I started making my own peanut butter a few years ago after reading Make the Bread, Buy the Butter and was amazed by how easy it was! It’s more cost effective, especially given the amounts of peanut butter our household eats and it’s delicious!
Store-bought peanut butter can range from $0.14-$0.32/oz. Homemade peanut butter costs about $0.12-$0.16/oz (that’s even using expensive Whole Foods peanuts). Another bonus is that homemade peanut butter doesn’t have added sugars, oils or other ingredients.
All you need is peanuts and a food processor or Vitamix and in is as little as 5 minutes you have peanut butter!
Ingredients:
3 cups of peanuts (about 1 lb, which makes 1 jar)
You can use dry roasted peanuts and add your own salt and/or sugar or what I like to do is buy a combination of plain, salted and/or honey roasted peanuts from the bulk section. I recommend experimenting with the ratios until you find what works for you.
Instructions:
In the Vitamix:
1. Place the peanuts in the Vitamix.
2. Set it to Variable/1. Turn it on and slowly increase to 10, then switch to high.
3. Use the tamper to move the top peanuts into the mixture.
4. Continue doing this for about a minute.
5. Transfer peanut butter to a jar.
You can store it outside for a couple of weeks or in the refrigerator for a few months. I usually leave 1 cup out and storing the rest in the fridge and just bring out 1 cup at a time.
No Vitamix? No problem!
Before I had a Vitamix, I used a food processor and it’s just as easy!
In a Food Processor:
1.Put the peanuts in the food processor.
2. Turn it on and after about 5-10 minutes (depending on the strength of your food processor), the peanuts will have turned into peanut butter.
You don’t really need to add oil, because the peanuts secrete oil, but if you want creamier peanut butter and haven’t achieved that after 10 min, you may choose to add a little bit of peanut, olive or coconut oil.