Sunflower Seed Butter substitute

Best substitute

Pumpkin Seed Butter (Pepita Butter)

Use the same amount as the sunflower seed butter you are replacing

Best for school-safe sandwiches

Different taste

If you need it to stay nut-free, pumpkin seed butter is the closest swap at one for one, and soy nut butter is the next best and tastes even more like peanut butter. Tahini also swaps one for one and is in far more supermarkets, though it is thinner and more bitter, so whisk in a teaspoon of honey or sugar per quarter cup for anything sweet. If allergies are not the reason you are substituting, peanut or almond butter goes in one for one with no adjustment at all. What seed butter is doing in a recipe is supplying fat, protein and binding, plus a nutty background flavour, and in energy balls and cookies it is largely what holds everything together, which is why swapping it for something thin or watery makes the mixture fall apart.

Other sunflower seed butter substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Tahini
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount plus 1 tsp honey or sugar per ¼ cup in sweet recipes
The most widely available seed butter by a long way, sitting in the world foods aisle of almost every supermarket.
What changes
Stir it thoroughly, because tahini separates more dramatically than most butters.
Best for
cookies and bars, energy balls, salad dressings and sauces, brownies, savoury recipes
Runnier and looser than sunbutter, so a dough or an energy ball mixture will be softer and may need an extra tablespoon of oats or flour to hold. It is also noticeably more bitter and much less sweet, which is delicious in a savoury sauce and needs correcting in a cookie. Important caveat: sesame is now a declared major allergen in the United States, so tahini is not a safe substitute if you are cooking for an allergy-restricted classroom.
3Soy Nut Butter
Different taste
Use the same amount
Made from roasted soybeans, sold under brand names in the peanut butter aisle, and specifically formulated as a peanut butter replacement, so the texture and sweetness are already tuned for it.
What changes
Best for
school-safe sandwiches, cookies, energy bars, satay-style sauces, anywhere peanut butter is wanted
The closest thing to peanut butter of anything here, in thickness, sweetness and creaminess, which means it also tastes less like sunbutter than sunbutter does. It behaves identically in baking. The obvious limitation is that soy is itself a common allergen, so it is not automatically safe in a nut-free setting, and it is worth checking your school's policy rather than assuming.
4Peanut Butter or Almond Butter
Different taste
Use the same amount
The obvious answer if you are only substituting because the jar is empty rather than because of an allergy.
What changes
Both behave identically in every recipe that calls for sunflower seed butter.
Best for
cookies and bars, energy balls, sandwiches, smoothies, sauces
Same thickness, same binding, same fat content, so nothing in the recipe changes. Peanut butter is sweeter and much more assertive, and almond butter is milder and slightly grainier and less sweet than sunbutter. A useful bonus is that neither turns your baking green, which sunflower seed butter does when it meets baking soda. Obviously these are not options wherever nuts are the reason for the substitution in the first place.
5Homemade Sunflower Seed Butter
Different texture
2 cups raw hulled sunflower seeds, toasted, plus ½ tsp salt and 1 to 2 tsp neutral oil, blended 10 to 15 minutes
Cheaper than the jar and not difficult, just slow.
What changes
Toast the seeds at 180C for eight minutes, cool slightly, then blend in a food processor, scraping down repeatedly and being patient through the crumbly stage until it suddenly turns creamy.
Best for
when the shops are out of stock, controlling sugar and salt, large-batch baking, school-safe cooking on a budget
The same product, and often better tasting because it is fresh, though it is grittier than commercial sunbutter, which is ground much finer than a home machine can manage. It also lacks the emulsifiers of the jarred kind, so it separates in the fridge and is looser at room temperature. The one thing that ruins a batch is impatience: it goes through a long dry crumbly phase that looks like failure and then comes together, so keep going.
6Coconut Butter
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount in baking, softened gently before use
Nut-free and seed-free, which makes it the option when both are off the table.
What changes
Warm the jar in a bowl of hot water so it is spoonable rather than solid before measuring.
Best for
no-bake bars and energy balls, cookies, frostings, nut-free and seed-free baking
It binds well and adds plenty of richness, but it is a very different ingredient and you should expect that. Coconut butter is much sweeter, unmistakably coconut, and it sets hard in the fridge because coconut fat is solid at cool temperatures, so no-bake bars made with it come out firm and snappy rather than chewy. It also has very little protein, so if the seed butter was there for nutrition as well as texture, this does not replace that.
7Mashed Banana or Date Paste With a Spoonful of Oil
Taste and texture differ
Use ½ cup mashed banana or date paste plus 1 tbsp neutral oil for every ½ cup seed butter
The last resort when you have no seed or nut butter of any kind, and it is worth being honest that it is a compromise rather than a substitution.
What changes
Best in no-bake energy balls and soft baked goods rather than cookies that need to hold a shape.
Best for
no-bake energy balls, soft muffins and quick breads, oatmeal and smoothies, allergy-restricted baking with multiple exclusions
It supplies moisture and enough stickiness to bind, and the oil covers some of the fat, but it brings no protein and no nutty flavour and a lot of sweetness. Energy balls made this way are noticeably softer and will not firm up the way seed butter ones do, so chill them and eat them within a couple of days. Cookies will spread more and bake flatter, so add two extra tablespoons of oats or flour to compensate.

