High Protein Chocolate Peanut Butter Recipe: Make Your Own Nut Butter

As I placed a spoon in the sink in favor of a more suitable peanut butter jar scraping tool, the rubber spatula, I realized I was treading murky waters. Maybe you’ve been there, too. That point where you simply can’t stop eating peanut butter. It’s just fantastic. And don’t even get me started on chocolate peanut butter. I mean, I would do shameful things in exchange for Reese’s, the dark chocolate dreams flavor from Peanut Butter & Co., or even Nutella. And Nutella doesn’t qualify as peanut butter!

Alas, chocolate peanut butter isn’t making a low-calorie foods list anytime soon. Even the lowest calorie versions contain around 200 calories per 2 tablespoons. And who stops at 2 tablespoons? Not this guy.

So, back to my story. As I spatula’d the remains of a peanut butter jar into my mouth with what may or may not have been additional dark chocolate chips, I knew I had to try to make a more macro friendly version of chocolate peanut butter. It’s simple enough, as you can just ground peanuts and salt together for a basic (ew) version of peanut butter. The good stuff, however, has some type of oil source and a sweetener of some kind. That’s where I come in.

High Protein Chocolate Peanut Butter Ingredients

As promised, this recipe is super simple. Other than peanuts (or any nut), you’ll need protein powder, cocoa (unless you use chocolate protein), and an oil source. To reduce calories and sweeten things up a bit, the recipe calls for unsweetened apple sauce. If you’ve tried a recipe like my Christmas Cake Donuts, you know that apple sauce works great as a butter substitute. That said, you could use something like light butter or even a bit of coconut oil if you wanted more fat.

Since peanuts are one of the most allergy-prone foods out there, you may be wondering if this recipe works with other nuts. Yes, you should be able to use any nut you like, but I can’t speak for the amount used. Some may require a bit more apple sauce or oil source to achieve a butter texture. I like peanuts because they’re cheap, readily available, and they taste great in peanut butter.

And don’t worry about the health benefits of other nuts — that’s food marketers at work.

The graphic above also brings up another great point about this recipe. We’ll be cutting the fat content in half and saving 70 calories per 2 tablespoons. That will go a long way when you get spoon-happy with this stuff!

Best Protein Powder for Recipes

You can use any protein you’d like, but I recommend Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey and/or Dymatize’s Whey or Elite XT blended protein. They’re reputable brands that have been around forever. You’ll notice I use vanilla in the recipe and add my own cocoa. That’s just personal preference as I find it to give a more natural chocolate flavor than using a chocolate protein powder.

The macros are with Gold Standard Whey. 

If you’d like to learn more about the different types of whey protein and how to find the best value for protein, read this article.

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