This easy homemade peanut butter recipe shows you how to turn a bag of roasted peanuts into a smooth and creamy peanut butter in a few minutes.
Made with just one ingredient and no added oil, sugar or preservatives, it's pure, affordable and easy to customise. Whether you spread it on toast, in a sandwich with jam or swirl it into porridge, you'll love how simple this homemade peanut butter is to make. Also, try my Chocolate Peanut Butter Recipe.
All you need is a food processor or a high-power blender and a little patience while the peanuts release their natural oils. Once you make it, you'll wonder why you ever bought it from the supermarket.
At-a-Glance - Homemade Peanut Butter
⏲️ Ready in: 3 minutes
👪 Serves: 10
🍽 Calories: 171
🧾 Main ingredients: Salted roasted peanuts
👩🏻🍳 Suitable for: Vegan, plant-based, dairy-free, egg-free, vegetarian & gluten-free
You'll never go back to shop-bought peanut butter after trying this.
Summarise & save this recipe:
⭐ Why You'll Love Homemade Peanut Butter
- Just one ingredient
- No added palm oil
- No added sugar
- Easy to customise - check out my homemade chocolate peanut butter spread
- Cheaper than premium pure peanut butter
- You can have it smooth or chunky
- Great for breakfast, lunches, snacks or baking
Once you've made a batch, try it in these Quick Satay Noodles, Chocolate Date Brownie Bars or these easy no-bake Peanut Butter Oat Bars.
Jump to:
- At-a-Glance - Homemade Peanut Butter
- ⭐ Why You'll Love Homemade Peanut Butter
- 💭 How do Peanuts turn into Peanut Butter?
- 📋 What you Need to Make Peanut Butter
- 💭 Which Peanuts are Best?
- 💭 Food Processor or Blender?
- 💭 Why doesn't Peanut Butter need Oil Added to it?
- ⭐ The Best way to make Crunchy Peanut Butter
- 👩🏻🍳 How to Make Homemade Peanut Butter
- 🥜 Can you Make Nut Butter with Different Nuts?
- 🍫 Flavour Variations
- 👩🏻🍳 How to use Homemade Peanut Butter
- 👩🏻🍳 More Easy Homemade Spreads
- ⭐ Sign up for a free recipe sent to your inbox every morning
- 📖 Recipe
- 💬 Comments
💭 How do Peanuts turn into Peanut Butter?
Don't panic if it looks dry at first! Here are the stages peanuts go through to turn into peanut butter.
- Whole peanuts
- Crumbs
- Crumbly peanut flour
- Thick paste
- Peanut butter
You really have to hold your nerve. It will get there if you give it time and may take a little longer if your blender or food processor doesn't have a strong motor.
📋 What you Need to Make Peanut Butter
It really is the simplest spread to make at home. Just follow my instructions in the recipe card.
- Roasted peanuts - that's it!
You can use salted or plain roasted peanuts. Be aware that salted peanuts probably have some oil and salt added, but that's not a bad thing unless it's palm oil, but the roasted salted nuts I buy use rapeseed oil, so that's fine.
If you make them with unsalted nuts, you will need to add some salt for flavour.
💭 Which Peanuts are Best?
| Type of Peanut | Result |
|---|---|
| Roasted - salted | Rich flavour, no need to add salt |
| Roasted - unsalted | Good if you want to control salt |
| Raw Peanuts | Roast these for best flavour, add salt |
| Dry Roasted | Extra umami flavour |
💭 Food Processor or Blender?
| Food processor | Blender |
|---|---|
| Blends well | If not high-power, it could struggle |
| Good for large batches | Faster and smoother |
| Easier to clean | You will need a spatula to move the mixture from the sides as it blends |
| Can be harder to clean |
If you don't have a powerful blender, the motor could struggle. The booklet that comes with it should indicate the type of foods it can blend easily.
💭 Why doesn't Peanut Butter need Oil Added to it?
Roasted peanuts are cooked in a little oil, although to be honest, peanuts have their own natural oil that they release as they are blended, and nothing else is required.
⭐ The Best way to make Crunchy Peanut Butter
You might think to make crunchy peanut butter you just stop blending the peanuts before it is smooth, but actually it needs to go through the four processes (described above) until it is completely smooth to release the oils and become peanut butter.
However, it's easy to make homemade crunchy peanut butter. While the peanuts are blending, chop some additional nuts, and when the peanut butter is fully blended, fold these nuts in. Voila, crunchy peanut butter.
And you can control just how big the pieces of nuts are.
👩🏻🍳 How to Make Homemade Peanut Butter
So easy to make, there's really not much to see, but here are a few photos,
Step 1
Add the peanuts to a blender; if they are not salted, add salt.
Step 2
Blend through the four stages until you have a smooth peanut butter (see the recipe card for more info). You may need to stop the blending to scrape down the sides of the blender or food processor with a spatula.
Step 3
Spoon into a jam jar to store or into a bowl to serve. Enjoy!
🥜 Can you Make Nut Butter with Different Nuts?
Yes, you can make nut butter with a few different nuts in the same way. Here are a few nuts that work well:
- Peanuts
- Cashew Nuts
- Almonds
- Pecans
- Walnuts
- Hazelnuts
🍫 Flavour Variations
You might be wondering what other flavours you can add and how you can vary the basic recipe; here are a few ideas:
- Maple peanut butter - stir in some maple syrup
- Chocolate peanut butter - check out my recipe for this Chocolate Peanut Spread
- Cinnamon peanut butter - add cinnamon as the peanut butter blends
- Vanilla peanut butter - stir vanilla through the blender peanut butter
- Chilli peanut butter - add chilli powder to the peanuts as they blend
- Espresso peanut butter - add ground coffee to the peanuts as they blend
I'm sure you will have a few ideas to make an exciting new peanut butter blend.
👩🏻🍳 How to use Homemade Peanut Butter
| Savoury | Sweet | Snacks |
|---|---|---|
| Satay Noodles | Mixed through yoghurt | On toast |
| Lentil Peanut Butter Soup | Added to overnight oats or porridge | Spread on celery and topped with raisins |
| Satay marinade for tofu | Added to smoothies | Spread on apple slices |
| Add to soups & stews | On a sandwich with chocolate spread | No-Bake Oat Bars |
| Add flavour to pasta sauce | Peanut butter & jam sandwich | Vegan Snickers Bites made with Dates |
| Peanut lime dressing | Mixed with maple syrup to make a dip | Peanut Butter Cookies |
👩🏻🍳 More Easy Homemade Spreads
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📖 Recipe
Easy Homemade Peanut Butter
Ingredients
- 225 g roasted salted peanuts
Instructions
- Add roasted salted peanuts to a blender jug or a
food processor bowl. Add the lid, fit onto the base and switch on. - Blend or pulse until smooth.
- During blending it will slow down, stop the machine and scrape down the sides with a spatula to make sure it's all incorporated.
- This will take 2 minutes in a high-speed power blender but will take a few minutes longer in a standard blender or food processor, so be patient. It will turn into peanut butter.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- This peanut butter can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 months.
- Once it's made you can stir in chopped nuts to make crunchy peanut butter.
- For a luxury spread, once the peanut butter is made stir in maple syrup or chocolate chips.
Sue says
Can’t wait to try this
Jacqueline Meldrum says
It's super easy Sue and tastes great. None of the hidden nasties in some shop-bought peanut butter.
Jacqueline Meldrum says
Emjoy it !