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Here’s how to make homemade walnut butter! It comes out creamy and subtly sweet, ideal for spreading on toast, oatmeal and more.

Walnut Butter
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Got walnuts? Here’s a great way to use them: Walnut Butter! This homemade nut butter comes out lusciously creamy, flavored with cinnamon and vanilla. In fact, we like it better than peanut butter! It’s fast and easy to make at home with a food processor. Harvest all the healthy fats of these superfood nuts in this tasty recipe. There are just a few tricks to making your own jar of this creamy spread. Here’s what to know!

Want more ideas for walnuts? Try these 10 Tasty Walnut Recipes.

How to make walnut butter

Making nut butter at home is very simple, with just two basic steps. This is the base recipe we use for Almond Butter, Peanut Butter and Cashew Butter, with a few tweaks. Here are the two steps (or jump to the recipe):

  • Step 1: Toast the walnuts! All you need is 5 minutes in a 350 degree oven. This does two things: it brings out the flavor of the nuts, and helps them to blend better.
  • Step 2: Blend! You’ll need a food processor for this step. Throw in the roasted nuts and process for several minutes until they form a creamy butter. The nuts go from dry to sticky to creamy in just a few minutes. Then flavor the butter with sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt.
Walnuts

Sugar is required with walnuts

Here’s one important thing to note about walnut butter! All of our homemade nut butter recipes have no added sugar except this walnut butter recipe. Here’s why:

  • Walnuts have a very bitter flavor due to the tannins in their skin. While you can remove the skins from walnuts after toasting them, we found it was easier just to add a little sugar to the walnut butter.
  • Use any solid sugar you like. We used brown sugar, but you can use granulated sugar or your solid sweetener of choice. Just don’t use a liquid sweetener like honey or maple syrup: it changes the texture of nut butter and can cause it to seize up.
Walnut Butter

How to store homemade walnut butter

Usually we store nut butter in the pantry, but nuts like pecans and walnuts last better in the refrigerator. Because this walnut butter is ultra creamy, we don’t mind storing it in the refrigerator because it doesn’t get too thick to spread.

How long does homemade walnut butter last? Store walnut butter refrigerated for up to 1 month. If you’d like to keep it in the pantry, store it for 1 or 2 weeks. (Ours usually lasts about 1 week because we eat it so fast!)

Ways to serve walnut butter

Now the fun part: how to serve walnut butter! You can use this creamy spread in the same way you use any other nut butter. It adds an intriguing flair because the flavor is unexpected. It’s great for adding a fall and winter flair to your breakfasts. Here’s what we like to do:

Walnut Butter

More nut butter recipes

This concept works with any type of nut! Try all our nut butter recipes:

This walnut butter recipe is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free, and gluten-free.

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Easy Walnut Butter

Walnut Butter
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5 from 2 reviews

Here’s how to make homemade walnut butter! It comes out creamy and subtly sweet, ideal for spreading on toast, oatmeal and more.

  • Author: Sonja Overhiser
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 0 minutes
  • Total Time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: About 1 cup 1x
  • Category: Essentials
  • Method: Food Processor
  • Cuisine: Nut Butter
  • Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

Scale
  • 2 cups raw walnuts
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar (or granulated sugar*)
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ⅛ teaspoon salt (omit if using salted nuts)
  • ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spread the nuts out onto a rimmed baking sheet. Roast for 5 to 6 minutes, until fragrant and toasted. Allow to cool for a minute on the tray.
  2. Immediately add the nuts to food processor while they’re warm and process for about 3 to 4 minutes. You’ll see them start out crumbly, then get gradually creamier and creamier.
  3. Add the sugar, vanilla, salt and cinnamon. Scrape down the bowl and process again for about 1 minute. Taste and add additional salt as necessary.
  4. Transfer the walnut butter to a jar. Store refrigerated for up to 1 month.

Notes

*Or substitute another solid sugar. Do not use honey or maple syrup, as liquid sweeteners change the texture of the walnut butter.

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About the authors

Alex & Sonja

Hi! We’re Alex & Sonja Overhiser, authors of the acclaimed cookbooks A Couple Cooks and Pretty Simple Cooking—and a real life couple who cooks together. We founded the A Couple Cooks website in 2010 to share seasonal recipes and the joy of home cooking. Now, we’ve got over 3,000 well-tested recipes, including Mediterranean diet, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, smoothies, cocktails, and more!

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4 Comments

  1. Deb C says:

    Would a blender make the same consistency as a food processor. I dont have a food processor.
    Thanks!

    1. Alex Overhiser says:

      If you have a high speed blender it will work.

  2. Laura Seitzinger says:

    I followed recipe exactly as written except I omitted brown sugar and added some raw honey and it was perfect!!! Consistency of the butter was creamy.






  3. Sonja Overhiser says:

    Let us know if you have any questions!