{"id":27302,"date":"2025-11-19T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foodrevolution.org\/?p=27302"},"modified":"2026-02-25T11:38:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T19:38:32","slug":"nut-and-seed-butter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foodrevolution.org\/blog\/nut-and-seed-butter\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make Nut & Seed Butters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n Jump to Recipes<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n

You\u2019re probably not thinking, \u201cWell, if Elvis Presley loved eating it, it must be good for me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Elvis sure could sing, but he was not what most people would consider a connoisseur of wholesome food. According to biographers, he was extremely <\/span>fond<\/span><\/a> of a sandwich consisting of two large slices of bread, sliced banana, peanut butter, and bacon, all fried in bacon grease \u2014 an oversized sandwich that comes in at around 8,000 calories. This is not, needless to say, a recipe that you would ever find on the Food Revolution Network website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean we need to throw out the whole idea of nut and seed butters. Done right, they can be a delicious and versatile part of a healthy diet. After all, nuts and seeds provide myriad health benefits<\/strong>, as we\u2019ll see below. And for many people, the main way to enjoy these benefits is through nut butters or seed butters. The spreadable pastes are used as sandwich fillings, sauce thickeners, baking ingredients, and in countless other ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

While peanut butter has been touted as an inexpensive protein source, the world over, some nut butters can be quite expensive. And some commercial varieties contain additional ingredients that, like Elvis\u2019s bacon, may be questionable for your health.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another strike against commercial nut and seed butters is that once they are ground, the fats begin to degrade and can go rancid. Fresh is best, but with store-bought butters, that may not be an option.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you want fresh, delicious, affordable, and clean nut and seed butters, your best bet is probably to make your own. In this article, you\u2019ll discover exactly how \u2014 and get some amazing recipes for homemade butters that can add health to your life and deliciosity (yes, spellcheck, that really is a word!) to your kitchen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Types of Nut and Seeds<\/span><\/h2>\n
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iStock.com\/fcafotodigital<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can make nut butter or seed butter out of pretty much any food that\u2019s eaten like a nut or seed. The most common, of course, is peanut butter, which isn\u2019t a nut at all, but a legume.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known this trivia tidbit for years, but only in writing this article did I realize that I wasn\u2019t actually sure about the difference. It turns out that <\/span>a nut is a fruit with a single seed<\/span><\/a>, while <\/span>legumes are fruits with multiple seeds<\/span><\/a>. So almonds, walnuts, and hazelnuts are all single inside their hulls, while <\/span>peanuts<\/span><\/a> typically occur in pairs or even trios inside their shells, more like their legume siblings, peas, beans, and lentils.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now you know why peanuts aren\u2019t botanically considered to be nuts. <\/span>But along with peanuts, almost any nut can be turned into a nut butter, including almonds, cashews, pecans, hazelnuts, pistachios, Brazil nuts, walnuts, and macadamia nuts.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

What about seeds? Nuts have seeds, but aren\u2019t seeds? Oh dear, more taxonomic confusion. While not getting deep into the biology of plant reproduction (this is a family-friendly website, after all), we can keep it simple by saying that nuts have hard shells (called pericarps) that we have to work to crack open, while seeds are encased in seed coats that are relatively easy to remove. Sunflowers blur the line, but in many cultures (including American baseball), popping handfuls of sunflower seeds in the mouth and <\/span>expertly spitting out the shells<\/span><\/a> is a fine art. No nutcracker required.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a bunch of seeds that are commonly made into seed butters, like sunflower, pumpkin, sesame (it even has its own special name: tahini), poppy, watermelon, hemp, and flax. <\/b>One seed hasn\u2019t yet made the cut, but is often included whole in seed butter mixtures: <\/span>chia<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seed butters tend to have stronger flavors than nut butters and often benefit from being blended with other seeds or nuts, rather than remaining as a single seed variety. And seed-only butters are often popular options for people with nut allergies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nut & Seed Butter Nutrition<\/h2>\n
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Good news: Nut and seed butters have a similar nutritional profile to their whole food forms. Nuts and seeds are good sources of <\/strong><\/span>plant-based protein<\/a><\/strong>, which is one reason that Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, 19th-century health food proponent and plant-based advocate, pushed for the commercial processing of peanuts into peanut butter to <\/span>replace cow\u2019s milk butter<\/span><\/a> in the American diet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nuts and seeds are also high in fat, which, from their perspective, provides food for the growing plant embryo, and from our perspective, makes them creamy and delicious. The majority of the fats are what are commonly considered the \u201cgood kinds,\u201d poly- and monounsaturated, although some do contain small amounts of problematic saturated fats. A few kinds of seeds, such as chia and flax, are also rich sources of omega-3 fatty acids.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nuts and seeds, like many whole plant foods, are high in fiber and rich in minerals like magnesium and manganese<\/strong>. They\u2019re also phytonutrient powerhouses, containing tocopherols, phytosterols, vitamin E, vitamin B6, folate, and phenolic compounds. And <\/span>Brazil nuts<\/span><\/a> are fantastically high in selenium.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some nuts are more nutritionally dense than others, as you can see in this <\/span>nutritional comparison table<\/span><\/a> of some of the most popular nut and seed butters. All nuts (with the exception of chestnuts) are high in fat and calories. On the upside, their high fat and calorie content makes them a good substitute for dairy in some recipes. And they can be a replacement for butter or used in place of bottled oils for baked goods.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the upside of that upside, <\/span>most nuts and seed butters are much lower in saturated fat than dairy.<\/b> For example, an ounce of peanut butter contains <\/span>2.7 grams<\/span><\/a> of saturated fat, which is <\/span>half the amount<\/span><\/a> in an ounce of cheddar cheese.<\/span><\/p>\n

