Homemade cashew butter is easy as can be to make yourself. And there’s no hidden sugar or artificial anything. Here’s how to make it.
Adapted from Ella Woodward | Deliciously Ella Every Day | Scribner, 2016
There’s no need to ever buy cashew butter again. Made with just two ingredients, this homemade nut butter comes together surprisingly easily to make and turns out unbelievably smooth and creamy. It’s also relatively inexpensive to make compared to store-bought cashew butter. Here’s how to make it.–Renee Schettler
HOW CAN I USE CASHEW BUTTER?
- Spread it on toast.
- Dip fruit into it.
- Drizzle it on porridge.
- Blend it into smoothies.
- Add it to banana ice cream.
- Spoon it straight from the jar!
☞ Contents
Homemade Cashew Butter
Equipment
- A really strong food processor, such as a Vitamix or a Cuisinart, to make this nut butter successfully. A punier processor won’t render it totally smooth.
Ingredients
- 14 ounces raw cashew pieces salted or unsalted
- Pinch salt if using unsalted cashews, add a pinch of salt
- 2 teaspoons vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract optional
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C).
- Spread the cashews on a rimmed baking sheet and toast for 6 to 10 minutes, until they start to turn golden brown but not burnt. Watch your cashews carefully because they can go from golden to gone beyond hope within seconds. Immediately dump the cashews onto a plate and let cool to room temperature.
- Place the cooled cashews in a powerful food processor with the salt and vanilla powder, if using, and blend for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is totally smooth and creamy. It’s incredibly tempting to stop blending once the nut mixture gets sticky, but keep going. It may form a ball that ricochets around the food processor but don’t worry it will turn into a fairly smooth and creamy, albeit not runny, nut butter. It may take as long as 10 minutes to turn silken and creamy.
- Slather it on anything you want or consume it by the spoon. You can store it in an airtight jar at room temperature or in the fridge. If the cashew butter is refrigerated, you’ll want to let it warm to room temperature before using.
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Recipe Testers’ Reviews
Cashews are great. Cashew butter is really great. Cashew butter with vanilla is REALLY REALLY GREAT. The recipe is quite simple. Using the food processor works well and I had no issues with my standard Cuisinart model. I looked everywhere for vanilla powder to no avail. I really loved the thought of a bit of vanilla in the cashew butter. I threw caution to the wind and simply added a teaspoon of good quality vanilla extract. It worked like a charm. It was exceptional!
Oh creamy deliciousness! I’ve made almond butter before and have experimented with other nut butters, but have never tried making homemade cashew butter before. It’s really delicious and oh-so-smooth. The recipe called for a really strong processor.
I used my 11-cup Cuisinart and it worked like a charm. It turned the golden roasted cashews into a wonderfully smooth nut butter. The processor didn’t do anything weird like hop across the counter or anything. She was strong and steady—a true workhorse.
I used unsalted raw cashews but added a pinch of salt to the mix in the end. I didn’t use the vanilla powder. I processed the cashews for 10 minutes. At the 6-minute mark I was happy with the consistency of the nut butter and considered stopping, but didn’t. As the minutes went on, the mixture became creamier and creamier. YUM! At first we couldn’t stop scooping it straight out of the jar. Delicious on toast. Yummy with banana or a spoonful in warm quinoa flake porridge. I’m going to try it in cookies next.
This homemade cashew butter recipe is so easy to make and the result is unbelievably good with a sweet, nutty flavor and a smooth, creamy consistency. I can’t see a reason to ever purchase cashew butter from the store again. The addition of vanilla powder is ingenious and melds seamlessly to create something far above and beyond my expectations. For the most part, we enjoyed the homemade cashew butter on toast, but also on waffles and straight out of the jar. It was fluid enough to be drizzled over popcorn, though not easy to mix to an even coating.
I have an old Cuisinart DLC 7E that I used. The consistency was quite runny, I was able to pour it out of the food processor into a container. It firmed up a little after having been stored in the refrigerator about a week, but it is still pourable. No need to bring it to room temperature to scoop it out or spread it.
