Do you know how quick and easy it is to make really delicious healthy peanut butter at home? If you’ve got a bag of peanuts, a good blender or food processor and 10 minutes to spare, you can do it right now! You’ll be amazed at how good homemade peanut butter is. It’s smooth, rich and creamy and best of all, it’s pure unadulterated natural peanuts and nothing else!

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Peanut butter is so delicious and so simple to make, it’s a wonder any of us buy it in the shops!
My family is very picky about peanut butter. A lot of brands are too sweet, some are too pastey, some too bitter and many contain palm oil which I refuse to support (see this informative WWF article on the damage that mass palm oil production has caused).
When you make your own peanut butter, you can tailor it to exactly how you like it. You don’t need to add any oil because the peanuts have enough natural oils in them that get released whilst blending and produce this divine creamy texture.
Why You Will Love This Recipe!
The best thing about making your own peanut butter is that you can get exactly the taste and consistency that your family likes.
- Complete control over the ingredients – you can make peanut butter with just one ingredient – roasted peanuts. Or you can add others to adjust the flavour to how you like it. You don’t need any sugar or palm oil, unlike the majority of peanut butters in the shops!
- Rich flavour – homemade peanut butter is so rich and peanutty. And, you can choose how long to roast the peanuts for to get the depth of flavour that you like.
- Easy – we go through a lot of peanut butter in our house and my family are very fussy about the brand (which isn’t always available here in Doha) so it’s great to be able to whizz up a batch of homemade peanut butter instead whenever I need to.
Nutrition
Contrary to popular belief, peanuts are not a nut at all! They are in fact a legume like chickpeas, lentils and beans. However, due to their high fat content (healthy fats!), and similar cooking and nutritional characteristics to other nuts (and the word “nut” in the name!), they are usually thought of as nuts.
Like other nuts and legumes, peanuts are a healthy addition to your diet providing protein, healthy fats and vitamins and minerals. Peanuts are particularly high in the B vitamins and Vitamin E as well as minerals like copper, manganese, phosphorus and magnesium. Being high in protein (over 50%) and healthy fats (mono- and poly-unsaturated fats), and low in carbohydrates (around 15%), peanuts have a low glycaemic index which means they provide long lasting energy. This is why I always tell my kids that they need nut butter on their toast in the morning to help keep them energised and alert throughout the morning at school!
Main Ingredients
Peanuts! This is the only ingredient you need and perhaps a pinch of salt.
There are a few points to note about the peanuts though:
- Make sure to use unsalted peanuts so that you have control over the salt content of your natural peanut butter.
- If you use raw peanuts, you need to roast them first in the oven or air fryer. (instructions for this are on the recipe card – it’s literally a few minutes.)
- Or you could buy dry roasted peanuts and then you can skip the roasting and go straight to the whizzing stage!
I find that raw peanuts give a better result because the dry roasted peanuts can be a little too dry to release enough natural oils to make it smooth and creamy. Older peanuts can also be a little dry and might need a teaspoon or two of oil to help them get to the really creamy stage.
Please see the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for full list of ingredients and their quantities.
How To Make This Peanut Butter Recipe
This is such an easy recipe, it hardly deserves to be called a recipe!
First roast the peanuts (only if you have raw peanuts – skip this step if you have dry roasted peanuts). Roast them for 5-7 minutes at 180°C / 350°F in the air fryer (or 8-10 minutes in a single layer on a rimmed baking tray in the oven at the same temperature). Adjust the roasting time up or down depending on how rich you like the roasted flavour in your peanut butter.
Next blend the roasted peanuts to a creamy paste. Pour the roasted peanuts into the food processor or blender and whizz until smooth. It will take about 5 minutes and will go through different stages, turning to a crumb texture first, then a thick paste, then to the creamy smooth texture that we know and love.
This is a summary only. Please see the printable recipe card at the bottom of this page for full detailed instructions. Thermomix instructions are also included in the recipe card.
How To Make This Peanut Butter Recipe in the Thermomix
First roast the peanuts as above. Then, put your roasted peanuts in the Thermomix jug and set to 30 seconds at speed 10. This pulverises the peanuts to a powder.
After that, scrape down the sides and set the thermomix to 5 minutes at speed 5. You will need to stop and scrape down the sides every minute or so.
This is a summary only. Please see the printable recipe card at the bottom of this page for full detailed instructions. Thermomix instructions are also included in the recipe card.
Chef’s Tips
Although this is a very easy recipe, there are a few hints and tips that can help you hugely!
- You will need a good quality blender or food processor for this recipe. Is it better to use a blender or a food processor to make peanut butter? Well, that depends on the quantity you want to make.
- Use a blender if you are only making a small quantity (one jar) because this small amount will not usually be enough to properly whizz up in a larger food processor.
- Use a food processor if you want to batch-make a few jars, because there is more space for the peanuts to whizz around and break down.
- The quantity I use in my recipe is the right amount to use in the blender or in the food processor so it’s your choice! I have made it in both my blender and the Thermomix and there is no difference for me.
- If your blender has a tamper, use the tamper to keep pushing the peanuts down onto the blades. If you don’t have a tamper, just keep scraping down the sides every now and then.
- Since this involves quite a long time of whizzing, it is best to stop the motor every now and again to scrape down the sides. This helps to avoid the motor overheating.
- If you’ve been whizzing for more than 5 minutes and it is still not going to a creamy consistency, it could be that your peanuts are just a little too dried out. That can be the case with dry roasted peanuts or older raw peanuts. If that happens you could add a little oil (1-2 teaspoons) to loosen it up a bit. Peanut oil is of course best but any other flavourless vegetable oil will work just as well.
