Chocolate Pistachio Butter

Updated: April 2025. 

I was overcome by a desire to make a chocolate pistachio spread in lieu of the homemade nutella I usually make for my daughter. I looove making plain pistachio butter – I use it to make cakes, pies, tarts, etc., like this pistachio ganache pie. Unlike my ‘nutella’, adding cocoa and other ingredients was a bit trickier here because chocolate can easily overwhelm the delicate flavor of the pistachio. It took some careful measurements to balance out everything. I really wanted you to taste the pistachio and have the chocolate as a delicious undertone.

Recipe Origins

A few years ago I learned I could make nut butters at home. It opened up the door to a wonderfully nutty journey: I began making cashew, pistachio and hazelnut butters at home. The trick is to blend them in a food processor long enough to release their oils. I could now control the salt and sugar input, and I’d use whole nuts and not a combination of nuts so that in the final product, it would taste like the actual nut itself.

I always seem to find almonds or peanuts ground into speciality nut butters and my guess is this is done to make the cost of making the product cheaper but it adulterates the flavor. Also, if you look at the ingredient labels on your nutella, for example, you’ll see the first ingredient (ingredients are listed in the order of their quantity) is sugar and the next is oil. Personally, I’m of the opinion that the nuts should be the first ingredient.

PS. if you make this to give to a friend, on the label you’ll be able to write pistachios as the first ingredient =)

Recipe Ingredients

Pistachios: It’s best to use raw pistachios (that have not been roasted) so that you can toast them yourself and the very fresh nuts can be blended into a paste. If you cannot find raw, you may use roasted but in this case only toast them for 5-7 minutes, until fragrant.

Note: the pistachios must be measured after shelling (if you’ve bought them in the shell). 

Salt: fine sea salt. If your pistachios are salted dial back on the salt. And importantly, as you are blending taste the paste and see if you’d like more salt.

Vanilla: pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste. Add to taste.

Sugar: fine granulated sugar. I previously used powdered sugar in this recipe but you’d have to get your hands on the one made with tapioca starch (not cornstarch as that needs to be heated to fully dissolve). The granulated sugar is more universal and works great here.

Cocoa: dutch process cocoa. A good quality! I like Guittard’s rouge cocoa for this.

Water: boiling, to bloom the cocoa.

Milk: to smooth out the paste and emulsify the oils.

How to Make Chocolate Pistachio Butter

Start by roasting the pistachios: preheat the oven to 350 F and spread the raw, shelled pistachios on a baking sheet.

Bake them for about 10 minutes – shaking the pan halfway. They will be very hot and fragrant.

Add them to a food processor and begin blending.

At first the pistachios will grind into itty bits that look like a pistachio flour (like almond flour):

As you keep blending they will start to clump, this means some of the oils in the nut are being released.

Keep blending, scraping down as needed, until you have a thick paste. Scrape the machine again and blend until the paste is loose and runs off a spoon.

Note: this can take up to 30 minutes or as low as 10 minutes. How much you need to scrape will depend on the size of the machine too. On my old 14 cup cuisinart food processor much of the nuts get stuck to the sides so I would have to stop and scrape every minute or so. On my newer 9 cup (breville sous chef) I can get to the loose stage in less than ten minutes with minimal scraping. 

Add the salt, vanilla and oil and blend until smooth.

Add the sugar and blend. The sugar granules will not quite melt just yet.

Note: if your machine is getting hot, stop it and let it rest for 5-10 minutes! 

Set the cocoa in a heatproof bowl and bring the water to boil (I use my tea kettle). Pour the hot water over the cocoa and stir until you have a chocolate paste.

Add this paste to the machine and blend: it will likely break the emulsion and some of the paste will thicken and some of the oils will separate. Don’t worry we’re going to fix it!

Pour in a tablespoon of the milk and blend, then the other tablespoon and blend. The paste should again be smooth and shiny, and the sugar granules will have dissolved. If not, you can add another tablespoon and blend again.

Now you have chocolate pistachio butter! =)

FAQ

What if I just want to make pistachio butter, no chocolate or cocoa? 

You can stop before adding the chocolate but you’ll still want to add the milk. This will help the sugar dissolve. You might need more than listed in the recipe below.

My pistachios never got to a loose paste, it’s just a thick glob! 

The pistachios go through a few phases in the grinding process: first a pistachio flour, then a thick clump of nuts with some oils, then a thick paste, and finally a loose paste that runs off the spoon. If your pistachio butter hasn’t reached that point it might simply need longer in the food processor.

There’s also the possibility that the food processor you’re using isn’t strong enough. If after 30 minutes you are getting nowhere, rest it and try again later.

Should I skin the pistachios before roasting them? 

For this pistachio butter, don’t skin them. To peel the purple skin on the pistachios off you have to blanch the nuts first and I don’t yet have a straightforward method to do this without it being painfully cumbersome. Blanching them to where the skin comes off more easily means that the nutmeats absorb too much water and will not turn into a paste. If anything changes in my experiments, I’ll update this section.

Chocolate Pistachio Butter Recipe

Chocolate Pistachio Butter

Smooth pistachio butter with chocolate: made with roasted pistachios, cocoa, sugar, and milk.

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Ingredients

• 227g raw pistachios shelled (sometimes called "nutmeats")
• ½ teaspoon salt add more to taste
• 1-2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons pistachio oil or a flavorless oil
• 100g or ½ cups fine granulated sugar
• 30g or ⅓ cup dutch process cocoa
• 3-4 tablespoons boiling hot water
• 2 tablespoons whole milk ,or more as needed

Method

• Preheat oven to 350 F. Set the pistachios on a small sheet pan and toast them in the oven for 10 minutes.
• In a food processor, process the nuts on high until they become finely ground. Scrape down the bowl and continue processing for another 5 minutes or so. At first, the nuts will become a thick paste. Keep scraping and processing until they really release their oils and form a smooth paste. Depending on the power of your food processor, this could take between 10-20 minutes.
• Add the salt, vanilla and oil and process until smooth (the oil will make the paste more runny), then add the sugar and process. The sugar granules won't melt just yet but process them for a few minutes into the paste.
• Set the cocoa in a bowl and pour the boiling hot water over it, stir until you have a shiny, smooth paste. Add it to the food processor and blend.
• At this point the butter's emulsion might break: you'll see a thick paste with oils separated from it. Add the milk, one tablespoon then blend, then the other and blend. You'll have a smooth, shiny paste.
• Store in an airtight container; at room temperature for about 2 weeks. In the fridge, it will last a month.

Notes

Pistachio oil is recommended here for the obvious reason; it best complements the nut flavor. However, it is hard to come by and rather expensive so I’ve offered grapeseed as an alternative because it is neutral-tasting. If you really didn’t want to bother with buying a special oil, use canola. Also you could use olive oil - bearing in mind it will add its own flavor to the butter (although this may be a good thing, depending on your taste!)

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