Homemade Peanut Butter

Do you ever think to yourself, “I know I could easily buy this for much cheaper, BUT can I make it from scratch? I mean, just because I can?” I function in that world quite often; It has rubbed off on my children. Case in point, last night. I rarely eat the Oreos my husband buys, but last night, I thought, “Oooo…a crumbled Oreo on ice cream sounds so good.”

I went to grab an Oreo, and of course my husband and children had JUST finished them hours ago. When I pointed out to my family that of course I decided I wanted one right after they finished them, my 5-year-old daughter quickly responded, “Maybe you can find a recipe to make them homemade?!” I have apparently created monsters (Or not, because how cool is it that both of my children get excited about making things from scratch?! #momwin)

The “what can I make from scratch” itch has been stronger since we started being “safer at home.” My kids’ go to lunch is peanut butter and jelly on a tortilla shell. I like it on sourdough. Because we have a substantial garden and I love canning, we also have enough homemade jelly and jam to feed a small army.

So let’s see, I have a fresh loaf of sourdough bread. I have homegrown and canned black raspberry jam open in the fridge. Wouldn’t it be awesome if I made homemade peanut butter so the whole sandwich was produced by me? (This is another passion of mine…having the whole meal be from scratch and the protein harvested by my husband through hunting. So fun!). I gave it a try and the results were delicious. When my 10-year-old son (the go-to taste tester) gave it a try, he just closed his eyes and smiled. He makes it special.

This process was so much easier than I expected and your kids will be tickled pink to know they took peanuts from the pantry and made peanut butter from them! Give it a try!

Your ingredients

  • 1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts
  • 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil (or other oil, I went olive)
  • 1/2 – 1 teaspoon honey (to taste)

(Feel free to double or triple this recipe. I wanted to start small in case we didn’t love it. It was such an easy process that making it in small, fresh batches is a great idea too!)

Your Steps to Homemade Peanut Butter

Place the peanuts in a small food processor and pulse on high. This will take a few minutes. Be patient. As I watched the peanut go from whole to chopped to a large sand texture, I thought there was no way they were going to turn to butter. Keep going.

Once you have obtained a very fine sand texture, drizzle oil into the mixture, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, blending it in as you go. Again, be patient and suddenly you’ll think, “Holy cow! I made peanut butter!” The initial plan was not to put honey in mine, but I gave it a try and thought it would be good to have it be a touch sweeter. I added 1/2 teaspoon, blended it in, and then gave it to my son. He gave it two thumbs up so I stopped there. If you have a sweeter tooth than we do, you may want to add a little more.

What I love about this peanut butter is that you can control the consistency. I like a little texture so I opt for crunchy on my PB and Js. While I didn’t get crunchy per say, I did have texture which was good. I haven’t tried it yet, but you could totally mix in some additional chopped peanuts for true crunchy peanut butter. I hope you enjoy it as much we did at our house. Although I have a hard time sharing…I mean, they get all the Oreos right?

Let me know what you think! —Jess

PS…Ready for a game changer? Put a thin layer of homemade peanut butter on BOTH sides of the bread then put the jelly/jam on one side. My PB and J game has been forever changed because of this small hint!

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

I do love my little food processor for creating small batches. Sometimes bigger isn’t always better, right?

Looking for homemade jam or jelly to pair with your peanut butter? Check out my canning and preserving page to get a recipe! Click the button below! Or click any of the pictures below for the direct link!

Homemade Peanut Butter

From scratch food is almost always better, but sometimes it isn't easy. Not the case with this homemade peanut butter! You are truly five minutes away!
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 0 minutes
Course Appetizer
Cuisine American
Servings 4

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts
  • 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil or other oil, I went olive
  • 1/2 – 1 teaspoon honey to taste
  • dash of salt optional

Instructions
 

  • Place the peanuts in a small food processor and pulse on high. This will take a few minutes. Be patient.
  • Once you have obtained a very fine sand texture, drizzle oil into the mixture, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, blending it in as you go.
  • Drizzle in honey and sprinkle in salt. Blend once more.
Keyword peanut butter, peanuts, sandwiches
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

So Simple Tomato Soup

I’ve always enjoyed a grilled cheese and some tomato soup. It wasn’t on my top list of favorites, but it definitely provides a source of comfort. Then I started baking sourdough bread and let me tell you, homemade sourdough quite possibly makes the best grilled cheese you’ll ever have. It’s been my “easy lunch” on the weekend countless times because it makes me so happy. Wait, you don’t bake sourdough…yet? What are you waiting for? Check it out here!

Okay, I digress. Sourdough grilled cheese is incredible, but tomato soup makes it so much better. And alas, we don’t generally have it on hand anymore since I make my own soups from scratch (I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to soup…it’s a bit of an obsession). But recently it was chilly out and I just needed tomato soup. I looked around my fridge and pantry and put this together in flash…along with a grilled cheese of course.

A few notes from me: Most tomato soups (and creamy soups in general) call for heavy cream. I never have that on hand, and I like to make soups with things that I have on hand. I find that milk works just fine and makes for a slightly lighter soup without compromising too much. If you dig a creamier soup, feel free to use heavy cream rather than milk. If you haven’t noticed yet, I like to sneak all the veggies I can into a meal. It’s how I roll. This soup isn’t any different. Finally, this soup makes use of an immersion blender/stick blender (click here to see which one I have). If you don’t have one, it’s a pretty sweet kitchen gadget that has tons of uses and doesn’t take up too much space. I recommend it 🙂

Okay, let’s get cooking!

