It’s a pretty sure bet that just about anything I post here is something I’m currently obsessing over. And almond butter is absolutely no exception. I am ob-sessed.
I’ve also been making my own almond milk and almond coffee creamer. But almond butter, oh my lanta. So many flavors, so many possibilities. I’ve got a couple of variations (vanilla! espresso!) up my sleeve, but I thought I’d start at the very beginning.
Here’s how to make almond butter. Delicious, nutritious, rich, incredible almond butter. Seriously, you guys – this is so easy. (Click play on the video to see how easy, or scroll on down for the full scoop!)
You need almonds and a food processor (or a high-powered blender). And a little salt, if you like. And that’s it!
For this recipe, we start with one pound (about three cups) of raw almonds. This will yield just about two cups of almond butter.
Place the almonds in a food processor or good quality, high-powered blender. I use a Cuisinart 14-cup food processor.
Hit the “On” button and start pulverizing those suckers. From start to finish, this takes about 15 minutes. Crazy, but true! It takes awhile for the almonds to release their oils. Just be patient … it’ll happen.
Here are the almonds after 1 minute:
And 5 minutes. Just keep pureeing those suckers. If the almonds start to climb up the sides of the food processor or blender, just switch it off, scrape down the sides, and turn it back on.
8 minutes. It’s starting to look like almond butter! Keep scraping the sides if necessary. At this point, the almonds will ball up and then even out again.
10 minutes. See the “balling up” I was talking about? Keep going!
12 minutes. We’re pretty much there! The almonds have released most of their oil and we’ve got a nice, buttery consistency. I keep going for a couple of minutes longer, though, just to make sure all of the oils have been released.
And, finally, at 15 minutes. We’re done! We have almond butter!
At this point, I usually add about 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt for flavor, and pulse a couple more times. And then I stand over the food processor and inhale deeply and thank the food gods that we can take a big bunch of nuts, puree the dickens out of them, and come up with this incredible stuff.
Spread on toast, make sandwiches, sauces, or do what I do most often: eat a straight-up spoonful for a snack.
Oh, almond butter. I don’t ever, ever want to quit you.