What can you do if you have a recipe that requires you to use almond butter and you don’t have any? Can you still make the recipe? Do you leave the almond butter out or can you replace it with something else?
The good news is that there are many ingredients that you can use to replace almond butter with. What you use depends a lot on what type of food you are making, so I’ve decided to write todays’ blog post with this in mind as well as giving you all the run down of all the almond butter substitutes.
What is almond butter
Almond butter is made from real almonds with the addition (sometimes) of a little bit of oil and a pinch of salt.
It has a similar consistency as a peanut butter, but the flavour is not as strong. It of course has a light almond flavour, which is perfect for use in cooking or baking where you don’t want to have a peanuts flavour.
People who have a peanuts alergies are often fine with almonds, so almond butter is a good alternative to peanut butter.
How to use almond butter
Almond butter has many uses. Pretty much anywhere you’d use peanut butter you can swap it for almond butter. This includes using almond butter in smoothies, as a spread for toast or pastries, cooking, baking, desserts making etc.
Reasons for wanting to substitute almond butter
One slight negative about almond butter is that’s not as widely available in all supermarkets or shop ( I usually have to go to a large supermarket to buy mine or visit the health shop).
Almond butter is also considerably more expensive (easily up to twice the price of peanut butter) and you don’t get that much choice of price ranges.
Where you might have the option buying a cheap, mid range or expensive peanut butter, with almond butter you are lucky if you get one version (and it’s usually the expensive one!).
All of these reasons might be why you might be thinking how to replace almond butter in your recipe, so let me help you to make the right choice!
How to choose your almond butter substitute
Because there are many ingredients that you can use to replace almond butter, I thought it’s best to organise the most suitable ingredients based on the type of food you are making.
Once you get an idea of what almond butter’s role is in each type of food, you’ll be able to make your choice super fast.
To replace almond butter in smoothies
Almond butter is used in smoothies to add fat, fibre and protein and calories.
One tablespoon gives you nearly 100 calories with 3.5 grams of protein, 9 grams of fat and 1.5 grams of fibre. Almond butter is low in carbohydrates and sugar, which makes it a great healthy ingredient.
You can use any of the following combinations. If you want to taste the almond in your smoothies, you can use real almonds or ground almonds. If you don’t have either of these, you can also use a little bit of almond essence.
- Almonds (or ground almonds) + dairy butter (or flavour free butter) – adds the almond flavour and fat
- Almonds (or ground almonds) + flavour free & clear oil (e.g. vegetable oil, groundnut or sunflower)
- Tahini – protein
- Egg – protein and fat
- Yoghurt – protein and fat
- Cream Cheese – protein and fat
- Almond essence + any of the above
+ if you are not worried about the smoothie having a slightly different flavour, you can use any of the different kinds of butter or almond butter substitutions on my list
To replace almond butter as a spread
To replace almond butter as a spread, we need the oily consistency and the spreadability, so any type of butter will be a great substitute.
Depending on what type of butter you use, you will of course get different flavour, so it’s probably not a great idea to use Nutella spread with savoury crackers…
- Cashew Butter
- Peanut Butter
- Pumpkin Seeds Butter
- Hazelnut Butter
- Walnut Butter
- Avocado
- 5 seed butter
- Dairy Butter (Preferable unsalted)
- Tahini
- Pecan Butter
- Pistachio Butter
- Coconut Butter
- Hazelnut & Chocolate Spread (or Nutella)
- Soynut Butter or Soybean Paste
- Bananas (sweet)
- Humus
- Pumpkin Butter (sweet)
- Cream Cheese
To replace almond butter in baking
For baking, we need the oily consistency and the thickness of almond butter, so that will influence what we can use.
Almond butter would be usually in the recipe because it’s healthy, but also because it would replace other type of fat in the recipe.
This is why I would recommend using oil/ fat based substitutes and leave out the substitutes that have no fat content (e.g bananas, apple sauce etc.).
I’ve made a note for each type of butter to help you identify how it might affect the type of bake you are making.
- Vegetable or Sunflower Oil
- Cashew Butter
- Peanut Butter – strong flavour
- Pumpkin Seeds Butter
- Hazelnut Butter
- Walnut Butter
- 5 seed butter
- Dairy Butter (Preferable unsalted) – will work with any flavour
- Tahini – strong flavour, use in chocolate flavoured baking
- Pecan Butter
- Pistachio Butter
- Coconut Butter – the coconut flavour can be quite strong in delicate flavours (but it’s fine with chocolate baking)
- Coconut Oil – same as coconut butter flavour wise, it’s much lighter/thinner than coconut butter
- Hazelnut & Chocolate Spread (or Nutella) – best for chocolate flavoured baking
- Soynut Butter or Soybean Paste
The complete list of almond butter substitutes
Homemade Almond Butter
The most delicious way to replace shop bought almond butter is to make it yourself at home. Making your own almond butter is easy – just follow my recipe instructions bellow. All you need is a lot of almonds, little bit of oil, some sugar and a sturdy food processor.
Cashew Butter
Cashew butter is a great substitute for almond butter as it taste very nutty and it’s also fairly mild in flavour.
Cashew butter is about the same, price wise as almond butter, so you are not out of pocket by buying cashew butter instead of almond butter.
Peanut Butter
Peanut butter is a budget friendly option for almond butter and it’s widely available from practically any store.
The snag is that it has a very distinctive flavour, so everything you make with it will taste like peanuts.