If you have access to decent bulk raw cashews and you’ve got a sturdy food processor (mine is an older 14-cup Cuisinart), you have no excuse. You have to make your own homemade cashew butter. It’s much too easy to make and you don’t need to add anything. I didn’t bother to salt the cashew butter and I skipped the vanilla powder, too, even though it’s a FABULOUS addition.
In my area, raw unsalted cashews are a bit pricey, so I made half a batch. Seven ounces of cashews turns out 1/2 cup of the creamiest homemade cashew butter—perfect for a week’s worth of sandwiches, apple slices, and spoonfuls. And since it’s such a small batch, I keep it in the pantry. It stays nicely creamy, but I do stir it before I use it. I guess that’s just habit because it’s not super necessary. Since I have a rather substantial food processor, I dropped in the cashews, fired it up, and walked away for a few minutes. It does help to scrape down the bowl a few times during the 10 minutes of processing. I scraped it down after 3 minutes, again halfway through, and then again just before it was done.
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I love cashews and I must say, I cannot wait to try this recipe!
Do let us know how it turns out, Harriet!
This cashew butter is so easy but really tasty and easy to make. There is no reason to buy cashew butter with this recipe on hand! The vanilla powder is optional but I would not leave it out. It really makes the dish. I used a VitaMix to blend. The blender struggled a bit at first—normally VitaMix instructions include a liquid at the bottom of the mixer to help blend the dry ingredients. For those with a less powerful machine, I think liquid vanilla extract might be helpful in mixing it until smooth. My mixture was creamy after 4 minutes but I kept going for a total of 8 minutes to get it super silky and creamy. I got about 2 1/2 cups of cashew butter and I stored it in the fridge. It hardens up so when ready to use, you’ll need to let it warm up.
Wonderful to hear, Carla D., thank you! Appreciate you taking the time to respond. Thrilled you love this and appreciate your tips and tricks!
Carla, so delighted you liked the recipe. And thanks for the tip about liquid vanilla in less powerful blenders. I’m sure it will help.
I made the cashew butter a couple of weeks ago from Naturally Ella’s cookbook checked out of the library — but unlike others, had real trouble with it. My 30+ year old workhorse of a Cuisinart worked and worked and worked — I even gave it an hour’s rest, not because the food processor got hot but because the cashew mixture did — but the nut butter never did reach a runny stage. I finally added 2 cups of hot water to achieve a nut-butter texture. I also don’t recommend storing the nut butter on the counter — it went bad in three days, a big waste especially since 14 ounces makes so much. A couple of quibbles on volumes/amounts (the cookbook is full of these, thus the reason I mention) — why the odd 14 ounces? (maybe because it’s approx 400 grams in which case why not convert to US packaging amounts?) and the fact that it makes a “big jar” just isn’t very useful.
Alanna, I’m a little perplexed by your experience. I do want to note that none of the cashew butters I have ever experienced—store-bought or homemade—have ever been “runny” in the same way as some almond butter can be. None of our testers—and there were many—had the same experience as you. I wonder if perhaps it was a matter of expectations? As for the amount of cashew butter called for in the recipe, we don’t have an issue with 14 ounces as opposed to 16 ounces because many stores offer nuts at more affordable prices in bulk which makes it easy to get the exact amount you need. (Besides, if you do purchase a 16-ounce bag, that simply means you have 2 ounces cashews to nibble while making the butter!) The amount of nut butter that results varies in volume depending on the amount of air whipped into it by your particular mixer. Hopefully this clarifies some things.
Hi Renee, Well yes, I sure did expect the cashew butter to be runny — spreadable, not a solid, gritty mass — perhaps based on just personal expectations but also, looking back, based on this sentence from the recipe, “It’s incredibly tempting to stop blending once the nut mixture gets sticky, but keep going until it’s runny.”
And yes, your tester comments are soooo useful — and curated! But I also thought that my not-so-great experience would be useful in contrast since Ella recommends only a high-powered blender but others have had good experiences with their older food processors.
PS Good point on buying cashews in bulk!
Oh dear, my apologies, that was quite the goof! I’ve edited the recipe to reflect that it is not runny. I am so sorry. We had folks try the recipe with their old Cuisinarts as well as with fancier, newer, higher powered blenders and most had no issues whatsoever. I’m sure particular models will fare better or worse than others.