Sunflower seed butter, or SunButter, is an allergy-friendly alternative to peanut butter but deserves to be known as more than just that! It works well in sweet and savory dishes—think cookies, granola bars, salad dressings, and dips. The nutty flavor comes through more in homemade sunflower seed butter and can be customized—make it crunchy, salty, sweet, or even spicy!
Tips
Toast the sunflower seeds! It will add so much flavor!
Feel free to keep processing after the butter becomes more of a paste, but it may not become as smooth as store-bought sunflower seed butter depending on how powerful your food processor is. Some recipes add oil to thin out the sunflower seed butter, but I find that unnecessary.
2 minutes of processing: seeds are broken up and starting to clump together, but no visible oil is released yet.4 minutes of processing: the butter is starting to clump together more, but still quite solid7 minutes of processing: the butter looks more paste-like, although it is still a little gritty and stiff10 minutes of processing: the butter is smoother and is more spreadable than previously
Store the finished sunflower seed butter in a clean jar in the refrigerator—it should last at least a month.
If sunflower seeds are raw, toast them in a dry pan over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, stirring often. The sunflower seeds should smell nutty, look darker, and look a little shiny from oil.
Let the sunflower seeds cool if they are freshly roasted (just so they aren’t a burn hazard) and then add to the bowl of a food processor, along with any desired flavorings. You can always adjust later, too.
Now, just start blending! Every minute or so, when the mixture starts to push up against the side of the bowl, scrape down the sides and bottom. Refer to the photos above to see what the different stages of blending look like.
After about 10 minutes of blending, the mixture should start looking like a nut butter. It may seem kind of stiff, but you can continue blending to release more of the oils.
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2 Comments
woaaah this looks like a nice alternative to peanut butter—i’ll definitely try it out!
woaaah this looks like a nice alternative to peanut butter—i’ll definitely try it out!
Yay hi Sophie!