- The rich flavour of this peanut butter comes from the roasting. The longer you roast the peanuts, the darker they get and the richer the flavour. Be careful not to take them to the point of burning though as that will totally ruin the flavour and give a burnt acrid taste instead!
Variations
- Adjust the seasoning to how you like it. I love to add a pinch of salt to my peanut butter so that is has a slight saltiness. It is totally optional though so taste it and adjust the amount of salt to how you like it.
- You could also make a delicious chocolate peanut butter by adding 2 tablespoon cacao or unrefined cocoa powder, 2 tablespoon coconut oil and 1 tablespoon maple syrup. Or for a fun alternative, you could add chocolate chips instead so that you get little chocolatey bursts in your peanut butter!
- If you like a sweeter peanut butter, you can add a teaspoon of maple syrup at the blending stage.
Best Uses For Peanut Butter
We love to eat this natural peanut butter slathered onto toast for breakfast (see my vegan and gluten-free bread recipe or this bread machine version for delicious toast options).
Here are some of the other ways we love to use this peanut butter in our household:
- Spread this creamy peanut butter onto apple rings as an after school snack – my children go mad for this! It’s one of their favourite treats and so easy to do!
- This peanut butter cookie recipe is another favourite of ours. It’s a one bowl recipe that takes 15 minutes to make from start to finish. They taste divine too!
- Mix with Indonesian spices, kecap manis (or (GF) soy sauce), garlic, chilli and lime juice to use as a quick satay sauce for air fried tofu cubes.
- Use to make homemade hoisin sauce for tasty Chinese dishes.
Storage
You can store this homemade peanut butter at room temperature out on the counter in an airtight container (like a glass jar) for at least a month. If you store it in the fridge, it will be a thicker paste consistency, but will happily keep for up to 6 months.
Homemade Peanut Butter FAQs
This recipe makes a smooth peanut butter but if you want to make it crunchy, you can pulse a third of the roasted peanuts (before blending the rest) very briefly so that they are broken into small pieces. Then set aside until after you’ve made your smooth peanut butter with the rest of the roasted peanuts. Then, you can stir these crunchy peanut pieces in or briefly pulse them into the peanut butter in the food processor/blender at the end.
Homemade peanut butter is so much better for you! The store-bought versions usually contain added sugar which is totally unnecessary and not healthy! They also often contain palm oil which makes it a cheaper product for mass production, but it is not good for our health (saturated fats) nor for our planet (deforestation, animal habitat loss, reducing biodiversity, etc.). I do not support products that contain palm oil for that reason.
In principle, yes, BUT different nuts have different oil contents. You will need a high-speed blender to make nut butters from really hard nuts like almonds and hazelnuts, and you may need to add a little oil to them as well. Softer nuts like cashews, macadamias and walnuts blend more easily. Walnut butter can be a little bitter so you might need to add some maple syrup and a little more salt to balance out the bitterness.
Yes, it is so easy to make this peanut butter recipe in the Thermomix! It takes just 5 minutes and comes out consistently well. I have put the Thermomix times and speeds in the recipe card.
📖 Recipe 📖
Homemade Peanut Butter
Equipment
- high-powered blender or food processor
Ingredients
- 300 g raw peanuts
- ⅛ teaspoon salt, (optional)
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven or air fryer to 180°C / 350°F to roast or air fry the peanuts (if using raw peanuts). Either:- air fry: spread the peanuts evenly over the base of the air fryer basket and air fry for 5-7 minutes (shake the basket half way through cooking time); or- roast in the oven: spread the peanuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast for 8-10 minutes.300 g raw peanuts
- Next, pour the peanuts into a high-powered blender or food processor with the salt (if using) and whizz until smooth. It will take about 5-7 minutes to go creamy and you will see it go through distinct stages as follows:- first it will go to a crumb texture;- then it will blend to a thick, bitty paste;- next it will start to blend to a smoother thick paste;- finally the oils will release and it will go to a glossy, runny paste.⅛ teaspoon salt, 300 g raw peanuts
- Thermomix Instructions: 30 seconds / sp. 10, then scrape down the sides and set to 5 minutes / sp. 5. Scrape down the sides half way through.
- Pour into a clean glass jar and put the lid on ready to eat!
Notes
- Roast the peanuts for longer or less time depending on the depth of flavour you want to get.
- Use dry roasted peanuts to skip the roasting stage and go straight to whizzing!
- Use the tamper to keep pushing the peanuts down onto the blade, if your blender comes with one. Otherwise, keep stopping and starting the machine to scrape down the sides.
- If it doesn’t start to go creamy after 5 minutes, you might need to add a teaspoon of oil to help it along a bit. Peanut or vegetable oil is fine for this purpose.
- The salt is optional but it does enrich the flavour of the peanuts. Add any other flavours towards the end of blending:
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup for a sweet version;
- 2 tablespoon cocoa powder (or cacao powder), 2 tablespoon coconut oil and 1 tablespoon maple syrup for a chocolate version;
- The peanut butter will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 month or in the fridge for up to 3 months (although it will be thicker and harder to spread from the fridge).
- To make crunchy peanut butter, pulse ⅓ of the peanuts separately at the beginning and stir in after you have made the rest of the peanuts into the smooth peanut butter.
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe? Please leave a ⭐ star rating ⭐ on the recipe card!
More Recipes
You can use this homemade peanut butter in these delicious vegan and gluten-free recipes too:
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