What is Sunflower Seed Butter?

Sunflower Seed Butter is Sunflower seed butter, often called sunbutter or sunflower butter, is a smooth spread made from ground roasted sunflower seeds, used as a nut-free stand-in for peanut butter in sandwiches, baking and energy bars.

Cooking tips

Sunflower seed butter turns baked goods green, and this is worth knowing before it happens to you rather than after. A compound in the seeds reacts with baking soda and produces a green or blue-green colour in the crumb, sometimes dramatically, over the hours after baking. It is completely harmless and tastes of nothing. If you would rather avoid it, use baking powder instead of soda, or add a teaspoon of lemon juice or a spoonful of yogurt to acidify the batter.
Stir the jar properly before measuring, right down to the bottom. Natural sunbutter separates into a layer of oil over a dense paste, and a scoop taken from the top is mostly oil while a scoop from the bottom is mostly solids, which is why the same recipe made twice from the same jar can behave completely differently. Store it upside down between uses to make this easier.
Sunflower seed butter is looser and oilier than peanut butter, so recipes written for peanut butter often come out slightly wet. Hold back one to two tablespoons of any liquid in the recipe, or add an extra couple of tablespoons of oats or flour, and the dough will behave the way the recipe intended.
Check whether your jar is sweetened. Some sunbutter is made with just seeds and salt and some contains a noticeable amount of added sugar, and a cup of the sweetened kind in a cookie recipe makes a distinctly sweeter cookie. Taste a spoonful before you bake and adjust the sugar accordingly.
It goes rancid faster than peanut butter, because sunflower oil is high in polyunsaturated fat. Once opened, keep it in the fridge, where it thickens but keeps for months, and taste it before using an older jar. Rancid seed butter tastes sharp and faintly of paint and will spoil everything you put it in.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best nut-free substitute for sunflower seed butter?

Pumpkin seed butter, at one for one, which is the same thickness and binds the same way, with the caveats that it is dark green and less sweet, so add a little sugar in sweet recipes. Soy nut butter is arguably closer in taste and texture but soy is itself a common allergen. Tahini is the most available but sesame is now treated as a major allergen in the United States, so if you are baking for a school with an allergy policy, check what is actually permitted rather than assuming a seed butter is automatically safe.

Can I use tahini instead of sunbutter in cookies?

Yes, one for one, with two adjustments. Whisk a teaspoon of honey or sugar into each quarter cup, because tahini is markedly more bitter and less sweet than sunbutter and cookies made with it straight taste oddly savoury. And add an extra tablespoon or two of flour, because tahini is runnier so the dough spreads more in the oven. Tahini cookies made this way are genuinely good, with a slightly grown-up sesame bitterness against the sugar.

Why did my sunbutter cookies turn green?

A harmless reaction between chlorogenic acid in the sunflower seeds and the baking soda in your recipe, which produces a green tint over the hours after baking. It affects colour only, not safety or flavour, and it is a well-documented quirk of baking with sunflower seeds and sunflower seed butter. To prevent it, replace the baking soda with baking powder, or add about a teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar to the batter to make it slightly acidic.

Can I just leave the seed butter out?

Usually not, because in most recipes calling for it, the seed butter is structural rather than decorative. In energy balls and no-bake bars it is the glue holding everything together, and in cookies it contributes a large share of the fat, so removing it gives you either a crumbling mixture or a dry cookie. If you have none of the substitutes above, the closest workaround is mashed banana or date paste plus a tablespoon of oil, accepting a softer, sweeter result with much less protein.

Is sunflower seed butter the same as SunButter?

SunButter is a brand name that has become the common word for the product, in the same way people say hoover for a vacuum cleaner, so a recipe calling for SunButter simply means sunflower seed butter and any brand works. Recipes may also call it sunflower butter or sunbutter as a generic term. The one thing that varies between brands is added sugar and salt, which is worth checking on the label if a recipe seems to come out sweeter or saltier than expected.

Related substitutes

More nuts & seeds substitutes

Sunflower Seed Butter substitute

Other sunflower seed butter substitutes

2Tahini

3Soy Nut Butter

4Peanut Butter or Almond Butter

5Homemade Sunflower Seed Butter

6Coconut Butter

7Mashed Banana or Date Paste With a Spoonful of Oil