Homemade Peanut Butter

Have you ever wondered how to make homemade Peanut Butter, its actually not that hard at all. It also has a whole lot less ingredients in it then what I read on a store bought can last night.

Ingredients

For this recipe I used unsalted peanuts though the recipe I was going off of says any kind of peanuts will work- salted, unsalted, roasted, honey roasted or even organic peanuts. Personally I think any kind of nut would work - especially almond and cashews since I know you can buy both of them as very expensive nut butters.

2 pounds of unsalted shelled peanuts (which came out to be 4 cups after the shells and skins were removed) Note the bag in the picture is a 5 pound bag and I didn't use it all.

1 Tablespoon of peanut oil per cup - Total 4 Tablespoons for the entire recipe. ( the original recipe called for only 2 teaspoons per cup but I found this to be way to dry and not spreadable at all so I added another teaspoon - which for those who don't know 3 teaspoons equals a Tablespoon).
I have seen where some people use grape seed oil instead of peanut oil - but in that case I'm not sure if the oil amount would be the same or not.

1 Tablespoon of Honey per cup as a sweetener. Total 4 Tablespoons for the entire recipe This is optional but I think it taste better this way.

This is what 2 pound of peanuts look like still in their shells.

This is what those same peanuts looked like after we took off the shells and skins. These peanuts are now ready for the food processor. This is 4 cups of peanuts we measured them out. For my food processor I felt that anymore then 2 cups of peanuts was to much so we made 2 batches of peanut butter and combined them in a jar.

So as I said I added 2 cups of peanuts to the food processor and turned it on. You are going to want to chop them until they are a fine powder. If you don't chop them as fine you will have a chunkier peanut butter.

After the peanuts are finely chopped to you liking you can go ahead and add the oil. 1 Tablespoon per cup of dry peanuts and turned the food processor back on.

Then I added 1 Tablespoon of honey per cup and again turned the food processor back on till it was mixed in well.

When your happy with the consistency and level of sweetness it is done and can be stored in a jar.

I placed my jar of peanut butter in the refrigerator since I didn't use any heating in making it. I also knew with the size of my large family it would not take that long to finish it. They love peanut butter. To be honest I'm kind of surprised they didn't finish it in one sitting.
This peanut butter is thicker then commercial ones. I also find it to have a slightly different taste as you can taste the peanuts in it.

Long Term Storage

1. The government "experts" do not recommend canning peanut butter though before 1978 a recipe for just that was in the Ball canning book. They are one of the foremost experts on canning. This has caused major controversy among the canning community.

2. It is "safe" to roast the nuts in the oven and can them. So if you wanted to have your nuts roasted and canned it wouldn't take long to make up a batch of peanut butter.

3. It is safe to freeze peanut butter - though I do not know how long it will keep.