Making nut butters can be a little tricky. I used to think that I had to do them in my Vitamix, which would drive me batty with all the scraping down that was required. Other times, I would have a fail, only because I quit too early. I didn’t realize how much time it takes, and the process that the nuts have to go through. But if you have a little patience, you can make nut butters that are fabulous. You will never want to buy them again!
I used my Kitchen Aid 12 cup food processor. It is a strong processor. The bottom warms up a little bit but if you are using an older processor, or a processor with a much weaker motor, common sense needs to prevail.
- 2 C Almonds
- 1 T Raw Honey (optional)
- 1/2 t Sea Salt (optional)
Place almonds in food processor. Process for 8-12 minutes. You will need to scrape down the sides in the beginning. If you choose to use the honey and salt, stir in by hand after the butter is made as it will seize the mixture if you try to add it before.
After 2 minutes it will look like this.
After 4 minutes it will look like this.
After 6 minutes it will look like this.
Around 8 minutes, the almond mixture will ball up. Just let it keep going.
At 10 minutes it has begun to redistribute, but it is not done yet. You want to wait until the oils get released.
At 12 minutes the almonds have released their oil and the butter is ready! If you want to add honey or salt, stir it in by hand.
*Chef’s Note: If using soaked, dehydrated almonds, you may need to add a little oil.
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Can I make this in a blender or will that not work?
A normal blender or a high-speed blender. I think you may have trouble in a normal blender.
susan, arent you worry about your food processor engine in this recipe?
No…I did not worry about my food processor. It worked beautifully. But it is also a newer food processor with a large engine.
I haven’t tried this yet but it looks so easy. I presume youbare using unsoaked almonds for this. Doesn’t the blade get hot after processing for this long?
In the picture, they are unsoaked, dry almonds. You can also use soaked almonds if you add a little oil (see note in post) and also make sure they are dehydrated dry before you start.
How should the almond butter be stored?
It is a nut, it has oils and it can go rancid, so I would store it in the refrigerator.
Wow, this is amazing!
Everything happened precisely as you described, step by step, and now I have sticky yummy almond butter!
Thank you very much.
did i do something wrong? i have a high powered blender and i kept having to scrape the sides to get the almonds into the blade. it’s taken over an hour and still not ready? I used roasted and salted almonds that I bought from Kroger… any advice?
thanks!
Well, first of all raw almonds were used in this recipe, not roasted and salted almonds. I have never tried to make an almond butter with those. I would think they have a completely different texture and oil content.
That was an adventure. I’ve never made nut butter before but this was quite the schpeel. I read that the wood-like skin inhibits digestion of all those great nutrients, so I blanched them myself (took an hour, all told), lightly toasted them, let them cool, and worked with them in the food processor for a total of maybe 45 minutes, having to scrape down the sides every 30 seconds about 10-15 times after it’d been running for 4 minutes or so. Oh and that’s not including the cool-down breaks needed for the Processor because it was overheating – and cooking the almonds! The effort was… humbling and patience-building(/-forcing) but it tastes great, and was cheap (labor notwithstanding). Thanks for the recipe, it’s perfect.
Thanks for this great recipe! The recipe calls for 2 cups of almonds, but how many cups of almond butter does this recipe make? Also, do you have any of the nutrition facts for this recipe (i.e. calories)?
Thanks for the great recipe! The recipe calls for 2 cups of almonds, but how many cups of almond butter does this recipe make? Also, do you have any of the nutrition facts (i.e. calories) for this recipe?
You may need a more powerful food processor. It only takes me about 10-12 minutes.
It makes a little over a cup of almond butter. I do not have the nutritional facts but since it only uses one ingredient, it would be pretty easy to figure out.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3085/2
How big is your food processor? I think it would make a difference with the size/capacity and the amount of almonds/nuts one wants to work with.
I trying out my small one which seems to be working nicely with 1 cup of almonds. It’s an older model yet working out just fine. I’m letting it cool off now for a bit since it’s getting hot. I’m using raw, unpasteurized, organic almonds, and added some walnut oil to help it out a bit.
Years ago I tried this with my larger food processor which holds over 4 cups (it’s an older model from Braun). It ran for hours, and I had to scrape a lot and yielded nothing edible.
Happy for your thoughts — thank you for posing this!
Is it normal for the butter/food processor bowl to get VERY warm? This worked great, and the pictures made me confident that I could just keep blending until it loosened up! Almond butter is the best, and WAY healthier than peanut butter
No, it should not get very warm. It does get warm. It will depend on the motor size of your food processor, its ability to process, etc They vary a lot.
My foodprocessor has a smaller glass bowl, which I used. It began smoking and when I picked it up the grip on the bottom dropped right off – the rubber had melted, so now I just ruined the small bowl – hurrrah
and The almonds weren’t even sticking together yet…
I would contact your food processor company.
Well, I tried this and gave up after 45 minutes. I’m certain my almonds were pasteurized and I’d also soaked and dehydrated them. They never got past the slightly-oily-but-mostly-crumbly phase. I’ll try again with some truly raw, organic almonds. In the meantime, I’m improvising and making some cookies.
They taste amazingly like raw chocolate chip cookie dough (sans the chocolate chips)! So thanks for the inspiration, and I’ll be back once I get the right almonds!