Your ingredients:

  • 1 cup diced carrot
  • 1/3 cup diced onion
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 cup diced zucchini (about 1 small)
  • 1/2 cup tomato paste
  • 2 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes (I used one salt free and one garlic seasoned), NOT drained
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper (or to taste)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 2 cups chicken stock/broth
  • 1 cup milk (I used 1%)
  • 1/2 tablespoon honey (to taste)

Directions:

Heat oil over medium heat in a large kettle. Once hot, add carrot, onion salt, pepper, and basil. Sauté for 8-10 minutes, until soft. Add minced garlic, zucchini, cooking for an addition 5-8 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and allow to just caramelize. (If you are worried about burning it, you can skip the caramelize). Stir in diced tomatoes and chicken stock. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes, making sure your vegetables are nice and soft. Hit all your soup goodness with the immersion blender and blend until smooth (a shorter time if you want texture, a longer time if you want a more commercial tomato soup). Slowly stir in milk and honey. Leave over the heat until warm.

If you want a thicker soup, feel free to allow it to cook down a little bit. But if you’re like me at all, you’ll just be itching to get that warm goodness in your belly and you’ll eat it right away, complete with a grilled cheese. Yum!

So Simple Tomato Soup

A few easy, on hand ingredients combine to make a simple from scratch tomato soup everyone will love!
5 from 1 vote
15 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Course Side Dish
Cuisine American
Servings 4

Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup diced carrot
  • 1/3 cup diced onion
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 cup diced zucchini about 1 small
  • 1/2 cup tomato paste
  • 2 14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes NOT drained
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper or to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 2 cups chicken stock/broth
  • 1 cup milk I used 1%
  • 1/2 tablespoon honey to taste

Instructions
 

  • Heat oil over medium heat in a large kettle. Once hot, add carrot, onion salt, pepper, and basil. Sauté for 8-10 minutes, until soft.
  • Add minced garlic, zucchini, cooking for an addition 5-8 minutes.
  • Stir in tomato paste and allow to just caramelize. (If you are worried about burning it, you can skip the caramelize).
  • Stir in diced tomatoes and chicken stock. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes, making sure your vegetables are nice and soft.
  • Blend until smooth using an immersion blender and blend. (a shorter time if you want texture, a longer time if you want a more commercial tomato soup).
  • Slowly stir in milk and honey. Leave over the heat until warm.
  • If you want a thicker soup, feel free to allow it to cook down a little bit.
Keyword Gluten Free, soup recipe, tomato soup
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Looking for other soup recipes?

Check out some of the recipes below!

From Scratch Italian Wedding Soup

Soup. It speaks to my soul. If someone said I could only eat one type of food for the rest of my life, I would choose soup in a heartbeat. Here’s the thing: I love all the parts of the prep; the chopping, the cooking of garlic (because you need all the garlic in your life), the long slow cook on the stove in a Dutch Oven, all of it. And this Italian Wedding Soup fits all the bills.

I may not look it, but I have enough Italian in my DNA to call myself an Italian, and ALL Italian food makes my taste buds do a happy dance; so when I saw a recipe for Italian Wedding Soup, I immediately started looking at all sorts of recipes to pull my favorite parts and make it my own. I was happy with how quickly this got pulled together and everyone in our family loved it!

Ready to get cooking? Let’s get started!

Your Ingredients

  • 1 lb of Italian sausage seasoned ground venison (regular ground Italian sausage would work great!)
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 4 Tablespoons bread crumbs
  • 2 Tablespoons grated Parmesan
  • 2 cups finely diced carrots
  • 4 cups chopped spinach
  • minced garlic, 2-3 cloves (I like to do a cereal spoon-ful, but do to taste. I have only experienced too much garlic once in my life)
  • 11 cups chicken stock, low sodium
  • 1 cup orzo
  • salt, pepper, and basil to taste

Your steps To Italian Wedding Soup

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking pan with foil. Set aside.

Mix the eggs, bread crumbs, Parmesan, and ground venison together. Shape into 1 inch meatballs and place on the lined baking pan. Bake the meatballs for 10 minutes, until cooked through. (If you haven’t cook meatballs this way yet, you have to give it a try! It saves a lot of stress in terms of making sure they don’t burn in a pan as well as the yuck of clean up. I wouldn’t do it any other way now!)

Meanwhile, sauté the carrots with garlic, salt, and pepper until softened. Add chicken stock, and bring to a boil.

Once the chicken stock is boiling, add orzo and cook to al dente. Two minutes before the pasta is done, add spinach and meatballs. Season with pepper and salt to taste. Easy and delicious.

I’m loving all the uses I’m finding for this seasoned ground venison. It’s still low fat and healthy, a great alternative to Italian sausage, which we love at this house.

From Scratch Italian Wedding Soup

Looking for a simple but so delicious soup to serve? This Italian Wedding Soup has a little of everything: orzo, meatballs, carrots, and spinach. Give it a try!
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Course Main Course, Soup
Cuisine American, Italian
Servings 8 people

Ingredients
  

  • 1 lb Italian sausage
  • 2 eggs beaten
  • 4 tablespoons bread crumbs
  • 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
  • 4 cups chopped spinach
  • 2-3 cloves minced garlic
  • 11 cups chicken stock low sodium
  • 1 cup orzo
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Basil to taste

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Mix eggs, bread crumbs, Parmesan, and Italian sausage (venison or regular) together. Shape into 1 inch meatballs and place on the lined baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, until cooked through.
  • Meanwhile, saute the carrots with garlic, salt and pepper until softened.
  • Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add orzo and cook to al dente. Two minutes before the pasta is done, add spinach and meatballs. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste.
Keyword Italian sausage, Italian Wedding Soup, meatballs, soup, soups and stews
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Looking for other soups and Stews?

You can check out my cooking page here, or let me just tell you a couple of my favorites!