How to Make Peanut Butter: The EASIEST Peanut Butter Recipe

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It’s so easy to make peanut butter at home. A good peanut butter recipe contains only a few basic ingredients (possibly even just one) and takes less than five minutes to make. The only danger is that it tastes so good, you’ll want to spread it on everything!

You don’t need any special culinary skills – just a food processor. You can make creamy, smooth peanut butter, make delectably crunchy peanut butter, or make flavored peanut butter with basic ingredients in just a couple of minutes. 

how to make peanut butter
Image Credit: Real Self-Sufficiency

Below, you’ll find some of our favorite peanut butter recipe variations as well as the basic recipe, and you can follow any of these, or take the basic recipe and tweak the flavor profile to suit your tastes. It’s so versatile, you really can’t go wrong. 

Homemade peanut butter keeps for a few weeks (not that I expect it to hang around that long because it’s so tasty!). And it doesn’t need refrigerating unless your kitchen gets particularly hot. 

Why Should You Make Homemade Peanut Butter

If you look at the ingredients of commercial peanut butter, it often contains preservative chemicals, huge amounts of sugar and salt, or sweeteners like xylitol and added oils like palm oil (both of which are, incidentally, toxic to dogs). 

And the taste is often pretty bland. Or it’s too oily. Or you can taste the sweetener. Or it leaves an unpleasant metallic or chemical taste that lingers. 

And if you opt for a more high-end brand with fewer ingredients, it’s expensive – really expensive

Making your own peanut butter saves you money and ensures you know just what you’re putting in your body. Plus, the taste is incomparable.

It’s SO Easy to Make Homemade Peanut Butter!

It really is so easy to make your own peanut butter, it’s crazy not to! It’ll save you money and once you do it and see just how easy it is, you won’t go back to store-bought. 

Cheaper, healthier, and tastier. What more could you want?

Remember, when you’re making your own peanut butter, you’re in control. You control how sweet or salty it is, how smooth or crunchy. It’s all up to you. You can get creative and try adding spices, herbs, sweet things, other nuts – there are endless combinations you can try.

Tips for Making Peanut Butter at Home

While making peanut butter is ridiculously easy, there are a few things that’ll make sure the process goes extra smoothly.

Be Patient

This is the absolute more important tip I can give you when making peanut butter. Be patient! It really does only take a few minutes in the food processor, but it goes through a few different stages before you get to the beautiful buttery goodness stage. 

And one of the most common questions or complaints I get is some variation of “my peanut butter is too dry” or “my peanut butter is just chopped nuts” or “why is my peanut butter grainy?” With all of these issues, it’s almost always just because the food processor didn’t run for long enough. 

You’ll go from peanuts to ground nuts, then finely ground (almost peanut flour). After this, the oils will start to come out and you’ll get a grainy paste. Keep blending and you’ll end up with deliciously smooth, runny peanut butter.

Take a Few Breaks

Unless you’ve got a really good, you’ll want to pause every 30 to 60 seconds.

This is because grinding nuts is pretty hard work, so pausing lets the motor cool down and gives you the opportunity to scrape down the sides of the bowl so that everything blends smoothly. 

Don’t Overfill or Underfill Your Food Processor

Size your batch according to the size of your food processor. For example, in my much-loved and much-used Cuisinart 14-cup food processor I do batches of between 5 and 7 cups. If you overfill or underfill the peanut butter will always be grainy and won’t be evenly smooth.

Get Smooth Before You Get Crunchy

If you want to make crunchy peanut butter, you might be tempted to stop your food processor before the mixture gets too creamy. 

But wait! 

Keep going and let it get beautifully smooth. Then add some more whole peanuts and blitz it again briefly to break up the whole nuts. This way, you’ll have beautifully smooth peanut butter with the perfect amount of crunch. If you try to shortcut this process, yes, your peanut butter will be crunchy but it’ll also be unpleasantly grainy.

Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

The basic recipe is lovely and so, so simple, but you can so easily change the flavor profile. So don’t be afraid to add herbs, spices, and other ingredients like paprika, black pepper, chili, honey, chocolate chips, cocoa, coconut, other nuts – the list is endless. Be brave and have a go at creating your own unique favorite flavor combos!

