Last week, I received a question in the comments asking if the Ninja Single Serve Cup could make cashew butter.
I had never done this before, but my initial thought was that it would be possible, but could be somewhat frustrating to have to unscrew the blade a few times in the process to scrape down the sides.
So, I set up to test this out, using my Ninja Pulse. I chose the Pulse for this project because if a Pulse will do it, any other Ninja with a single serve cup can do it.
Top Line: Yes, this is possible. But, if you have a Ninja Kitchen System with a food processing bowl, I would ultimately still choose that option over a single serve cup. It will just be more efficient.
For those that don’t have a KS model, I’ll walk you through the steps below. You’ll still get a decent cashew butter, but, it may be just a tad chunkier than what you could get out of a food processor.
Using the Ninja Single Serve Cup to Make Cashew Butter
First up, the ingredients:
- One cup of cashews of your choice (optionally soaked for at least four hours and rinsed
- One tablespoon of melted coconut oil, or other oil of your choice
- Water, as needed
(I guess showing you the oil in a clear bowl defeated the purpose, huh?!)
Next, add the cashews and then the oil into the single serve cup.
Then, begin to Pulse. Regardless of your model, it is best to pulse your way through this project to not burn out the motor.
After about three pulses, you’ll have chopped up nuts.
Now is where discretion comes in. Keep pulsing, and when you get to a point where nothing is happening, you’ll want to remove the cup, unscrew the lid, scrape down the mixture, and add a little water. How much water is really up to you, but I would start with a tablespoon and go from there. You may need more, but you probably won’t need less. You’ll need the water to get it to blend the rest of the way.
Once you have added the water, continue to pulse 6-7 more times and determine if your mixture is done. At a certain point, it will stop moving again, and will likely be done. If it doesn’t seem creamy enough, add a little more water, always adding in small amounts. It’s easy to keep adding, but hard to remove!
When your mixture is done enough to your liking, take a spoon, stir everything together very well, and you’ll have cashew butter. It probably won’t get quite as smooth as if you’d used the food processor bowl on a KS model, but it still comes out spreadable, even with a few little chunks. The difference of course, is due to the different types of blades. The single serve has more of a traditional blender blade, where as the food processor bowls have more of a traditional “s” blade shape.
The main word of caution about this project is to not try to steady state blend cashew butter with your single serve cup. You could easily burn out the motor.
And, I would only do this with soft nuts (peanuts, cashews), not hard nuts like almonds.
I hope that helps, and, let me know any questions in the comments!