Sometimes it’s fun to make a processed food from scratch. Not only can the homemade version taste better, it’s also usually cheaper. And making foods at home is a great way to avoid controversial or harmful food additives.
Most recently I’ve been making my own sunflower seed butter. I did this the first time because of the cost savings: a jar of sunflower butter costs between $5.99-9.99 at the store, but you can make the same size jar for $2.99, or even cheaper when sunflower seeds are on sale. Making homemade sunflower butter also means you can reuse same jar instead of recycling jars all the time.
Here’s how to do it.
Start with 16 oz of sunflower seeds. (I like to use raw, toast them myself, and add salt/sugar myself – but you can also buy roasted & salted like the ones pictured here).
Place them in your food processor.
Pulse the food processor until you have coarse crumbs.
Then turn the processor to “on” and leave it to mix for 2-3 minutes. As the seeds whirl around, the oils are released and slowly the mixture will become more smooth and creamy.
After 5-8 minutes (I usually stop the processor half way through for a couple minutes to give it a ‘rest’), you will have a smooth and creamy nut butter, just like the kind you’d buy at the store.
Perhaps your kitchen helper will point out when the nut butter seems ready š
At this point, you can add a little salt and/or sugar to taste. Then pour the nut butter into a clean jar (you can even reuse a store-bought jar).
Store the sunflower butter in the fridge.
Enjoy!
4 Comments
Sofia
July 7, 2013 at 4:33 pmHi. Have you ever used maple syrup as a sweetener? We make our own and that’s the only source of sugar I use, just curious since prices of any nut butter are pretty high in NY
Amelia
July 8, 2013 at 10:59 amI do love maple syrup but have not yet used it in nut butter. Great idea!
theyellowbungalowla
July 18, 2013 at 1:57 pmI used roasted & salted mixed nuts and my nut butter was delicious!! I also added a little bit of honey and cocoa to make it chocolatey…yum!!! Thanks Amelia for a great suggestion!
Amelia
July 20, 2013 at 2:27 pmLove the idea of adding cocoa – mmm.