Make Your Own Almond Butter

I've been contemplating the Whole30 diet for awhile—and to be honest, the main thing keeping me from diving in is the cost. I'm fine with giving up peanut butter, sweeteners, even dairy (although bread will be my achilles heal). But the cost, especially during winter, gives me pause.

One of the things we love, but stopped buying because it's gotten a bit pricey, is Almond butter. We'd buy it in 12 oz containers from our Whole-Foods-like store in town & it would put us back about $8. So, I decided I should price out almond butter around town, and then wondered what it might cost to make my own.

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Cost for the different brands:

Total Cost	# of oz	$ / oz	Brand name	Store / Website
$17.95	(72 oz)	$0.25 / oz	Kirkland Signature	CostCo
$13.99	(9 oz)	$1.55 / oz	Julie's Real Almond Butter	Juliesreal.com
$10.45	(16 oz)	$0.65 / oz	Thrive Non-GMO Almond Butter	ThriveMarket.com
$9.33	(16 oz)	$0.58 / oz	Justin's Almond Butter	Walmart
$8.23	(12 oz)	$0.67 / oz	MaraNatha Almond Butter	Walmart
$6.99	(16 oz)	$0.44 / oz	Simply Balanced	Target
$5.98	(12 oz)	$0.50 / oz	Sam's Choice	Walmart

Cost to make our own:

These are the two most economical versions I could find—most places aren't cheap when it comes to almonds.

• $14.99 / 3 lb. bag (48 oz / 11.25 cups) : Kirkland Signature Whole Almonds from CostCo ($1.33 / cup)
• $5.99 / 1 lb. bag (16 oz / 3.75 cups) : Trader Joe's ($1.60 / cup)

3 cups whole, dry almonds = 2 1/2 cups or 20 oz of almond butter.

For the Kirkland brand almonds this equals $0.20 / oz. 

For the Trader Joe's brand, this equals $0.24 / oz.

So if I don't want to shell out $18 for a huge container of almond butter from CostCo (or squirrel away 3 lbs. of almonds somewhere in my house), turning the 1 lb. bag from Trader Joe's into almond butter is the most economical alternative.

The only catch is, you need a food processor. You can try it in a blender, but it might be a pain in the ass.

How to Make Your Own Almond Butter

Ingredients:

• 3 cups almonds

Directions:

1. "Roast" your almonds in a 250º oven for 15 minutes. This just gets the oils in the nuts warm & makes it easier to break down into almond butter. If you don't want to roast your almonds, then you'll need to process them longer.
2. Put almonds in your food processor and process for 10-15 minutes. It may seem like they'll never turn into almond butter, but they will, just be patient.

Here's what it looked like after 1 minute—kinda' mealy:

After 5-ish minutes—kinda' clumpy:

After 12-ish minutes—smooth and creamy:

I didn't add anything to it. No sugar, salt, or oil. After 15 minutes in the food processor, it's pretty warm and a bit fluid. If you want to add a little oil to it, you can, but it doesn't take much to thin it out so be cautious. 

It should keep in the fridge, in an airtight / glass container for a month.