DIY Peanut Butter in 5 Minutes

Growing up as a Skippy kid, my first experience with all-natural peanut butter wasn’t a great one.  Actually, it was better for me than it was for my cousin, the peanut butter hater, and I ended up eating his share anyway.  Ha!  We were in nursery school together (you know, in the pre- “pre-school” days) at the little church down the street from my house and our project for the day was to make peanut butter.  As a peanut butter loving 4 year old, I was freaking excited.  But alas, I was surprised that it wasn’t super creamy like the stuff I was used to at home and even though I ate it, I basically refused to eat the all-natural stuff again until I came across the grind-your-own machines in Whole Foods a few years ago.

It didn’t take long for my adult taste buds to fall head over heals for warm, freshly made peanut butter and before I knew it, I was making trips to Whole Foods just for the peanut butter.  However, we recently decided to start making our own peanut butter at home.  Overall, it was cheaper to make at home where we could buy the peanuts at the grocery store or in bulk at BJ’s ($7.99 for 32 oz) and save the gas that 1 1/2 hr round trip drive to Whole Foods used up.

For us, this is a super quick and satisfying project, taking less than 5 minutes to make in the food processor.  And better yet – there are just 3 ingredients in this homemade peanut butter!  I’m planning to add a little honey to our next batch because honey roasted peanut butter?  Gah! Pass the spoon!

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DIY Peanut Butter
source: Smells Like Home

Using unsalted peanuts in this recipe allows you to control the amount of salt in the peanut butter.  Our first batch, made with salted peanuts, was too salty for our tastes and we’ve switched over to unsalted dry roasted peanuts thereafter.  I’ve also noted a range of amounts below for the salt and oil; adjust each to your own preferences.  I haven’t tested this peanut butter when baking yet so I can’t attest to how it works.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups unsalted dry roasted peanuts
• 1/2 to 1 tsp Kosher salt
• 2 to 3 tbsp canola or peanut oil

Instructions:

1. Grind the peanuts and 1/2 teaspoon salt together in the bowl of a food processor until the peanuts break down and start to form a ball inside the bowl, about 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of the oil in through the feed tube and continue to process for another 30 seconds.  If the peanut butter is too thick, add in the remaining tablespoon of oil and process until combined.  Taste to see if the peanut butter needs more salt and add up to an extra 1/2 teaspoon if needed – it may take a couple of tastes to adjust the amount of salt properly.  Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week or in the fridge for a few weeks.

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