Making Tahini Or Nut/seed Butters

[RiceGuy]

Hi everybody. I'm hoping some of you have made tahini or other seed/nut butters, and can say whether or not a hand blender would work for such a task. If not, what would be your suggestion? I have a regular blender, which works fine, but not with less than about 2 1/2 or more cups. I just don't always need that much, especially when making something to add to a recipe.

I'd also like to make small portions of other types of stuff, which I already know a hand blender will do. So it's just whether it'll handle the seeds and small pieces of nuts.

I also need to save money, so a food processor is out of the question. Anyone?

[jerseyangel]

Hi Riceguy,

How about a mini food processor? They run about $40 and would be ideal for smaller amounts of nut butters.

Since I've never used a hand blender, I don't know if one would work for your purposes.

[Wonka]

I have a coffee bean grinder that I only use for spices and grinding small amounts of nuts and seeds. Works like a charm.

[Sweetfudge]

I have a coffee bean grinder that I only use for spices and grinding small amounts of nuts and seeds. Works like a charm.

I did this as well. Grabbed a $10 grinder at walmart. I use it for processing nuts, flax seed, and dried herbs/peppers. I don't know how it would work making a butter, but I'll experiment and let you know I've been thinking about making almond butter (for hard nuts like almonds, I would just use my blender to process them, then maybe mix into a butter in the coffee grinder).

[julirama723]

I have a mini food processor that I swear I only paid $20 for, and a cheap-o coffee grinder that was about $10. They're lifesavers! I use the coffee grinder to make my own flours/meals from coconut and other nuts. The food processor...well I use that for everything else! I make salsa, grind chocolate, puree squash, make mashed cauliflower, etc. I definitely think a food processor would be perfect for making nut butters, as it's easy to use and easy to clean. A coffee grinder would probably work too, but would be more difficult to clean.

[luv2cook]

I make my own nut butter all the time with a food processor, works great. I was in the supermarket the other day and couldn't believe the price for tahini butter. Yikes. I will definately have to make some at home, can't believe I haven't tried that yet! I'll bet homemade tahini is awesome...

[RiceGuy]

Thanks for the replies!

Just an update:

After looking around, and some considerations, I concluded that a hand blender would be the most versatile, and it appeared that the chances were good that it'd work for seed butters. I picked out a hand blender based on reviews. I love it! It does indeed work for making tahini, plus oodles more stuff I've been wanting to do. I'm sure it can't replace a grinder, as those are designed to pulverize dry things, but I figure I wouldn't get nearly as much use out of a grinder.