ll need to make creamy peanut butter.

Homemade Peanut Butter in glass jar

Can I Make This With Raw Peanuts? 

Yes, you can use any kind of peanut you’d like in this recipe. Personally, I prefer roasted peanuts since they have more flavor and are easier to process. But if you prefer raw, go for it. You can also toast the raw peanuts yourself before blending them up.

Homemade Peanut Butter process

Where Do You Buy Your Peanuts? 

I always buy my peanuts at Trader Joe’s. They’re inexpensive (around $3) and easy to find. Plus, Trader Joe’s carries different flavors of peanuts! 

Homemade Peanut Butter

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4.73 from 11 votes

Homemade Peanut Butter

By Averie Sunshine
This recipes breaks down how to make peanut butter with just 1 ingredient!
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Servings: 1 1/2 cups
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Ingredients  

  • 16 ounces peanuts, you can roasted, salted, unsalted, honey roasted, etc.

Instructions 

  • Add peanuts to the canister of a food processor, process on high power until creamy and smooth, about 5 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the canister if necessary.
  • Note that the peanuts will go through stages of: crushed, crushed into a fine powder, a paste, a thicker paste, a big “dough ball”, and then the ball will break down into runnier peanut butter. At the point the peanut butter is runny, continue processing for about 1 more minute, making sure the peanut butter is as smooth as desired.
  • Store the peanut butter at room temperature where it will keep for at least 2 weeks, or store in an airtight container or jar in the refrigerator, where it keeps for many weeks, and I’ve stored it for months. As with any food that has no preservatives, use common sense.

Notes

See my post for instructions on how to make flavored peanut butter, plus additional tips and tricks for making homemade peanut butter.

Nutrition

Serving: 1, Calories: 111kcal, Carbohydrates: 4g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 9g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 7g, Sodium: 77mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 1g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

More Peanut Butter Recipes: 

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Mini Blender Muffins — These muffins are gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, dairy-free, oil-free, refined sugar-free, and they’re under 100 calories each (66 calories if you omit chocolate chips).

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Mini Blender Muffins

4-Ingredient Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies — These cookies are a new favorite and are super soft, very moist, extremely chewy, and packed with rich peanut butter flavor.
Four Peanut Butter Cookies
 
Easy Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce — Look no further from this FAST and EASY recipe for authentic-tasting Thai chicken satay. The chicken is so tender and juicy and there’s plenty of homemade PEANUT SAUCE to dip it into!
Chicken Satay on stick with Peanut Sauce

Better Than Anything Peanut Butter Cake — This Peanut Butter Cake is a super easy poke cake recipe. It’s packed with peanut butter flavor and topped with a mix of peanut butter chips and peanut butter cups. Poke cakes don’t get tastier than this!

Peanut Butter Cake

Slow Cooker Thai Peanut Chicken — This chicken is coated in the most incredible peanut sauce. Serve it over rice for an easy meal, and garnish with green onions and extra peanuts for added crunch! 

Thai Peanut Chicken

Peanut Butter Brookies — A soft and chewy peanut butter cookie base with a rich fudgy brownie recipe on top! 

Peanut Butter Brownie cookies

Did you know I wrote a cookbook that includes 100 recipes that all contain peanut butter? It’s called Peanut Butter Comfort. Included are 25+ recipes for homemade peanut butter variations

Peanut Butter Comfort by Averie Sunshine Cover

 

About the Author

Welcome to AverieCooks! Here you’ll find fast and easy recipes that taste amazing and are geared for real life. Nothing fussy or complicated, just awesome tasting dishes everyone loves!

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Please note: I have only made the recipe as written, and cannot give advice or predict what will happen if you change something. If you have a question regarding changing, altering, or making substitutions to the recipe, please check out the FAQ page for more info.

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Comments

  1. 5 stars
    Amazing blog, I’m very happy to read this blog. Basically, I know new many things to read this blog. I strongly believe that the blog delivers the best information to its audience.

  2. Hi there, I love how simple & easy this recipe is! The only question I have is what would the nutritional information be for this recipe? 

  3. 5 stars
    We’ve been making homemade peanut butter this way for several years now. We prefer regular cocktail peanuts, though, and we stop processing just when the ball of peanut butter rolling around the bowl is about 5 seconds from disappearing. So it’s quite a bit thicker than yours. Like you, I originally didn’t use the homemade pb for cooking or baking. But I gave it a try in peanut butter cookies and peanut butter fudge. I’m all done buying Jif or Skippy for cooking. The homemade product tastes SO much better.

  4. I just made this with honey roasted peanuts and you are absolutely right…..how easy it is to make, how great it tastes, how I’ll never go back to store bought! Thank you so much! Can’t wait to try adding different flavors, except the chocolate, pretty sure that would be the death of me since I would probably eat the whole thing in one sitting. Just kidding! That’s next!

    1. I could probably eat the whole batch in a sitting too…LOL Glad you love this and will never go back to storebought!

  5. Hi there, great post with great instructions! Please don’t take this comment the wrong way, but I wanted to mention something. I looked up this brand of peanuts, and I see that the ingredients are: Peanuts, sugar, honey, vegetable oil (peanut and/or sunflower seed), salt, modified food starch (potato), maltodextrin (corn), xanthan gum. 

    So even though in your recipe, you aren’t adding oil or extra chemicals into your food processor, there is a lot of extra stuff riding in on your peanuts. :( Best bet would be to switch to plain, unsalted peanuts, that can be bought in bulk at most health food stores like Whole Foods. Just thought I’d bring that up. Cheers! :)

    1. Plain, unsalted peanuts are little too bland and boring for me but to each her own. Enjoy the peanut butter with whatever peanuts you like.