Homemade Hazelnut Butter, No Added Sugar or Oil

I recently went to my doctor and found out I’m senstive to almonds. Grrr. I usually start my day with my Whole30 Creamy Protein Coffee which has almond butter AND almond milk in it, but the doc says I need to take a break from almonds. 🙁

Okay, I decided that this was my opportunity to make REAL hazelnut coffee. I don’t like flavored coffees, because the chemicals they use to simulate real flavors can be pretty insane. I also grind my coffee at home and the flavored coffees gum up grinders and kill them off early. No bueno.

I decided to do a similar coffee to my Whole30 Creamy Protein Coffee, but replace the almond butter with hazelnut butter and the Better Half with just coconut cream. (By the way, it works and is delicious)

I’ve looked all over for plain hazelnut butter that doesn’t have dairy, sugar, or other ingredients that will interfere with whatever I want to add it to. I can’t find them! So I got irritated and went on Amazon where I looked up organic raw hazelnuts and decided I would just make my own. Problem. Solved.

I double and triple-checked the quality of the hazelnuts I was buying because the whole point is to use the cleanest ingredients possible to feed myself and my family. Anna and Sarah is an organic brand that is available raw and decently priced. So I tossed them in the cart and waited the week it takes to get Prime items to Hawai’i.

I prefer nut butter with no added oils because if you are adding them in the right amounts to the blender they are unnecessary. This is especially true with hazelnuts. They are soooo much easier than almonds.

Next! No oil-added nut butter recipes I find on the interwebs never work right with my Vitamix 64oz low profile blender container. There are always too few nuts and other factors. If you have a smaller container or the narrower tall Vitamix container 4 cups is fine, but NOT with this size. For the 64oz low profile use 6 cups of nuts to make sure there is enough for the blender blade to stay covered when you tamp the nuts down in the corners. Otherwise you get gritty nut butter and it takes a crap ton longer too.

Step numero uno is to roast them and get the skins off. Roasting nuts before you turn them into butter makes it easier for them to release their oils. With hazelnuts that is also the easiest way to get the skins off. No need to blanch them like some other nuts with more stubborn skins (ahem, we are talking about you, Almonds). Roast at 375° Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes or until they smell awesome and let them cool until you can comfortably handle them.

To remove the skins place the nuts in a tea towel or other lint-free towel and rub them together like crazy. Take the nuts out being careful to leave most of the skins behind. They don’t have to be perfect. You just need to remove the majority of them. If you have the patience you can do it with your hands one by one. I will admit, I do each one individually after rubbing handfuls in my bare palms to get most of the skins off. It takes a little longer but I don’t mind.

Now toss them in the blender and turn on low tamping down in the corners to keep feeding it to the blades until you have big crumbs. Then crank it high and keep tamping down into the corners and it should turn creamy and thin pretty quickly at this stage. Sounds kinda violent, I know. Keep going until it is smooth and creamy. If you have made your own almond butter before it will be even oilier and creamier than that.

I keep mine in two pint wide-mouth mason jars in the fridge to keep it from separating or going rancid. It will keep for a couple of weeks, but mine is usually eaten too fast to test it.

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