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. Love it. I make peanut butter all the time and it tastes sooo much better than any Jiff version! As soon as I read the title, I thought, “Oh, I hope she used honey roasted nuts…” ;) Girl after my own heart! I’ll also sometimes buy a small box of the mixed nuts with no peanuts and grind ’em down to a mixed nut butter. Add chocolate, vanilla bean, coconut, anything! Such a great, easy recipe – thanks for sharing!

    1. Oh your version sounds great – there is really no wrong way to go with flavors I’ve determined!

  2. Ooooh, this is the most beautiful peanut butter EVER! I absolutely love making it homemade. So fresh and easy, and you can have total peace about the ingredients. Fun!

  3. I make my own almond butter all the time to save money now and really prefer the taste/ ingredients to the ones in the store. Next up I want to try making macadamia nut butter. And these pictures are simple, bright, and just gorgeous, they make me want to dig right in.

    1. Thank you; they took more than the 5 mins it took me to make the PB :) I’m sure you understand! Mac nut butter sounds great!

  4. Homemade peanut butter is the only way to go. I totally love your take on it though! Honey roasted peanuts sound amazing!

  5. I actually really love the thick dry mound of peanut butter at the bottom of a jar of natural peanut butter. Kinda weird but it’s my favorite part of the jar!

    I’ve been wanting to make my own nut butter and this post was really helpful, I’ll definitely have to make some soon!

    1. glad it was helpful and that thick mound is usually just a tasteless rock in all my jars which is why I don’t even buy natural any more!

  6. Peanut butter… an effortless delicacy… you could not be more spot on with that statement! And what I LOVE abut making this peanut butter with honey roasted peanuts is that you don’t have to add ANYTHING, I most definitel do not add any salt or oil, the pb is perfect on its own. I keep mine in the fridge and dip baby carrots in it!

    What I love MOST about the process of making this pb is that mine gets kind of warm and melty after I make it in the food processor – from the heat of the blades turning for 4 mins straight. I LOVE that you made this and shared detailed step by step instructions and pictures!! I actually made almond butter the other day and mixed it with this pb because I wanted to see how it’d taste. It’s thick and amazing!!

    1. The warm & melty would be so perfect in the winter and in the summer, the coolness of it after being refrigerated is so good and unlike commercial PBs when stored in the fridge, this doesn’t get that artificially cold sort of rock-like quality…still smooth!

      Glad you like the step by step. It took me just a smidge of time but worth it I thought :) And LMK if you like your PB plain or mixed with AB. I am definitely all about solely PB!

  7. I just recently starting making my own nut butters, starting with sunflower seed butter. Soooo easy, and so good! Almond butter is my favourite though.
    I have added all sorts of extracts and spices already, but never thought of liquor! How fun would a raisin-rum one be??

    1. Making SFSButter…I recently saw Heidi/101cookbooks just post about hers and that’s next on my list. I do love TJs SFSB but I know you don’t live here and have no TJs and I bet yours is even more amazing (and totally pure!). Thanks for stopping back and saying hi!

      1. If you like the TJ´s one (I sure do!) then you will LOVE the homemade stuff. Freshly roasted sunflower seed are making such a difference :)
        Oh, how I loved being in LA and having daily access to TJ´s!

  8. Yummy! I’m a bit allergic to peanuts (well, it’s hit and miss – fresh from the shell ones are ok, but waaaay too time consuming), but I make almond butter like it was my job. There is just no comparison in taste there either, or price. However, you have to factor in blowing up your food processor now and then.

    1. Sorry to hear about your allergy. Not easy as peanuts are in everything or touch so many things in the processing/manufacturing aspect. Glad that almond butter works for you, though!

  9. I am dying to try to make my own! It’s unbelievable how easy it is to make! I can’t believe it… Now I just need a food processor :)

  10. The step by steps are so helpful, I’m pretty sure I’d get to the big lump stage and freak out! Thanks Averie, I can’t wait to give this a try!

    1. Glad you like the steps and that they help…honestly I was taking ALL these pics along the way, turning a 5 min job into way more and wondering why am I doing this? … but knowing it helps = worth it! :)

      1. It really does help. I would probably freak out, too! I want to make almond butter, does it do the same thing?

      2. Almonds are a much firmer nut and although you can make your own AB, it takes longer and for some people and their food processors, it’s more challenging to get them to break down. I just don’t love AB that much so always stick with PB. Cashew butter is extremely easy to make and delicious if you want to give cashews a try. They break down very! easily.

  11. Nom nom nom.

    You can’t beat homemade anything! I have not yet made home-made peanut butter, but now I may have to!

  12. I have my own peanut butter before too! I did add a little honey and olive oil. Tasted so good! Plus, I amazed my friends telling them that I made it myself. LOL

    1. I know…people are AMAZED when you tell them you made it. Their eyes get as big as saucers…no one realizes how easy it is!

  13. Oh Averie, this looks absolutely dreamy! And I LOVE the addition of the “adult flavorings”! I’ve never thought about trying that when making homemade nut butter…which is something I need to do more often! Stunning pictures, as always!