If you love almond butter and hate paying its high price at the store, make your own! It’s easy, and takes less than half an hour. What you need are raw almonds, salt, a clean, dry jar and either a food processor or a heavy-duty blender. Then you can indulge in almond butter smeared on crackers or toast; creamy smoothies with an almond butter protein boost, or almond butter-enriched savory foods like dips, salad dressings, and noodle sauces. How about baking with almond butter instead of dairy butter? Lots of possibilities there.
While almond butter has about the same nutritional value as peanut butter, it has a little more protein and offers healthy monounsaturated fats that lower risk of heart disease. Almonds are full of antioxidants and vitamin E, which your health will profit from. Forget the jars at the supermarket. Put raw almonds on your shopping list and whizz up some of your own fresh-flavor almond butter at home.
There’s minimal salt and no sugar in this recipe, although you can certainly add cinnamon, vanilla, and a little natural sweetener like maple syrup, bee’s honey, or silan date honey if you like.
Home-Made Almond Butter
Yield: 1-2/3 cups
Ingredients:
16 oz. (500 grams) raw almonds
¼ teaspoon salt
Optional: 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and/or 2 tablespoons natural sweeter
Preheat the oven to 350º F – 175º C .
Toast the almonds on a baking sheet for 5 minutes. Stir them around and toast another 5 minutes.
Place the baking sheet on a rack and let the almonds cool down enough to handle easily.
Blend the almonds until creamy. Scrape the sides of the food processor or blender down to incorporate any stray crumbs. It will take patience and about 10 minutes to make the nuts into a creamy paste. Have faith, keep going; it will happen. If the butter clumps up into a ball, persist until it breaks down to a paste. Stop to let the food processor or blender cool down if it seems that the motor is overheating.
Add the salt to the smooth butter. This is also the time to add optional flavorings. Blend them in.
Note: Liquids like silan and maple syrup should be added when the almond butter has cooled down; they make clumps if added while it’s still warm.
Store the room-temperature almond butter in a jar and close it up. It will keep in the refrigerator for 2 weeks.
How about some toasted baguette slices spread with almond butter and garnished with flavorful summer tomatoes?
If you find you have some leftover raw almonds, think almond milk. Here’s our almond milk recipe. Enjoy!
Author: Miriam Kresh
Miriam Kresh is an American ex-pat living in Israel. Her love of Middle Eastern food evolved from close friendships with enthusiastic Moroccan, Tunisian and Turkish home cooks. She owns too many cookbooks and is always planning the next meal. Miriam can be reached at miriam (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
