Ninja® nut butters, part #1

Ninja® Food Chopper nut butters, part #1

Some time ago, I was experimenting with making nut butters using a Ninja® Food Chopper.  This project took a back seat to other things that came along.  Today, I finally go ahead and start figuring out the particulars of making nuts butters using this device.

First, this is the Ninja® brand Food Chopper.  You don't need to acquire the entire Ninja® System if all you are doing is making nut butters.  The trick, I have discovered, is adding some oil to the mix.  The problem then becomes how much oil should be added.

My first attempt used 1 cup of blanched peanuts and 1 tbsp. of sunflower oil.  I ran the chopper in short bursts to chop up the nuts.  Next, I ran the Ninja® for about 10 seconds at a time, occasionally opening the chopper to scrape down the sides.  When I felt it had had enough, I poured it into a glass jar.

As you can see in the picture, particularly on my finger, this batch was still quite grainy.  However, I have come to accept this as a characteristic of homemade nut butters, as a Ninja® is not going to produce absolute smoothness and I am not going to run this through a cheesecloth or strainer just to get out those little bits.  Also, there was no string between my finger and the butter.  That indicates it was too liquid to stay in place, as peanut butter should.  Because it was too fluid, I cut the amount of oil in half for the second batch.

This batch used 1 cup of blanched peanuts and 1½ tsp. of sunflower oil.  We see that there aren't as many chunks left on my finger, and it was stiff enough to maintain a link between my finger and the butter. In my opinion, this is closer to a peanut butter, although not yet what I would like.

I also paid more attention to what I was doing, so I now have a procedure to follow to maintain the experiment.

1. Place 1 cup of nuts and 1½ tsp. of sunflower oil in the Ninja® chopping chamber.
2. Do 10 short bursts of the Ninja® to chop up the nuts.
3. Run the chopper for 10 seconds, then allow it to rest for about 5 seconds.
4. Perform the previous step a total of 6 times.
5. Open the Ninja® and scrape down the sides of the chamber.
6. Do the run and rest routine 3 more times.
7. Open the Ninja® and scrape down the sides of the chamber.
8. Do the run and rest routine 3 more times.
9. Open the Ninja® and scrape down the sides of the chamber.
10. Do the run and rest routine 3 more times.
11. Scrape resulting nut butter into an air-tight jar.

I wanted to try another batch of peanut butter with a little less oil, but I did not have enough peanuts to continue, so I switched to blanched almond slivers.

Here we seen even fewer chunks on my finger and a more butter-like consistency.  It was the closest consistency there was to store-bought peanut butter.  This is what brought to mind that each type of nut might need a different amount of oil.  For example, using honey roasted peanuts will probably require more than 1½ tsp. of oil to perform properly.

Unfortunately, the Ninja® was beginning to smell like it was burning during the almond batch.  That means the device has a 2-batch maximum per day.  I will, therefore, have to put off performing any more tests until tomorrow.

The pictures on the page appear smaller than they are.  To see them larger, simply double click on the picture.  Also, I always welcome your constructive criticism.  Click on the Comment link below next to the icon of a pencil; it may say “No” or have a number in front of it.