It’s been deemed as high-empty-calorie food but the pro-proteine diet fad from the naughties helped redeem its reputation, especially since it contains plenty unsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants, which should also help to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Since I have always liked peanut butter a lot, I appreciate this new image – even though looking for a jar without crazy amounts of additives and sugar is exhausting! And those that are sugarfree are extraordinarily expensive!
You can use homemade peanut butter in many healthy recipes – saving sugar again! – for example the Energy Bites, which I posted a few weeks back ?
Arachibutyrophobia: a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth.
The hunt for good peanut butter for a healthy spoonful in a yogurt-fruit bowl made me actually tap into trying buttering myself: Yes, it’s much easier to just buy it, but with this one, I definitely know what’s in it and I can make as much as I need. Since it’s so fool-proof and a bigger bag of peanuts is just about £2, it’s just so much cheaper too. With unpeeled peanuts you have to take some time for that but the actually blending is done quickly.
And no, nut butters do not contain actual butter. Just to say that as well – and yes, I have met some people that were quite convinced ?
Delicious, creamy peanut butter with only three ingredients!
Prep Time 45 minutes Cook Time 15 minutes Total Time 1 hour
- ~ 250g raw peanuts
- 1 tbsp salt
- optional: 1-3 tbsp neutral vegetable oil eg sunflower oil
- Who doesn’t use unpeeled peanuts can skip the first few steps and start roasting right away.
- Peanuts with their skin on need to be blanched though – put roughly 2-3 handful in a bowl and pour hot water on them until covered. Leave for maximum one minute and drain.
- Peel the peanuts by rubbing, shaking and lots of podding – which will take most of the time, about 30-40 minutes depending on how many nuts you want to peel.
- Roast golden brown for about 5-10 minutes at 200°C, turning them throughout.
- Put the warm nuts in a blender and add a teaspoon of salt – blend, blend, blend!
- After just a few minutes the peanuts will start to turn into fine crumbs, almost paste-like. To speed up the process, you can add a bit of neutral oil at this point.
- Pulse-blend until it is smooth enough and fill up a prepared clean jam jar – it will easily last a few weeks in the fridge, where it will harden up a bit as well.
Tip:• If you roast peanuts yourself I recommend blending them right away while they are still warm – the residual heat loosens the oils quicker.• As soon as crumbs are forming pulse-blend to avoid clumping up.• If you prefer crunchy peanut butter take a few spoonful of the crumbs out now to mix back in later.• You could also roast a few other nuts (cashews, almonds, etc) with the peanuts, which will give an interesting taste.
Did you ever make nut butters yourself? Do you make anything yourself that’s usually store bought? ?
