Let’s be honest, peanut butter is plain out yummy and very versatile. You can add it to your fruit, vegetables, stir-fry, morning rice bowl, smoothies, ice cream, bread and whatever else your heart desires. Then there’s the texture. Are you a crunchy or creamy kid? Do you mix your peanut butter with chocolate? How about different kinds of nuts? Or do you just dip your finger in the container and go to town? Hey, who am I to judge?
Why should you kick out the grocery store jar of peanut butter?
For starters, homemade peanut butter taste AMAZINGLY better. But secondly, there’s a questionable ingredient in those jars. Have you ever read the ingredients before? To make peanut butter, you only need roasted peanuts. Easy right? Roast them in the oven and bake, place in a food processor and your done. It’s that simple. But to stay in our stores and on the shelves, the famous companies include something called mono and diglycerides. Never skip over anything you don’t understand.
Here’s the 411: Mono and diglycerides are food additives used to combine ingredients that don’t normally combine. If you purchase a natural peanut butter, you will notice that you have to stir it to combine the oils. When it sits in the fridge, the oil rises to the top. It’s because your natural peanut does not contain mono and diglycerides. There are also no-stir natural peanut butters that will include an oil that can be a semi-solid as well as a liquid at different temperatures such as palm and coconut oil. Why are mono and diglycerides bad? For starters, in 2006 the United States Food and Drug Administration started requiring all manufacturing companies to list the foods’ trans fat on the label. This included lipids and triglycerides but not mono and diglycerides! This means they could be trans fat and we have yet to know! Studies have not been calculated on the potential harm of this additive or on our health either. Do you want to take a questionable additive? I sure don’t! Plus, homemade peanut butter taste MUCH BETTER and is super simple!
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The peanuts will go through many stages in the food processor. It will look like crumbles, then form a big ball and finally fall apart in ooey gooeiness. Just be patient. I prefer to use the food processor over the blender because I don’t like cleaning out the blades and big container help make clean up easier.
I also put my peanut butter in the fridge. I have been told that if you use no oil or a semi-solid oil, that it doesn’t have to be refrigerated. I must admit, I have never tested the waters out on this. I just place it in the fridge. After a day, the peanut butter becomes more of a solid but still very smooth and easy to spread. Be aware that coconut oil has a very distinct flavor. You can taste a pinch of it in the recipe. If you like less, make it with less. It’s entirely up to you!
If you want crunch peanut butter, save some peanuts and process until smooth. Pulse them in the last few minutes.
Once you have homemade peanut butter, it’s very unlikely that you’ll go back to the processed IDK what’s in the jar. Yup, it’s that delicious. I place mine in mason jars with a bow and give out as gifts to my family. You know, the just because I want you to have peanut butter jars 🙂 Always great to have in your back hand! Be sure to make different flavors too. Play around and have fun!
Yum! I never even thought to add coconut oil to my peanut butter! Thanks for the tip!! And we refrigerate ours too. Always did as a kid so maybe that’s why!
Looks good ! Want some !!!!
Why do they have to b roasted. U don’t roast almonds for almond butter. Doesn’t roasting change the natural oils into hydrogenated fats?
It’s a good question. Everything that I have found on making homemade peanut butter said they must be roasted. Even wikipedia says Peanut butter is a food paste made primarily from ground dry roasted peanuts.
I guess the real test is not roasting them and seeing what happens!
I love this idea!! I’ve never thought of making homemade PB before! I hope it’s okay I included it in a round up about 60 ways to use coconut oil. If you’d like me to take it down, just let me know (but we’ve gotten a lot of traffic on it so far, so hopefully you’ll get some of that, too 🙂
http://www.clarkscondensed.com/2013/05/60-ways-to-use-coconut-oil-and-what-you.html
Do you have to sanitize the jars before putting peanut butter in? Like you would for canning foods? Or can you skip the thorough sanitizing steps?
In all honesty, I use a glass food container and clean it out by hand weekly.
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