Cashew Coconut Butter

Coconut cashew butter is the perfect 2 ingredient nut butter recipe. This nut butter is thick and creamy and super satisfying and less expensive than store bought. This cashew coconut butter tastes sweet but has no added sugar and is vegan, Whole30, keto, low carb, gluten free and dairy free.

Why you will love this recipe

• Easy to make! All you need are 2 ingredients and a food processor. You won’t believe how simple making your own nut butter can be!
• Budget friendly: jars of store bought nut butter can be so expensive $10+ dollars for a small jar. You can save so much money with just a small investment of time.
• Customizable: add your favorite ingredients to make this all your own. Want chocolate or cinnamon butter? Check out the ingredients below!

Ingredients for cashew coconut butter

• Raw or roasted cashews
• Unsweetened shredded coconut flakes

How to make cashew coconut butter

• Start by roasting raw cashews or roasting pre-roasted cashews and coconut flakes together in a 350F oven. Roasting the nuts and coconut flakes before blending allows the natural oils to be released and easier to make into nut butter.
  • For raw cashews: bake at 350F for 6 minutes. Remove from the oven and add coconut flakes and bake e more minutes.
  • For roasted cashews: toast the cashews and coconut flakes in 350F oven for 3 minutes.
• Allow the nuts and coconut flakes to cool 5-10 minutes until cool to the touch.
• Add cashews and coconut flakes to food processor and turn on high. After about 1 minute, pause and scrape down the sides.
• Turn on high again and run about 4 more minutes. After 2 minutes you will notice the mixture creates a “ball” right before it smooths out into a butter. Allow this butter to continue to blend for at least 2 more minutes to ensure it’s got the perfect texture.
• If you want an even smoother butter, continue to process until 100% smooth.

Top tips

• Be sure to toast the cashews before blending. Roasting the cashews (or toasting them if already roasted) helps to bring out the natural oils which makes them easier to blend and turn into nut butter.
• You will need to stop and push the cashew/coconut mixture down the sides of the food processor 1 or 2 times before a butter if formed.
• Don’t walk away from your toasting nuts/coconut flakes. Every oven is different so you will want to be close by to use your nose to ensure you don’t smell the nuts/coconut flakes starting to burn.
• Be patient! The nut butter needs at least 2 minutes of processing once in looks smooth to really ensure it’s spreadable and not too thick. The texture will not be the same.
• The friction from the nuts in the food processor will make the nut butter warm when it’s done processing. Sometimes the metal of the blade of the food processor can get hot, so be careful when removing it.

Other flavors you could add

• Cinnamon: Add 1 tsp. cinnamon to make this have a warm undertone
• Pumpkin spice: Add 1-2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice to the cashew coconut butter while still in the food processor so you can get it evenly distributed.
• Chocolate: Add ½ cup of chocolate chips when you start to blend the mixture to make a chocolate cashew coconut butter.
• Espresso cacao: Add 1/2 – 1 tsp ground espresso and 1-2 tbsp cacao nibs once the cashew coconut butter is smooth. Turn on food processor for 20-30 more seconds to slightly break up cacao nibs and fully incorporate.

How to use coconut cashew butter

Use this nut butter any way you would use peanut butter or almond butter. This cashew coconut butter is a bit sweeter than almond or peanut butter so it goes best in sweeter applications. Here are some great ideas:

• Drizzled on top of bananas, apples, strawberries, blueberries blackberries.
• Spread on toast or sweet potato toast
• Drizzle over cookies like frosting (like these vegan carrot cake cookies) or use in baked goods wherever “nut butter” is indicated as an ingredient.
• Add to smoothies, oatmeal, quinoa bowls or sweet potato breakfast bowls.
• Stuffed inside of pitted dates.
• As a topping for smoothie bowls (like this carrot banana smoothie) or poured over frozen berries, ice cream, frozen yogurt.

Note: because this cashew coconut butter has coconuts in it, when it’s poured over frozen foods, it creates a “shell” over the food (like magic shell).

Stages of making cashew coconut butter

This entire process tastes about 7 minutes (depending on how many times you scrape down the sides)

• Quickly turns from cashews and coconut flakes into a coarse sand (first 20 seconds)
• It won’t look like much is changing but the mixture will start to grow up the sides of the food processor. Stop and scrape down the sides using a silicone spatula. This is after about 1 minute.
• The mixture will start to form a ball in the food processor – this is where the magic happens, don’t stop the food processor, let it continue here. This happens after about 2 minutes from when you scraped down the sides. 
• The ball will smooth out and quickly resemble coconut cashew butter. Don’t stop the food processor at this time. About 30 seconds after the ball forms.
• Let the food processor run at least 2 more minutes to really break down the nut butter and ensure it’s creamy and the smooth. Stop and scrape down the sides during this 2 minutes to ensure everything is getting combined.

Note: Run the food processor longer if you want a smoother butter.

Troubleshooting tips

• If you find that your cashew butter is not reaching that “ball” stage above and therefore not turning into butter, you can add 1 tbsp. coconut oil or avocado oil to the food processor to help it along.
• I have not tried this in a high speed blender. I have seen others make nut butter in their blender but you may need to add some oil (see above) to ensure you don’t burn out your blades.

How to store coconut cashew butter

Store in an airtight container in the pantry for 1 month or store in the fridge up to 3 months.

If you store this cashew coconut butter in the fridge, it will harden up because coconut butter gets hard when cold. If you choose to store it in the fridge you can warm it up in the microwave 5-10 seconds or let it sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

If you love this recipe, you should try

• Homemade Snickers
• Cinnamon Raisin Peanut Butter
• Pumpkin Oatmeal Bars
• Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal