Making your own activated almond nut butter is a fun and tasty way to get the freshest nut butter around. Suitable for raw-vegan, oil-free, paleo, gluten-free and sugar-free diets. Full of heart-healthy fats from the almonds with no added oil.
This almond nut butter is 100% pure nuts with just a pinch of salt added. The nuts are activated meaning they are easier to digest and less likely to cause that heavy upset stomach feeling you can get with nuts. This nut butter recipe makes sweet almond salted nut butter.
This is also known as sprouted almond butter, however sprouting can be misleading as almonds won’t sprout open like other seeds such as sunflower. Speaking of sunflower seeds if you want a nut-free butter then use sunflower seeds in this recipe for activated sunflower seed butter.
Activated Sprouted Almond Butter Video
Play almond butter recipe on YouTube.
Homemade almond butter is a fun thing to make when you have the time for drying and a lot of blending. It’s significantly cheaper making sprouted almond butter than buying pre-made activated almond butter – for me it works out 1/4 of the price!
The nuts are soaked overnight in salted water to neutralize the enzyme inhibitors and phytic acid. This makes the nuts easy to digest and remove some of the compounds that prevent optimal absorption of vitamins and minerals.
If your blender is not powerful then you can still make nut butter but you might need to add a few tablespoons of olive or other cold-pressed oil once the almonds become dust. This will help the blender make a creamy and smooth nut butter.
When making nut butter at home you can often drain off most of the added oil as once it chills it separates. If you are wanting a lowe calorie almond butter you might want to use the oil for massage and beauty purposed. I did not add any oil for the nut butter in the video and photos here, just whole almonds give a creamy butter.
You can either dry the almonds for activated almond butter in a dehydrator or normal oven. I’m using a normal oven here with the temperature set at 90 degrees and the door open. This wouldn’t strictly be suitable for a raw food diet as the nuts do get heated higher than blood temperature. But the actual nuts don’t get that hot using an oven so they are not roasted either.
If you want to make sure that your almonds are raw then don’t buy USA almonds as these have all been heat treated. Following the salmonella outbreak that only affected the cheap low quality almonds, all Californian almonds are pasteurised, even the organic ones that didn’t have poisoning problems. I tend to choose Italian or Spanish almonds when possible as they often seem the highest quality.
I like to make my own nut and seed butter as there are stories about shop butter using the lowest quality and grade nuts/seeds that wouldn’t be able to be sold whole. This way you can make sure that you’re only using high-quality nuts.
You can use this recipe to make activated nut butter out of just about any nut. Walnuts and pecans break down a lot quicker and make a really creamy smooth butter.
In the almond butter recipe I use whole almonds with the skins still on. These are full of nutrition with antioxidants and vitamin E, you don’t notice them in the smooth almond butter.
Sprouted Almond Butter
Making your own activated almond nut butter is a fun and tasty way to get the freshest nut butter around. The almonds are soaked in salted water to make it easier for the body to digest. Activated almonds have been part of many cultures for a long time.
Ingredients
- 3 cups / 400g whole Almonds
- ½ tsp Salt, for soaking
- 6 cups / 1.5L Water, for soaking
- ½ tsp Salt, optional
Instructions
- Soak the nuts for 8 hours or overnight with ½ tsp salt.
- Drain and rinse then spread out and either bake in an oven or dry in a dehydrator.
- Oven; put the oven on the lowest possible temperature. Bake with the door ajar for 2-3 hours until bone dry and crispy. Toss every hour.
- Dehydrator, dry for 8-12 hours at 110f / 43c until crispy and dry. Toss halfway through.
- Place the nuts in a blender or food processor while still warm and blend for 2-minute intervals.
- Scrape the sides down between the blending sessions for almond butter and repeat until a liquid almond butter is formed.
- Add ½ tsp of salt on the final blend for salted almond butter.
- For my powerful food processor (1800w) this took about 10-12 minutes.
- If you don’t have a powerful blender then add a few tablespoons of cold pressed oil once the nuts are broken down to dust. This does speed up the process and less powerful blenders may take too long or get damaged making nut butter.
- Store sprouted almond butter in the fridge and enjoy within a few weeks
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Nutrition Information
Yield
20Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 120Total Fat 11gSaturated Fat 1gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 9gCholesterol 0mgSodium 219mgCarbohydrates 4gFiber 2gSugar 1gProtein 4g
If you are not convinced that soaking nuts is important, just look at the brown murky water left behind after soaking almonds! Phytic acid has been proven to affect mineral absorption so I do try to soak all of my nuts and seeds.
I tried making almond butter with a blender but it simply does not work. It chops the almonds into pieces but very quickly the clumps get too thick and the blade is left spinning underneath, accomplishing nothing. I transferred the chopped/pulverized almonds to my food processor in batches, but the best I could get was almond paste. I added plenty of MCT oil too (without that I would have just had almond dust). I find it hard to believe that any blender can turn whole almonds into butter. What is the right tool for the job?
Hi Casey, I used a nutri ninja 1500 watt 2 hp blender to make this. The video shows the blender making it so I assure you that it is possible but you do need the right blender and to put enough in so that it falls down to the blades after being broken up. What blender did you use?
Did you make sure the almonds stated they were raw on the packaging when you bought it? Actually raw nuts are not the same as using nuts that do not state they are raw which means they were pasteurized and then dried.
Hi there, I use Spanish or Italian almonds as they are not pasteurised. As you say even if it says raw on the packet that doesn’t mean anything, Californian almonds are always pasteurised even if they say raw. I think i wrote more about this in almond milk sustainability if you are interested.
California almonds do not need to be pasteurized, that is, can be truly raw (I call them raw-raw) if you buy directly from the grower. For instance, Yemetz Family Farms almonds, from a delightful husband and wife team in southern California whom I met at the Hollywood Sunday am Farmers Market. Truly Raw nuts coming directly from the grower has something to do with traceability and food safety. (don’t even get me started talking about the fake “raw” designation that is baked into law or how long it took me to figure out the difference between raw and raw-raw, or I am likely to go off the deep end on a rant). Thanks for the comment on Spanish and or Italian almonds being truly raw/unpasteurized … where is the best place to order?
Hi there, thanks for letting me know. Maybe something has changed in recent years? After the almond salmonella outbreaks in California, it was made illegal to sell raw ones. Maybe there are some concessions now for the high-quality growers? There should be as they weren’t the ones affected.
hello, how many weeks does a jar last?
As it’s sprouted I try to have it within 30 days and store in the fridge, as some health experts say sprouted foods lose nutrients after a month 🙂
Hi! I think it should be advise to let the almonds COOL completely before blending. I have a mass of almond goop trying to make its way into butter right now. There is simply too much heat/moisture left – even after roasting on 100 for 3 hours. I am using a Blendtec blender with twister jar.
Hi Amanda, thanks for sharing that – it’s interesting as I find the opposite with my ninja. The almonds still being warm really helps the blending process. They end up very hot just through the friction of the blades. I will update the article to say it depends on your machine. Thanks again 🙂
I tried drying my almonds in the oven on lowest temperature for 2-3 hours, when I put them in the food processor it took over an hour and the result is still a chunky crumbly dough.. should I keep going? is there still a way I can save it?
Hello, what kind of blender are you using? An hour is way too long – it took 10 minutes in mine. Although nothing is lost if it isn’t working – use for a crust in a raw cake like https://www.nestandglow.com/healthy-recipes/raw-carrot-beetroot-cake-cashew-frosting
I’m having the same issue.:( I’m using my new Ninja. I tried the food processor bowl and the largest cup and I just have crumbles. Bummer. 🙁
I’m so sorry its not working, you do have to keep scraping down the sides until the oils start to get released. Maybe the almonds vary so much and they aren’t oily enough? I always film my recipes so hopefully the video helps some people
I have vitamix and i find a certain quality works best. Also for nut butter I must use lowest speed with scraping every so often (unfortunately). Med to high speed to make it creamy. Works best with ‘warm’ nuts.
I agree you have to have a certain amount in there and blend while still warm. You can see from the video I managed to make nut butter. But even if you just end up with almond flour it’s never waste. Try warming it up and blend with a few more nuts. I have both a vitamix (15+ years old) and a ninja and have made nut butter in both. I have a stone grinder and that makes great nut butter, but it’s a bit messy!
Hello ???? what temperature would you recommend to dry out the almonds for a fan forced oven?
Thank you!
Hi Stephanie, I recommend to put it as low as possible and toss every so often to help the drying. What’s the lowest it goes to? I’ve done this before at 80C
Anybody tried a Vitamix for this? How does it do?
Yes it works well when I did it in mine many years ago. Although my Vitamix is 15+ years old. I think it will work better in the newer ones with the smaller jugs as you need a certain amount in it for it to be able to go smooth and creamy.
Thanks. Yes, I have found that to be the case with Vita Mix containers unless there is a certain amount in there it will not mix properly.
There should be enough in this recipe – it’s why I’m using 400g of almonds as its just not enough otherwise. May need to scrape the sides once or twice until it reaches that magic point that its liquid enough to fall to the bottom. Let me know how you get on!
Well, I think I’d rather keep my food processor working than make my own nut butters. I just finished a batch and my processor has never been so warm. After processing for 10 minutes, it’s still just crumbles. I’m going to put them in a jar and use it anyway, since it’s just going into a smoothie…
I’m sorry to hear it didn’t work for you. I was using a powerful blender for this recipe – 2HP I think in the nutrininja. If your processor is stressing definitely stop. Although sounds like you’ve made sprouted almond flour so certainly not wasted.
I tried making roasted dehydrated almonds still warm with my Vitamix but no luck. (My first time actually). The mixture was too dry even after 1/2 hr and my motor hot, so I put the almond goop crumb aside and did a batch of macadamia’s. Once I had a macadamia butter (they contain heaps more oil than almonds) which is very runny, I left everything to cool. Once cooled I put my macadamia butter in my Vitamix and I slowly started adding the almond pulp and then quickly got a nice Almond/Macadamia butter. This mix tastes really nice but you will need to use approx 1/4 – 1/3 part macadamia to 1 part Almonds (or maybe even less), so as to try to get a nice consistency to the mix. This will be experimentation as I used a ratio of 1/2 which makes it fairly runny still. The alternative as suggested is to add a bit of oil but I didn’t want added oil so added macadamias instead.
Thanks for sharing, glad it turned out ok in the end. Maybe there weren’t enough almonds in the blender to start with? I find you need a good amount of almonds to get it going and reach the butter stage. They are less oily after soaking so it makes butter harder. Great tip to add macadamia nuts!
This recipe looks great! It’s so hard finding a good recipe for sprouted nut butters. Do you think this will work with others nuts and seeds as well? Thanks 🙂
Thanks, yes this method works for just about all nuts and seeds. Just the sprouting and drying times do vary a bit, but nothing you can’t guess
It has been my experience in the past when making nut butter that you have to stop often and stir and bring the bottom part of the mixture up. Eventually you hit the moment where it suddenly becomes nut butter. You cannot just hit blend and leave it for 10 min and expect it to work out. I have a Blendec. You have to have a powerful blender for this to work especially if you use pumpkin seeds.
Hi Kelly, I’ve had the same experience but I find if you add a lot of nuts like in this recipe it’s enough that no stopping and stirring is needed. Although as you say depends on the blender. I’m using a quite inexpensive ninja for this and it does the job but you’re right you needs something powerful, especially if not high temperature roasted.
Hi! Is this recipe ok if almonds are skinless;
Yep sure it works just as well. Although most skinned almonds are blanched so not raw. I like using whole ones just to get as much nutrition as possible.