Pumpkin Seeds Butter
Slightly more expensive than almond butter, pumpkin seeds butter is available from health shops and online. It has a nice flavour which is fairly similar to almonds.
You might encounter one slight problem with pumpkin seeds butter, because it’s dark green! If you are making something with almond butter that requires you to keep the colour amber brown, you will struggle with this substitute.
Other than the colour, the flavour and the consistency of pumpkin seeds butter is great and it’s a perfect replacement for almond butter in baking, cooking and also making smoothies.
Hazelnut Butter
Hazelnuts are slightly milder in flavour than pecans or walnuts, which makes them the perfect substituttion for almond butter.
If you happen to buy hazelnut butter (or make it at home) use it in extactly the same way as you would almond butter.
Walnut Butter
Homemade (or shop bought) walnut butter can be used in exactly the same way as almond butter. Flavour is much stronger and more nutty than almond butter, but I think that makes is rather lovely choice.
Avocado
Avocado can replace almond butter as a spread on toast and you can also use it for smoothies to add some extra healthy fat, minerals and fibre.
5 seed butter
Similarly to pumpkin seeds butter, the five seeds butter is full of nutrients, healthy fat and fibre. Use it in the same way as almond butter for all cooking, baking and non-cooked dishes (like smoothies).
Dairy Butter (Preferable unsalted)
It seems like the obvious choice, but dairy butter can be easily used in all cooking and baking instead of almond butter, including toppings for toasts and bread.
Tahini
Tahini is made from sesame and has a fairly mild taste. The colour, texture, fat content and the flavour is fairly similar to almond butter, which makes it the perfect substitute.
You can find tahini in most supermarket and healt shops stock it too.
Pecan Butter
Pecan butter is fairly rate and quite expensive to buy, but can be easily made at home.
In the same way as making other nut butters, you just need a lot of pecans and process them in a food processor until they turn from pecan nuts to oily paste. You can add a bit of vegetable oil to make the process a little easier (on your food processor!).
Pistachio Butter
Pistachio butter is fairly pricey and can be difficult to buy in a regular supermarket. But if you happen to buy some or even make it at home, pistachio butter can be a great substitute for almond butter.
Use it in the same quanities in all the different ways, where you would almond butter.
The only thing you need to bear in mind is that pistachio butter has a stronger flavour than almond butter, so the flavour of some of the dishes you’d be making might be slightly different.
Coconut Butter
Coconut buter is fairly thick (much thicker than coconut oil) and because of that it’s perfect replacement for almond butter in baking and cooking.
If needed you can also add a few drops of almond essence to simulate the flavour of the almond butter.
Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is easily available in many local shops and it’s also much cheaper than coconut butter (or almond butter for that matter).
It’s best used for baking and cooking instead of almond butter, but I wouln’t use it as topping for toast or bread.
You could use a coconut oil in smoothies if you wanted to add the fat element from the almond butter.
Hazelnut & Chocolate Spread (or Nutella)
If the dish or recipe where you are trying to replace almond butter has any chocolate flavour (or chocolate would work with the recipe), you can easily use chocolate & hazelnut spread to substitute almond butter.
Soynut Butter or Soybean Paste
Soya could have fairly strong flavour if used in delicately flavoured dishes.
If you want to imitate the flavour as well as the texture and abilities of almond butter, add a few drops of almond essence to the soynut butter or soybeam paste and that should do the trick!
Bananas
Bananas can be easily used instead of almond butter for sweet toppings, smoothies, porridge or other simple dishes.
I wouldn’t use bananas to replace almond butter in baking if the almond butter ment to be in the recipe for the ‘fat’ element. In that case you’d need bananas and some sort of other butter.
Humus
Humus is made from ground chickpeas, which makes it fairly similar texture to almond butter. It contains much less fat, than almond butter, but you can easily use it for spreading on bread, toast and as toppings for more savoury dishes.
Make sure that you choose plain (unflavoured) humus to stay close to the almond taste as much as possible.
Applesauce
Applesauce can be used instead of almond butter for smoothies and sweet toppings (such as porridge, oatmeal or pancakes).
Some apple sauces are a little too sweet, but if you make your own homemade apple sauce you can adjust the thickness and the amount of sugar based on your personal preference.
Pumpkin Butter
Pumpkin butter might be called ‘butter’ but there is actually very little fat in pumpkin butter. It’s a great substitution for almond butter for smoothies, toppings or cooking.
Pumpkin butter has a mild flavour and if you make your own pumpkin butter at home, you can adjust the amount of sugar, spices and other ingredients to control how the pumpkin butter taste.
Greek Yoghurt
Whilst greek yoghurt is not as thick as almond butter (and doesn’t contain as much fat either), it’s perfectly good substitution for smoothies and cooking.
Use full-fat Greek yoghurt to make sure the yoghurt doesn’t disintegrate into the dish too much (which is what would happen if you use low fat yoghurt).
Cream Cheese
Cream cheese is mild in flavour, which means that it will work with most recipes, where you are trying to replace almond butter.
Cream cheese is also high in fat, so that you can use it in the similar way as almond butter.
How to make almond butter at home
It’s not that difficult to make your own almond butter at home, but you need to have a lot of almonds and fine food processor or a blender.
All you need to do is to blend the almonds for few minutes until they turn from gritty ground nuts to smooth paste and the natural oil is released.
It helps to add a small amount of vegetable oil in to blend the almonds better and add some salt or cinnamon for flavouring.
Almond butter usually doesn’t contain any sugar, but if you really want some in your almond butter you can add a little bit of powdered icing sugar.
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