Homemade roasted peanut butter with honey & sea salt

Maker:L,Date:2017-8-31,Ver:5,Lens:Kan03,Act:Kan02,E-Y

Have you ever though of making your own peanut butter? If you haven’t, I guess it’s time. It’s the simplest of recipes, in fact I don’t know if you can even call a 3-ingredient, 2-step process a “recipe”. It’s that simple.

But, you may want to get someone else to clean your blender 😛 That, for me, was the toughest part of this process.

What you need:

Peanuts – roasted and skinned – 2 cups
Honey – 1-2 tbsp
Sea salt – 1/4 tsp or more if you like
Neutral vegetable oil / peanut oil – 2-3 tsps (if required)

You will also need:

A high speed blender / food processor
A little faith – it may be frustrating in the beginning when the peanuts seem to only get finely ground and not become butter. But, keep at it. In a few minutes, it will all magically turn into a smooth butter. If you feel it’s not happening, that’s when the oil comes in handy.

How to:

Roast peanuts

Roasting the peanuts lends a nice flavour to the peanut butter and also releases the natural oils from the nuts.

Preheat oven to 175C / 350F

Spread peanuts on a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer.

Roast for 7-8 mins – give the peanuts a mix once or twice in between. Roast until the nuts are lightly browned and smell nutty – keep an eye on them, they can burn quickly.

Let cool. Remove skins from peanuts. Pro tip – do yourself a favour and buy skinned peanuts to save time and effort.

Make peanut butter

Add the roasted peanuts to a blender/ food processor.

Pulse a few times until the peanuts are roughly chopped / crushed. If you like crunchy peanut butter, reserve approx 1/4 cup of these crushed peanuts separately.

Blend / process the remaining nuts for 2-3 minutes. By now, it must have reached the consistency of butter. If the mixtures seems dry and crumbly add some neutral vegetable oil or peanut oil ( 1 tsp at a time) and blend. The amount of oil you need might vary depending on the food processor and the quality of the peanuts. Process until the peanut butter is shiny and smooth.

Add in the salt and honey, if using and blend to combine. At this stage, if you are making crunchy peanut butter, stir in the reserved crushed peanuts.

And, you are done!

Storage tips

Transfer to an airtight jar and store in the refrigerator as there are no preservatives added.

It will stay in the refrigerator for upto a month. In case oil separation occurs (which is only natural), just stir it in.

Enjoy your peanut butter many different ways – spread on toast, add to smoothies, top on oatmeal, or dip apples / banana in peanut butter for a protein rich snack. You can even add peanut butter to your baking recipes such as cookies, muffins etc. Be creative 🙂

How do you like to have peanut butter? Comment below, I would love to know. And do share pictures with #thevanillabeanstalk and tag me @thevanillabeanstalk if you try this recipe and let me know how it turned out for you.