Pistachio Butter

Ligia Lugo

Published:

September 3, 2025

Last Modified:

November 26, 2025

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Homemade pistachio butter boasts all of that amazing pistachio flavor in a bright green nut butter! Once blended, savory pistachios take on a smooth and creamy texture, perfect for sandwich making or toast spreading.

homemade vegan pistachio butter in a glass jar

Even after just a few minutes on my site, you’ll know I’m a big fan of making homemade nut butters. Maple Peanut Butter, creamy Cashew Butter, and rich homemade Vegan Nutella are just a few homemade nut butter recipes I’ve perfected over the years.

However, the recent Dubai Chocolate trend made me realize that my nut butter recipe collection was in desperate need of a dose of pistachio goodness! So I whipped up this simple and delightfully creamy pistachio butter recipe.

Ways to enjoy it include: spread on hearty toast, slathered on warm muffins (especially my Vegan Apricot Muffins), or as a dip for slices of crisp apple. For this recipe, 2 cups of pistachios yields about 1 cup of pistachio butter, and it’s super easy to scale up or down so you can make as much as you need.

Ingredient Notes

ingredients needed to make pistachio butter

Unsalted pistachios – While I definitely recommend getting pre-shelled pistachios so that you can save your fingers from a lot of work, you can use either raw or roasted pistachios for this nut butter. Roasted pistachios will result in a more intense flavor, and they will also blend more easily as compared to raw pistachios.
Neutral oil – Even though the pistachios will release their natural oils as they blend, you may need some extra oil to achieve a spreadable texture. Have some neutral oil–such as grapeseed, vegetable, or sunflower–on hand in case you need it during the blending process.
Maple syrup (optional) – Sometimes I like to add a touch of sweetness to my batch of pistachio butter, and the flavor of maple syrup plays nicely with the nutty pistachios.
Salt (optional) – A pinch of salt sometimes helps to bring out the best flavor in your batch of pistachios. Totally optional!

Step-by-Step Instructions

Blend. Add the pistachios to the bowl of your food processor or high speed blender. Pulse the mixture until the nuts turn into a fine powder.
Scrape and blend. Pause the machine to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula, making sure to incorporate any larger pieces of ground pistachios so they can blend evenly. Then replace the lid and continue blending. The blending process can take awhile–up to 5-10 minutes–for the mixture to become smooth. If you prefer a slightly crunchy pistachio butter, simply blend it for a bit less time or until it reaches your desired texture.
Add oil if needed. If the mixture still seems too thick, add neutral oil, 1 teaspoon at a time, blending after each addition, until the mixture reaches your desired consistency.
Season and enjoy! Season with maple syrup and/or salt if desired, then blend to incorporate and serve your finished pistachio butter as desired!

Tips From Ligia

For a the greenest pistachio butter:

You can remove the skins (that very thin, brown coating that covers the green, meaty part of the nut) from the pistachios before blending.

To do so, blanch the pistachios in simmering hot water for about 1 minute, then drain and quickly transfer them to a bowl of ice water for another minute, just to stop the cooking process. Drain them again, then rub them between your fingers or clean kitchen towels. The skins should flake and peel off quite easily. Spread the pistachios on a towel or baking sheet and let them dry before blending into pistachio butter.

Pistachio butter made with blanched pistachios won’t taste any different than regular, but it will have a brighter green color!

How To Store

Refrigerating Store your homemade pistachio butter in an airtight container (a glass jar or tub with a screw top works great!) in the fridge. It should last for up to 3 weeks.

Freezing If you need to store it for even longer, you can freeze pistachio butter in an airtight container or freezer safe zip-top bag for up to 3 months.

Thawing Transfer to the fridge for about 8 hours or overnight to let your pistachio butter thaw. It may look a bit separated upon defrosting, just give it a good stir and it should come back together without any issue.