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When we moved from the suburbs of Sacramento, California to a more rural part of Indiana, we knew some things would be more difficult to find.  We didn’t realize, however, that fresh, natural nut butters (almond, cashew, peanut) would be among them.  At our local grocery store in California, there was a grinding machine that always had a hopper full of nuts.  We could walk up and “make” as much as we wanted or needed to, then put it in our shopping cart.

We love almond butter; we use it in place of store-bought peanut butter, probably even more often since we like it so much.

It turns out that the only thing simpler than making nut butter is opening the container and eating the nuts directly.  All you really need is a few cups of raw nuts and a food processor with a strong motor.  Our food processor is a 1980’s-vintage one made by Waring that used to belong to my grandmother.

We followed the recipe on the detoxinista web site…she has a lot of good information alongside the recipe.

The process

All we did was put 3 cups of almonds in the food processor and turn it on.  Every once in a while, we turned it off and pushed some of the ground nuts down off the side.  Other than that, we just needed to be patient and let the friction of grinding the nuts heat them to release the oils.  It took a little more than 20 minutes to get from whole almonds to almond butter.  I really liked seeing that moment when it went from a bunch of ground nuts to almond butter.

After that, just turn it out into a sealable container.  We use Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids containers.  Don’t wash out that food processor yet, and don’t scrape it all off the sides!  Leave a little behind.  In the next article, we’ll talk about what to make immediately following the nut butter so we get more use before washing the food processor.

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Next time we make almond butter…

In order to speed the process a bit, we will try roasting the almonds a little in the oven before putting them in the food processor.  As I understand it, the short roast allows the oils to be released a bit easier and sooner, so it won’t require quite as much time to get from nuts to butter.

I am really glad we have a food processor with a strong motor.  Having it run continuously for more than 20 minutes might be a bit much for a lesser machine.

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