The Basic Peanut Butter Recipe

Put your peanuts in the food processor and blitz them on full power, taking regular breaks to scrape down the sides of the bowl and to give the motor a brief rest. Repeat the processing, pausing, and scraping until you get a smooth, creamy peanut butter. 

You can add salt a pinch at a time if you want your peanut butter salty or honey or a natural sweetener if you want it a little on the sweet side. 

If you find it isn’t quite creamy enough, you can add a little olive oil or peanut oil a tiny bit at a time until you get the consistency you’re looking for.

At this point, if you want a crunchy version, add some whole peanuts and run the food processor for 10-15 seconds to break them up a little. 

And that’s it – you now have beautiful, 100% natural homemade peanut butter seasoned to your exact taste.

Homemade Peanut Butter Recipe Variations

You can see just how easy the basic peanut butter version is, and it’s almost as easy to create a super-tasty variation. There are so many you can try! We’ve included some of our favorite variations here.

Homemade Almond Coconut Peanut Butter

I like almond butter in moderation, particularly in recipes, but I’m not keen on it as a spread as it can be a little sticky and cloying. Almond and peanut butter is a great compromise, and when you add in coconut, you get that mild coconutty sweetness that transforms this butter into something really satisfying. 

The exact amounts vary according to your personal taste. However, I generally substitute 1/3 of the peanuts for almonds and then add 1/6-1/4 of the amount of nuts as coconut. So, if you’ve got 6 cups of nuts, I’d use 4 cups of peanuts, 2 cups of almonds, and 1 cup of shredded coconut.

And, if it needed to be a little wetter, I’d add a splash of olive oil or, if I wanted more coconut flavor or a creamier but slightly stiffer mixture, I’d add a touch of coconut oil or coconut cream. The mixing process is exactly the same as the basic recipe.

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter

Oh this is so delicious that it shouldn’t be allowed! Again, how much of the extras you add is up to you, but here’s what I do: 1/6 organic cocoa powder to peanuts. For example, if I use 3 cups of peanuts, I add 1/2 cup of cocoa. 

I also add a tablespoon or two of peanut oil and 1/2-1 cup of powdered erythritol (or powdered sugar). 

And I process it in the exact same way as the base recipe. But when I get to the beautiful smooth stage, I add a handful of dark chocolate chips (I follow a low-carb diet so I use really, really dark chocolate – about 85%). 

Homemade Pumpkin Spice Peanut Butter

We love the Fall flavors of pumpkin spice in our house. And we don’t just limit ourselves to this treat in Autumn, nor do we restrict the use of it to coffees and pies. We make all kinds of goodies with it, including spiced peanut butter. 

It’s super simple – just add 1/2 a tablespoon of pumpkin spice per cup of peanuts and adjust to taste. If you have a sweet tooth, you may also want to add a little honey or other natural sweetener.

Homemade Toasted Peanut Butter

Toasted peanut butter is more intensely peanutty. Toasting the nuts before you blitz them warms and loosens the oils and, in my experience, helps the peanuts blend more smoothly. Plus, of course, the resulting flavor is deeper and richer. 

If you want to try this, just preheat your oven to 350F (180C). Put your peanuts on a baking tray and put in the hot oven for 8-10 minutes. By then your nuts will be lightly toasted and you can blend them as in the basic recipe. 

How to Use Homemade Peanut Butter

This easy homemade peanut butter recipe is perfect anywhere you’d normally use store-bought peanut butter: In sandwiches, smoothies, on toast, in curry or chicken peanut satay, in baked goods–anywhere! And if you want to treat your pups, try putting it in our pumpkin and peanut butter dog treat recipe.

How to Store Your Homemade Peanut Butter

Store it in a clean jar in the cupboard or the refrigerator for up to a month – although I doubt it’ll stick around that long! 

Note that if you store it in the refrigerator, it’ll be stiffer and a little harder to spread because the oils stiffen up at low temperatures.

Yield: 3 cups

How to Make Peanut Butter: The EASIEST Peanut Butter Recipe

How to Make Peanut Butter: The EASIEST Peanut Butter Recipe

This basic peanut butter recipe is ridiculously easy. I've provided the base recipe here, and this is fantastic on its own, but you can also experiment with any of the variations I listed above, too, by adding the extra ingredients.

