Name: Homemade Peanut Butter
Prep time: 10 min
Ingredients: 3 cups dry roasted & salted or unsalted peanuts; Sea salt (to taste (if using unsalted peanuts))

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.

Jeanine Donofrio

Phoebe Moore

Updated May 20, 2024

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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

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4.96 from 171 votes

Prep Time: 10

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Learn how to make AMAZING homemade peanut butter! It's super smooth, creamy, and filled with rich peanut flavor. You're going to want to eat it by the spoonful!

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.

Notes

Makes about 1 cup.

*Note: I use my 7-cup Cuisinart or KitchenAid food processor. If yours is much larger, you may want to increase the amount of peanuts so that there's enough quantity to blend well.