Learn how to make AMAZING homemade peanut butter! It's super smooth, creamy, and flavorful - you won't be able to stop eating it by the spoonful.
I start drooling just looking at the pictures of this homemade peanut butter! Jack and I have been all about cooking projects lately, churning out homemade bagels, pasta, tortillas, and more. We’ve loved all of them, but this homemade peanut butter recipe reminded us that cooking projects don’t have to be ambitious to be fun.
This peanut butter recipe calls for just 1 or 2 ingredients, and it comes together in under 10 minutes. Still, making it is a blast! You get to watch whole peanuts transform into the smoothest, creamiest nut butter you’ve ever seen. Its oozy texture beats any store bought brand I’ve tried, and its rich peanut flavor is out of this world. You won’t be able to resist eating it by the spoonful!
Peanut Butter Recipe Tips
Ready to learn how to make peanut butter? There are a few things you should know before you start:
- Making this recipe is easy, but it does require patience. Your food processor will need to run for almost 10 minutes, including breaks, before the nuts become smooth and spreadable.
- You’re going to need to stop the food processor often. Making homemade nut butter can be hard on a food processor’s motor, so be sure to stop it every 30 seconds to 1 minute to give it a chance to cool off. This break is also a great opportunity to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- The amount of peanuts you use should be proportionate to the size of your food processor. I use 3 cups of peanuts in my 7-cup food processor. If yours is much larger, you’ll need more nuts to create a smooth, creamy spread.
- You don’t need anything except for dry roasted peanuts, and maybe salt. You can use unsalted or salted peanuts in this recipe, but if yours aren’t salted, you’ll need to season to taste with salt at the end.
How to Make Peanut Butter
Add the peanuts to the bowl of a food processor, and process until very smooth, pausing to scrape down the sides of the bowl every 30 seconds or so. When you first start grinding the peanuts, it might not seem like they’ll blend into a smooth nut butter. But trust me, they will! You don’t need to add any vegetable oil, I promise.
At the beginning, they’ll be chunky.
Then, they’ll form a shaggy ball.
And finally, they’ll blend into creamy natural peanut butter! Let the food processor run as long as necessary to get the mixture really smooth. Store it in an airtight container or jar at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. Enjoy!
How to Use Homemade Peanut Butter
There are so many ways to use this homemade peanut butter! Here are a few of my favorites:
- Slather it onto a slice of crusty bread.
- Drizzle it over a bowl of oatmeal, granola, or overnight oats.
- Use it as the binder in homemade granola bars or energy balls.
- Make it into a tangy peanut sauce to serve with noodles, spring rolls, or bowls.
- Whisk together a peanut dressing for a summer slaw.
- Blend it into a smoothie for extra protein.
- Make cookies! It works perfectly in my chocolate peanut butter no bake cookies, peanut butter cookies, and chocolate chip cookie dough bars.
What’s your favorite way to use it? Let me know in the comments!
More Homemade Basics
If you loved learning how to make peanut butter, try making one of these easy recipes for homemade basics next:
Homemade Peanut Butter
Ingredients
- 3 cups dry roasted & salted or unsalted peanuts
- sea salt, to taste, (if using unsalted peanuts)
Instructions
- Place the peanuts in a medium food processor.* Process until very smooth, stopping every 30 seconds to 1 minute to scape down the sides of the bowl, as necessary, and to give the food processor's motor a break. The mixture will be chunky at first. Then, it'll thicken into a ball, and finally, it will become creamy and smooth. The whole process should take about 8 to 10 minutes.
Is it alright to use a blender instead of a food processor?
Hi Isabella, I find it’s too thick to get it moving in the blender, so I prefer the food processor.
Daft question- I can’t get dry roasted peanuts where I live, just regular salted ones. Do I just stick them on a tray in the oven for a while?
You probably don’t have to put them on the oven (it’s rare to find raw peanuts so they’re probably roasted). I would just skip adding any additional salt.
