Making peanut butter is easy and fun. You can make it exactly as you like it, smooth, crunchy, with or without salt. It works out at about half the price of the best store-bought peanut butter, and can be healthier if it has fewer ingredients.

Buy the peanuts:

The first step is to buy the peanuts, raw, skin on, from the grocery store. I buy Pak N Save Value / Budget/ Pams brands of peanuts not only because they tend to be the cheapest, but also because the importing agents advised me that they are sourced from Australia. The origin of food is important to me, so I asked several suppliers regarding origin of their peanuts, and only Foodstuffs’ agent replied. A 500gm bag is currently $2.89

Roast the peanuts

First preheat the oven to 170 C. If you have Fan Bake it allows you to do several trays at once.

Scatter the peanuts on a baking tray/s spreading them out so that they are a single layer deep.

Roast the peanuts for 18 minutes (you may need to adjust the time slightly as ovens may vary).

I roast several bags and store them roasted until needed. (They keep well in screw top plastic 3 litre juice bottles). Some seem to disappear due to snacking – roasted peanuts are yum.

Making the peanut butter

I recommend using a blender rather than a food processor.

My first few batches of peanut butter were made in a 1000w food processor, but it was hard work for it, and the plastic parts of the blade assembly starting breaking off. It also takes a lot longer in a food processor as it gets too hot and the motor needs to rest and cool off.

I now use a 1500w blender and that takes just 2 minutes from peanut to finished peanut butter. I process about 500 g per batch, add ½ teaspoon of salt (optional), and blend it on the highest speed until the peanut butter is smooth, using the blender stick to push the peanuts and any airborne skins down into the blades. The skins smash up to become invisible. Skins contain a lot of healthy goodies – there is a lot on the internet about the health benefits of peanuts with skin on.

I have never made crunchy peanut butter, but I expect that making a batch of smooth and a separate batch of roughly chopped peanuts (about 1 minute in the blender) and then mixing the two batches together would be a good way to start, and maybe give it an extra short blend if it’s still too chunky.

Storage

I fill clean glass jars (recycled 380 g jam jars with twist top lids) straight from the blender using a long-handled teaspoon that reaches between the blades. Store the jars in a cool pantry cupboard. Have fun, and if you have any questions, send them to the editor at editor@uhconnection.co.nz

This article was contributed by a member of the Upper Hutt community.

19/05/23