Hazelnut Butter substitute

Best substitute

Homemade Hazelnut Butter

Use the same amount as the hazelnut butter you are replacing

Best for baking

Close match

Roast raw hazelnuts until fragrant and the skins crack, rub the skins off, then grind the warm nuts in a food processor until they turn to a glossy running paste. This is the ingredient itself, and it costs a fraction of the jarred version.

Other hazelnut butter substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Almond Butter
Different taste
Use the same amount
The most reliable swap.
What changes
Same thickness, same fat content, same behaviour in a batter, a filling or a raw bar, and it firms up in the fridge the same way.
Best for
baking, fillings, smoothies, sauces, raw bars, spreads
Milder and slightly sweeter than hazelnut, without the musky, almost floral roasted note hazelnuts have. In a hazelnut torte or a hazelnut buttercream the nut identity quietly disappears, but the recipe works. Buy the smooth unsweetened kind, not a sweetened spread.
3Cashew Butter
Different taste
Use the same amount
The creamiest and most neutral of the nut butters, and the best choice where you need smoothness and body rather than nut flavour.
What changes
Best for
fillings, sauces, frostings, raw desserts, smoothies
It is noticeably sweeter and rounder than hazelnut butter and contributes almost no roasted character, so use it when the hazelnut is structural rather than a headline flavour. It is also paler, which matters in something like a nut-butter swirl.
4Hazelnut Flour or Meal Blended With Oil
Different texture
3 parts hazelnut flour to 1 part neutral or hazelnut oil, by weight
Keeps the exact flavour you wanted, which nothing else on this list does, by rebuilding the butter from its ground form.
What changes
Best for
baking, fillings, gianduja, frangipane
Grainier than a properly ground butter, because commercial hazelnut flour is partly defatted, so it never gets fully smooth. Invisible in a baked torte, obvious in a filling meant to be silky. Blend it in a processor rather than stirring by hand.
5Nutella or Another Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount with recipe sugar reduced by about half that weight
It has hazelnut in it and the right consistency, so mechanically it drops in easily.
What changes
What it also brings is a great deal of sugar, palm oil and cocoa.
Best for
cake fillings, buttercream, swirls, smoothies, crepes
Without cutting sugar the result is cloying. Even with the adjustment the dish tastes of chocolate rather than hazelnut, and it will be softer, because palm oil stays looser than nut butter when chilled. Fine in a cake, wrong in a savoury sauce.
6Natural Peanut Butter
Different taste
Use the same amount
Mechanically the closest match of all, since natural peanut butter has almost exactly the same thickness, oil content and binding power.
What changes
Best for
baking, bars, sauces, smoothies, cookies
Peanut is an assertive flavour that takes over completely, so a hazelnut cake made with it becomes a peanut cake. Choose the unsweetened kind with no added sugar or palm oil. This is the swap for when the recipe cares about function, not identity.
7Sunflower Seed Butter
Different taste
Use the same amount
The nut-free option, right thickness and right binding behaviour, useful for school baking and tree nut allergies.
What changes
Best for
nut-free baking, bars, spreads, cookies
It tastes green and faintly vegetal rather than roasted and sweet, which is a real change in a delicate recipe. It also reacts with baking soda and can turn the crumb of a cake or cookie green, which is a harmless colour reaction rather than spoilage, but startling if you were not expecting it.

What is Hazelnut Butter?

Hazelnut Butter is nothing but roasted hazelnuts ground to a smooth, loose paste, with no sugar, no cocoa and no added oil, and it is sometimes sold as hazelnut paste or pure hazelnut spread.

Cooking tips

The skins are the difference between excellent hazelnut butter and a bitter one. Roast the nuts, tip them into a tea towel while hot, and rub hard for a minute. You will not remove every scrap of skin and you do not need to, but leaving them all on gives a tannic, astringent paste.
Grind the nuts while they are still warm from the oven. Warm hazelnuts release their oil far more readily, and this alone can halve the processing time.
Expect it to look wrong for a long time. Hazelnut butter goes from sand to damp crumbs to a single stiff ball that climbs the blade, and only then loosens into a pourable paste. The stiff ball stage fools most people into giving up or adding oil too early.
In patisserie, a recipe asking for hazelnut paste may actually mean praline paste, which is sweetened and made from caramelised nuts. Check the ingredient list for sugar. If the recipe adds no other sugar to the component, it almost certainly means the sweetened praline version.
Store it in the fridge and stir the separated oil back in before measuring. Hazelnut oil is delicate and goes rancid quickly at room temperature, and once it does the whole jar tastes sharp and crayon-like.

Frequently asked questions

Is hazelnut butter the same as Nutella?

No. Hazelnut butter is pure ground roasted hazelnuts and nothing else, unsweetened and quite intense. Nutella is a sweetened spread built mostly on sugar and palm oil, with cocoa and a relatively small amount of hazelnut. You can substitute Nutella into a recipe calling for hazelnut butter, but reduce the recipe's sugar by roughly half the weight of Nutella used, and accept that the result will taste chocolatey and be softer set.

Is hazelnut butter the same as praline paste?

No, and confusing the two will throw off a pastry recipe. Hazelnut butter is unsweetened ground roasted hazelnuts. Praline paste is hazelnuts caramelised in sugar and then ground, so it is roughly half sugar and carries a strong toffee note. If a French recipe says praline or pralin, it means the sweetened caramelised version. If you only have hazelnut butter, blend two parts of it with one part thick caramel or dulce de leche.

Can I make hazelnut butter in a blender?

You can, but a food processor is easier. Blenders need enough volume to keep the mixture circulating and usually need a tamper to push the nuts back into the blades, so small batches tend to stall. Whichever machine you use, roast the nuts first and grind them warm, and be prepared to scrape the sides down repeatedly.

Can I just leave hazelnut butter out?

It depends on the job. If it is flavouring a smoothie or a sauce, yes, and the result is just plainer. If it is binding a raw bar, enriching a frangipane, or forming the hazelnut half of a gianduja, it is structural and you must replace it with another nut butter rather than skip it. Almond butter at 1:1 is the safest replacement in that case.

Does hazelnut butter need refrigerating?

Once opened, yes, or at least keep it somewhere genuinely cool. Hazelnut oil is high in unsaturated fat and turns rancid noticeably faster than peanut butter does. It will separate in the fridge and firm up, so let the jar sit at room temperature for twenty minutes and stir the oil back through before you measure any out.

Related substitutes

More nuts & seeds substitutes

Hazelnut Butter substitute

Other hazelnut butter substitutes

2Almond Butter

3Cashew Butter

4Hazelnut Flour or Meal Blended With Oil

5Nutella or Another Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

6Natural Peanut Butter

7Sunflower Seed Butter