Has anyone tried this same recipe with roasted sunflower seeds?
Love this recipe, super simple! How long will the peanut butter last in the fridge before going bad? Thank you!
1 month
I store mine in mason jars in a dark cupboard and it lasts longer than a month…almost two months without any loss of taste or quality. ☺️
how long should i roast the peanuts for? and at what temperature should i roast them at?
They should already come dry roasted (it’s more rare that peanuts are sold completely raw). If they say dry roasted on your package then they’re all ready to go, no need to toast in the oven.
I use raw peanuts that I find at Asian markets in vacuum sealed bags. I roast at 350F for about 20-30 minutes on a 1/2 sheetpan in the oven. I mix them about halfway through the roasting time. I gave the range as oven temperatures vary. Awesome roasted nuts. No oil. No salt. No soaking. You can then process the nuts in a food processor if you have one as mentioned in this article, or I have a high speed blender and use that. This way, you start with raw nuts, and you roast them versus buying some that have been roasted and sitting on the shelves in the store. Enjoy
tried out this recipe using 3 c (dollar store brand) dry roasted peanuts and my cheapo $40 8-cup hamilton beach food processor. blended per instructions. perfect! I’ll be making my own peanut butter from now on. thank you!!!!!!
I love your recepies too much, I hope u share more interesting Indian,spanish, etc. recepies also .Thank you.
Hi guys, thanks for the recipe! Cant wait to try it out this weekend 🙂 Quick Q – for how long can I keep this peanut butter in the fridge?
So easy and delicious! Great idea from one of the replies adding vanilla! Used a food processor and took me 5-6min! Thank you!
Hi. I like crunchy peanut butter rather than smooth. Do I just add a few more peanuts to the final stages of blending, perhaps chopping them up before starting to make the smooth mixture?
Your recipe sounds delicious and I’m going to try this out tomorrow
Sure!, you would need to chop up about 1/2 cup to desired size then mix in but dont blend as it the peanuts may become too small therefore it may become grainy!
– Haggis
Hi,
Can this recipe be used for making peanut butter cake?
Hi Sunitha, it should be fine as long as the recipe calls for natural peanut butter.
Hi there! I was reading the comments and decided to add some salt and honey near the end of the process but it started to thicken back up and look like the second stage again. Any thoughts as to why?
Honey is really sticky, so that may have caused it to bind? Assuming it hit the smooth stage, I’d just scoop it out and see if it loosens up in the jar. It should probably still be tasty.
Delish and so easy! We added some salt and local clover honey to sweeten it up a little bit. I have a feeling the jar is not going to last long in our house…
I discovered that adding pure vanilla extract really enhances the flavor ! I use 2 c. unsalted roasted peanuts, 1 t. vanilla, and 1/2 t. sea salt. It is sooo delicious with sliced Fuji apples, which are the sweetest. No oil! No sweetener!
Hi Memrie, I’m going to try it with vanilla next time! I’m so glad you enjoyed it.
Looks delish! Have been looking for a simple recipe to replace store bought peanut butter!! Where is a good place to buy peanuts like this in bulk?
I usually get my bulk goods from whole foods!
Hi! Do you think you could add some honey to it near the end? We are really missing our honey roasted ground peanut butter from the grocery store…it’s one of the only things we can’t get during this time.
yep, absolutely! That’d be great – just add it to taste, as you like!
can you use mixed nuts as well I have a jug of it that I use to make trail mix
Hi Faith, yep, you can!
Can this be made in a Vitamix, or is it better in the processor?
Thank you!
Hi Susan, it can be made in the vitamix, you’ll just have to stop every so often to loosen the nut butter that forms around the blade. Use the baton to move things around (it’ll be thick before it becomes creamy). I think the food processor is a bit easier since less gets stuck around the blade but either will work.
Hi, Jeanine!
About how much peanut butter does this yield?
Hi Amber, about 1 cup!
Thank you!
Hi, may I know what brand pf blender did you use for peanut butter? Thank you