I have tried this twice and ruined 2 expensive bags of raw almonds. Even my vita mix wouldn’t make buyer just sludge with so much oil. This is not a possibility and everyone wastes their almonds. A ninja isn’t any different from a vita mix yet it has less power and still no results.
Sorry to hear that, but check out my comment above about this 🙂
Hi! I have a Cuisinart dehydrator, and yesterday I used it to dry soaked, skinless almonds…after 12 hours they were still not “crisp”. (Low setting; 110 degrees.) I know that the dehydrator works as it should, as it makes jerky and fruit leathers just fine. The almonds were soaked overnight, about ten hours. Is it possible that it takes this amount of time, or even longer? When I tried to make nut butter with them in the food processor, it never went beyond a moist powder….thank you! (P.S. these nuts I am CERTAIN were pasteurized, as they are from California with a name brand. They are labeled raw, however.)
Hi there, usually 12 hours is enough for me – in the middle and tossed half way through. I do turn it up 20 degrees for the first hour sometimes to speed it up. Getting it into a butter can depend on the blender – I tend to do it while still warm. Then it spends ages as a powder then all of a sudden turns into a butter.
Bremner Farmstand on line from California sells unpasteurized organic almonds and walnuts.
If you love the taste of almonds, this is for you. Even though i dry them off with my oven closed for 20-30 mins at a temperature of 150C ( my oven doesn’t works very well) and that’s why it took around 45 minutes to blend them all together ( i think so), also be aware of the speed of your machine if it’s too fast probalbly you’ll make almond flour!, if you see that it the mixture isn’t coming together just BE PACIENT. Eventually it’ll blend
I thought sprouting took a day or two and increased the nutrients, expecially vitamen B like 200% or something. Is the soaking the sprouting process at the same time?
hi
do I have to dry them?
can I not blend them right away after being soaked?
You do need to dry them otherwise the water content will be too high to make a smooth almond butter
Can you use chopped almonds?
You can do, but I wouldn’t soak those as they’re not whole almonds anymore. Will be easier to blend though
After reading all your comments, I’m going to stick to buying mine at Trader Joe’s. Don’t want to risk breaking my blender or food processor, not to mention the cost of the almonds. Kudos to all you who are doing this.
You absolutely have to add water. The blended almonds turns to clay in seconds, humming up the motor. I ended up using 1 cup of water, adding 1/4 of a cup at a time so it wouldn’t become soupy. I didn’t soak in salted water, but added 1 teaspoon to the blender. It’s actually a nice roasted flavor with just a hint of salt. Consistency adding water came out like cookie dough. Not sure I would make this again though.
Hi there, I wouldn’t add water as it will affect the shelf life and wouldn’t last long with water. It does depend on your blender, you have to blend past the crumb stage – check out my video above. It might not work for everyone depending on their blender however
Where do you buy your almonds from?
I get mine from the cooperative suma
Thank you! I have a newer Vitamix and I will be trying to make this soon! Homemade fresh, quality, raw, sprouted, organic, affordable almond butter is almost impossible to find… and being a vegan I sure could use the protein! ?
Hi everyone, I don’t think it has much to do with your mixers but more to do with the oven .. the almonds have to be bone dry, that means they are crunchy! 3-4 hours at 100 with door slightly open might not be enough. The internet said upto 12 hours. I wasn’t willing to do that so I increased the the temperature 150 (too high!) And they got bone dry but also a little roasted .. anyway they blended really easily (I have a 1800w balzano). Next time I won’t be so impatient but will also know that it takes a looooong time to dehydrate almonds!!
Why do you have to dry the nuts rather than just blend after soaking?
You don’t need to, it just makes a firmer almond “cheese”
I have tried making almond butter in the past. I am a raw food vegan that just found out a butter I have been buying at Whole Foods for $19.99 per jar (California grown and produced) is not actually raw, just as you said. It is called “Alive”, which I guess legally doesn’t mean anything. Can you please share your source of raw almonds to sprout? I have been looking for days, hours, to try and find one. No luck. Only at about the same price per pound as the almond butter, upwards of 19.99/lb. I would be so grateful.