hazelnut butter

Hazelnut butter is a rich, toasty, creamy spread that is so simple to make at home. All you need are nuts, salt, and a good food processor to make this silky nut butter at home!

Homemade nut butters are so satisfying to make. If you’ve never tried them, they go from a crumbly mess to a dough-like paste to a smooth, buttery concoction right before your eyes.

If you like control (what home cook doesn’t?), making hazelnut butter at home gives you a ton of freedom. Want your hazelnut butter to be unsalted? Easy. Like it deeply roasted with a touch of sweet maple flavor? Done. How about a little chunky and textured? Simple.

We’ll start with a basic hazelnut butter recipe and then I’ll give you tips on how to customize it to your own tastes! And, in case this if your first nut butter rodeo, I’ll share a bunch of tips to make the process (and hazelnut butter!) as smooth as possible.

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hazelnut butter ingredients:

• hazelnuts
• fine salt

what does hazelnut butter taste like? 

Hazelnut butter has a nutty, toasty, slightly sweet flavor. It’s silky and deliciously creamy-- perfect slathered on toast, sliced bananas, or by the spoonful!

how to make hazelnut butter:

• Roast the hazelnuts in the oven.
• Rub off the skins.
• Blend with salt for about 10 minutes in a food processor.
• Transfer to a half-pint jar!

Rubbing off the hazelnut skins is the most tedious part of making hazelnut butter.

Some hazelnuts just don’t want to release their skins, no matter how hard you work at it. Here’s my favorite process for getting a majority of the skins off, but remember-- perfect is impossible with these nuts!

1. Roast them deeply in the oven (about 15- 20 minutes).
2. Cover the hot sheet pan with a clean, damp kitchen towel. The steam helps loosen the skins even more than just roasting. 
3. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, or until cool enough to handle.
4. Rub the nuts vigorously with the towel to remove the skins.
   • This will make a mess and be annoying. Just get as many skins off as you can. Decide what your time is worth! Less hazelnut skins will make a smoother hazelnut butter, but 100% skin-free just isn’t possible. 

hazelnut butter stages:

Below is a visual guide of how the hazelnuts transform in your food processor, from nuts to butter:

make this hazelnut butter your own:

• vanilla: stir in 1 tsp vanilla extract at the very end.
• maple: stir in 2 tsp maple syrup at the very end.
• chunky: pulse all the nuts until roughly chopped and scoop out ½ cup. Blend the remaining hazelnuts to a butter, then stir in reserved chopped nuts.
• unsalted: don't add salt!
• cinnamon: add ½ tsp ground cinnamon with the hazelnuts and salt.

tips:

• Use a full-sized, powerful food processor. If you’re at all struggling to get your hazelnuts to break down into butter, chances are your food processor just isn’t strong enough for the job. I’ve tried this with a small 8-cup food processor (350 W) and after an hour of processing, the hazelnuts just didn’t “butter”. The flagship 14-cup (720 W) Cuisinart food processor will transform your hazelnuts into hazelnut butter in about 7 minutes!
• Don't blanch! You may be tempted to blanch the nuts with a dip in boiling baking soda water and a shock in ice water. While this will make removing skins super easy, it tends to water-log the nuts and prevents a creamy butter from forming. I don’t recommend it.
• Don’t add any liquid while processing the nuts. If you want to add a sweetener like honey or maple syrup, or flavor like vanilla extract, stir it in at the very end. Once it’s added, it can seize the nut butter. Usually, this will just thicken the butter, but it can change the consistency. 

what to do with hazelnut butter?

• Spread in sandwiches
• On toast (top with raspberries or sliced strawberries)
• Spread on banana slices
• Drizzled on yogurt or overnight oats
• Stirred into chia seed pudding
• Used in a salad dressing
• Substitute for tahini and used in marinades, dips, or cold sesame noodles
• Drizzled into homemade ice cream 
• Homemade chocolate hazelnut butter cups
• Blended into smoothies
• Swirled into brownies
• No-bake cookie dough bites
• Homemade granola (try this tahini granola, swap in the hazelnut butter)
• In muffins or quick breads

homemade nut butter storage:

Make sure to store your homemade nut butter in the fridge. Since we aren’t adding any preservatives, it’s best to keep it cold. This will also slow down separation and help prevent it from going rancid. 

Homemade hazelnut butter will keep, refrigerated, for at least a month!

more hazelnut recipes to make!

hazelnut meringue cookies

chocolate hazelnut spread

butter cookie sandwich with hazelnut ganache

chocolate tart with hazelnut crust

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