Prep Time 5 minutes
Total Time 5 minutes

Ingredients

  • 6 cups peanuts
  • Salt (optional - to taste)
  • Honey or erythritol (optional - to taste)

Instructions

    1. Get your food processor (we recommend this one, it’s easy to use and works really well) and tip in your peanuts (these organic peanuts taste delicious). Blitz them for about 30 seconds, then scrape down the sides with a spatula to ensure all the nuts get evenly mixed. Run the mixer again, pausing and scraping every 30 seconds until you get a smooth peanut butter consistency.
    2. You’ll find that the nuts go through different stages as you blend. At first, you’ll see increasingly fine chunks that eventually look a little like ground almonds. It’ll then turn into a dry ball and eventually become deliciously smooth peanut butter.
    3. Remember - be patient. If you stop too soon, you'll have a tasty but grainy peanut butter.
    4. At this point, give it a taste, then, if you want a sweeter taste, add a little honey or, if you like a more savory taste, add a touch of salt. Or, for that delightful sweet and salty bite, add a little of each. Just don’t overdo it. Add a little at a time, blend, and taste again.
    5. If your preference is for chunky peanut butter, once you’ve got the taste just right, add a handful of whole peanuts to the smooth butter and blitz again for 15-30 seconds until the chunks are the right size.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

48

Serving Size:

1 tbsp (approx. 15g)

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 91Total Fat: 7.5gTrans Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgNet Carbohydrates: 1.5gFiber: 2gProtein: 4g

FAQs

Yes! Obviously, if you’re going as healthy as possible and using raw organic peanuts, you’ll pay more per ounce than cheap, chemical-laden, filler-packed peanut butter. But a comparable, high-quality organic peanut butter is definitely more expensive than buying the organic nuts and making it yourself. For example, these organic peanuts are $0.32 per ounce while store-bought organic peanut butter can cost over $1 per ounce.

Peanuts. Ideally, organic peanuts should be the only ingredients, maybe with a touch of salt or natural sweetener. Unfortunately, many store-bought peanut butters also contain additives such as preservatives, unnecessary oils like palm oil, sugar, and more. Which is why it makes so much more sense to make your own.

According to the National Peanut Board, it takes approximately 540 peanuts to make 12 ounces of peanut butter. This works out to 45 peanuts per ounce of peanut butter. 

Most likely because you didn’t blend it for long enough. If you don’t keep processing it and scraping down the sides of the bowl, the oils won’t fully release, so your peanut butter will be dry. You can remedy this by blending it for longer and, if necessary, adding small amounts of peanut oil until you get the smooth, creamy consistency you’re looking for.

Homemade peanut butter lasts about a month, if stored in a clean glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. But beware – it tastes so good that it probably won’t stick around that long!

No. Peanuts are pretty shelf-stable so don’t require refrigeration. You can refrigerate peanut butter, but it’ll be stiffer and harder to spread if you do, because the oils stiffen up in colder temperatures.

Katy Willis is a writer, lifelong homesteader, and master herbalist, master gardener, and canine nutritionist. Katy is a modern homesteader practicing everyday sustainability and green living.

She is passionate about living naturally, growing food, keeping livestock, foraging, and making and using herbal remedies.

Katy is an experienced Master Herbalist and a member of the CMA (Complementary Medical Association). She grows 100% organic food on roughly 15 acres and raises goats, chickens, and ducks. She also lovingly tends her orchard, where she grows many different fruit trees. And, because she likes to know exactly what she's feeding her family, she's a seasoned from-scratch cook and gluten-free baker.

Katy teaches foraging and environmental education classes including self-sufficient living, modern homesteading, seed saving, and organic vegetable gardening, helping others learn forgotten skills, reconnect with nature, and live greener and healthier. She also has two dogs who she raises naturally, providing a raw diet, positive reinforcement training, and natural healthcare.

She's been published on sites such as MSN, Angi, Home Advisor, Family Handyman, Wealth of Geeks, Readers Digest, and more.

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