The downside of all that fat is that it\u2019s a lot of fat. And since fats are more than twice the caloric density of carbohydrates and proteins, that translates into a high-calorie content. If you\u2019re trying to keep off excess weight or want to follow a low-fat diet, you may want to watch the serving sizes of your nuts, seeds, and seed and nut butters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why Make Your Own Nut or Seed Butter<\/h2>\n
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With all those convenient commercial jars of seed or nut butters available in stores, why bother making your own?<\/p>\n

1. Control the ingredients<\/h3>\n

One big reason is to keep out ingredients that can harm your health and the environment. The mainstream brands of peanut butter, like Skippy and Jif, for example, contain added sugar<\/a> and salt<\/a>, as well as GMO oils<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most popular added oil, palm oil<\/a>, keeps the natural peanut oil from separating, so you don\u2019t have to stir the jar\u2019s contents before spreading. That\u2019s a nice feature, but the palm oil industry is responsible for some of the world\u2019s worst environmental damage, as well as racial and economic injustices, since it developed into an international power in the late 19th century. (If you want motivation to stop eating foods containing palm oil, check out the book Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything \u2014 and Endangered the World<\/i><\/a>, by Jocelyn Zuckerman.)<\/p>\n

2. Cut down on plastic<\/h3>\n

Another reason to make your own is that many commercial nut butters are sold in plastic jars. There is concern that the plasticizers and chemicals like BPA<\/a> (in the plastic jars and lids) could leach into the food.<\/p>\n

3. Save money<\/h3>\n

Another consideration is price. With the exception of peanut butter, most other commercial nut and seed butters can get expensive. Peanuts are the cheapest<\/a> option because they require less water and are less expensive to grow than tree nuts. According to the National Peanut Board, admittedly not the most neutral source, growing an ounce of peanuts requires 4.7 gallons of water<\/a>, compared to 80.4 and 73.5 gallons for shelled almonds and walnuts, respectively. Being legumes, peanuts also replenish soil nitrogen, thus restoring fertility without the need for large quantities of fertilizer.<\/strong> So farmers can pass along all these savings to you.<\/p>\n

Whatever the nuts or seeds cost, commercial butters add manufacturing and marketing costs (not to mention profit) on top. So no matter what nut or seed (or legume) you use, making your own butter will probably end up being cheaper than buying it.<\/p>\n

One blogger calculated<\/a> the savings of homemade vs. commercial almond butter over the course of a year, and found that a family consuming three pounds of almond butter a week (which is an awful lot of almond butter, unless you\u2019re the Duggars) could save precisely $954.72 by grinding their own.<\/p>\n

4. Get creative<\/h3>\n

Another reason to go the homemade route is to indulge your inner chef. You can get creative with taste and texture and produce the seed butter or nut butter mix that you and yours prefer. Of course, your own nut and seed butter ingredient lists will be simpler and healthier than store-bought (unless you add things like rapeseed oil or mono and diglycerides, which, to be fair, you\u2019ll be hard-pressed to find at your local natural foods store). But that leaves room for some cool added flavors. Here\u2019s a shortlist to get you inspired:<\/p>\n