Nasturtium Vegan Butter 🧈

Years ago, I was at an afternoon birthday party for a friend. The party was crawling with the who’s who of the SF bay area food scene: floor managers, chefs, sommeliers. I got to talking with the incredible Niki Ford, who at the time was cooking at Chez Panisse. Usually when speaking with chefs, the conversation falls flat when I ‘come out’ as gluten free -- but not with Niki . . . they were curious, actually curious about how I cooked and what I ate! One thing we couldn’t wrap our heads around was how to make vegan butter. It just seemed like some chemically industrial magic that couldn’t be repeated at home with natural ingredients. That couldn’t have been further from the truth!

Here is a version of vegan butter that includes edible nasturtium flowers from my local farmers market!

INGREDIENTS 

• 1 cup refined coconut oil, melted and cooled to room temp
• 1 cup fresh nasturtium flowers (or mixed edible flowers)
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• ⅓ cup vegan milk, I used homemade cashew milk
• 2 TBS roasted cashews
• Pinch of turmeric powder
• Salt to taste

METHOD

1. Add lemon juice, vegan milk, cashews, turmeric, salt and edible flowers to the blender and blend until smooth
2. Once the mixture is smooth, turn the blender up and slowly pour the coconut oil in until its fully incorporated and thickens up
3. Scoop the mixture into a jar and refrigerate until it sets. Then its ready to use! Store in the fridge.

YIELD 

1 cup

EQUIPMENT 

Blender, 8oz Jar