It is most likely not your almonds, It is most likely your food processor. How strong is the motor? Also, if you see the note in the recipe, when using soaked and dehydrated almonds, you may need to add a little oil?
My almond butter came out great. It is absolutely delicious! The honey and salt are a great additional touch. Thanks for the recipe.
This was the most helpful, easy, beautifully pictured recipe ever. It only took me 5 minutes to get to the desired almond buttery consistency. I can’t wait to try your other recipes. Thanks very much for sharing!
My almond butter turned out delicious. However, it was hard to determine if the oils actually were released enough. I stopped after about 14 minutes in using an old Sunbeam food processor. The consistency is really guey in that it actually coats my teeth and gums more so than store-bought amond butter (a little embarrassing on break at work!) Does this mean that I didn’t process it long enough?
Joan…that’s a new one! I would look at the pictures and see if it looked the same as the final shot. As far as coating your teeth…ya got me…
Thanks! Perfect recipe. Worked exactly as stated here, step by step
Thanks!!! 12 minutes, perfect almond butter.
Love this. I am using a newer Cuisine Art processor & it does heat the butter up quite a bit in the end – do you think this takes away from the raw effect? I of course didn’t take the temp this time around, it only dawned on me after I stored the butter away, in the refrigerator … I can’t imagine that it heated it up to 115 degrees, though.
Thank you for sharing, I will never buy another jar of nut butter again. I might actually try selling it! ;]
Mine warms up too but never gets anywhere near 115. You can always temp it if you are concerned.
Worked exactly as you described. Delicious!
Do you think putting the nuts through a juicer (blank filter) first could help?
Wow, I don’t even have a regular food processor, I used my mini quisenart chopper with a cup of raw almonds….it worked exactly like you said….a little touchy at the end due to the tiny size of my appliance, but I am so happy that I can do this myself in under 15 minutes! Thank you!!
Worked just like your said! My food processor is over 18 years old and I hesitated at first. I thought I would try it and if it got too hot, I would just stop and have almond meal to bake with. It’s yummy warm. Thanks!
You mentioned in one of the comments that the almonds need to be dehydrated. How did you accomplish that? My processor is an older Cuisinart so I had to let it rest. Just curious, if you add oil, which oil would you use? I was thinking Flaxseed oil.
awesome! Worked wonderfully.
I have a large food processor so I found that I had to stop it and scrape the sides down every 30-60 seconds, making it a very labouring process but the holiday fudge made the process ohhh so worth it!! It definitely gave my (new) 900W food processor a workout, when it started to get warm I just switched it off for 30mins and came back to finish it when it cooled down. 
great! it worked fine on a magimix food processor and it was nice to see the steps. (really helpful you posted the pictures, thanks)
i would like to dive into chemistry because there must be something happening in the structure of the almond-cells…something is giving up and then the oil is released… may be i can find it in the bible of mr Mc Gee
thanks for posting Susan!
Thanks for the recipe! How many ounces did the 2 cups of almonds make?
I know that Trader Joes in the East Coast has a great almond butter recipe with roasted flaxseeds. This recipe sounds great! I’d like to try adding the flaxseeds too! thanks for sharing!
I am making this now, and just to be safe, although I have a new 1000watt food processor, I am processing it for a minute and turning off the machine for a minute or so while I am doing other things. My concerns are I am in a 220V country and the machine was expensive, so I want to be extra careful. Good results. Haven’t added sweetener yet – that’s the next step – almond carob balls. Trying to keep sweetener to a minimum as I am preparing this with a diabetic guest in mind.
Oh I used roasted almonds a just a bit of grape seed oil
That was amazing! Thanks for sharing. I just made some for the first time and it worked exactly like you said! Yum
GREAT RECIPE!!! I have made Almond Butter many times even using our Vita Mix. This is the best finished product I have ever made. Thanks for sharing it….
Just made this tonight, YUM! Thanks!
Took me a bit longer because the almonds kept getting pushed to the outside walls. I have a rather large food processor so I had to stop every few seconds to scrape the almonds back down with a rubber spatula so the blades could reach and mix
Thanks for the recipe!
Well this is AWESOME! I used a blender (ninja) and it worked pretty well. I did have to scrape down the sides A TON but it was worth it. I added a little oil after a bit and that helped to speed up the process. Thanks for the recipe! BTW, did the coconut butter too, I AM OBSESSED. I eat a few spoonfuls a day. I tried cooking with it but it burned, so wouldn’t suggest that
Oh one more idea, maybe try making chocolate almond butter!? I might just try that myself.
Wow, I was also making almond butter in my Vitamix but it never seemed to get the right consistency. Tried it with my Kitchen Aid food processor and worked like a charm, thank you so much!
Thank you so much the pictures and shows the consistence of almond butter sequence in each stage of process. It works like a charm to me. It took me 45 minutes for 1 1/2 cup of almonds. Really Appreciated.
All I have to say is that I wish I would have discovered this website and read this recipe BEFORE I made this glue-like mixture that I am currently eating on a piece of toast with a lovely cup of coffee….Happy days ahead!!! I will try this recipe tomorrow…along with many of the other wonderful recipes that I have noticed while eating my “glue”::}}
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