All products featured on Bon Appétit are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
These days seed and nut butters abound. Of course, peanut butter still gets top billing in the US, but a walk through your local grocery store will reveal enormous variety—almond butter, cashew butter, pecan butter, pistachio butter, pumpkin seed butter. They’ve even recast granola as a spread.
One often-unsung hero of this spreadable cohort is sunflower seed butter. The first commercial versions of sunflower butter were introduced in the 1980s, but consumers found their bitter taste and greenish color off-putting.
Fast forward to the early 2000s, when peanut allergies were quickly becoming more common among adolescents. The USDA entered into an agreement with Red River Commodities (a US-based producer of sunflower seeds) to develop a new sunflower butter that resembled “the flavor, texture, and appearance of commercially available peanut butter.” Sunflower seed butter, developers reasoned, would be a profitable use for a domestic crop while serving as an allergen-free alternative to peanut butter. With a modified roasting process, which decreased bitterness and bumped up the toasty flavors, plus very tight color specifications, sunflower butter was reborn.
SunButter, the final product of the collaboration between the USDA and Red River Commodities, was once just about the only sunflower butter you could find—unless you made it yourself. Today sunflower seed butter is growing in popularity, and several competitors have entered the market. It’s a solid nutritional stand-in for peanut butter, with more vitamin E and less saturated fat. It’s also more environmentally friendly than some nut butters, like almond butter, which requires massive amounts of water to produce. Some sunflower butter brands are widely available, while others are strictly DTC, but can any of them stand up to SunButter, the sunflower butter pioneer? We put 10 jars to the test to find the absolute best sunflower seed butter game in town.
How we picked the products
SunButter is arguably the most well-known brand and the easiest to find in stores. And for many people, the brand itself is synonymous with the product—like Xerox for copies or Kleenex for tissues. For that reason, we decided to taste almost every variety of sunflower butter SunButter makes: original, creamy, crunchy, no sugar added, and organic. We skipped the chocolate this time around.
We also asked Bon Appétit staffers for recommendations and combed the internet to find as many direct-to-consumer brands as we could. We passed on brands like SunFly, which, as of printing, is only available overseas, but put in orders for sunflower butter from places like Thrive Market and karmalize.me, which ship to your door. We also included as many supermarket brands as we could get our hands on.
How we set up our blind taste test
To get a well-rounded sense of how each sunflower butter tasted, we sampled each contender on its own, as well as spread onto whole wheat toast points.
Similar to natural peanut butter, some sunflower seed butters will separate as they sit. Some samples on our tasting list contained stabilizers and remained perfectly smooth throughout the tasting. We vigorously stirred any that didn’t to reincorporate the oil before spreading and sampling.
How our editors evaluated
A great sunflower butter starts with a warm, roasted seed flavor. Our tasters said their ideal sunflower butter would have a similar savory nuttiness to peanut butter—though, realistically, no one expected an exact dupe. They hoped for minimal bitterness and a dose of salt to punch up its flavor.
We tested both sweetened and unsweetened sunflower butters for this taste test. When it came to the former, tasters said they wouldn’t mind a bit of honey, cane sugar, or a similar natural sweetener as long as it didn’t render the spread saccharine.
Texture was also important. First and foremost, our tasters said there should be no grittiness or bitsy pieces to get stuck in their teeth. For creamy sunflower butter, they wanted a consistency that was easily spreadable but not too runny. For crunchy sunflower butter (there was only one on the list), they wanted the seeds to have some real bite, not to be too squishy or soft.
The Hands-Down Favorite: SunButter Crunchy
Like many sunflower butters on the market, SunButter’s crunchy option (formerly called SunButter Natural Crunch) has few ingredients—just sunflower seeds, sugar, and salt. This means a straightforward sunflower seed flavor, and ensures the jarred product is free from as many common allergens as possible (soy, peanuts, tree nuts, and their friends). In fact, making sure sunflower butter is allergen-free is written into the USDA requirements: “No peanut or tree nut products shall be near or around sunflower seeds used in the manufacture of this product (must be manufactured in peanut/tree nut–free facility),” it reads.
Why it won us over: Tasting through our roster of sunflower butters, it wasn’t difficult to determine our favorites.. Senior cooking and SEO editor Joe Sevier enjoyed this one’s roasty “toastiness,” and others complimented its savory flavor, seasoned with just enough salt—plus enough sugar for balance but not overt sweetness. This offering from SunButter delivered on taste and had a distinctively crunchy texture from whole roasted sunflower seeds in each bite. Our tasters noted the seeds distributed throughout this sunflower butter made it feel like a complete snack, like something you might sneak a quick spoonful of during a midafternoon break.
We’d love it in: Crunchy Power Butter, where sunflower seeds double down on crunch with pumpkin, sesame, and chia seeds in place of almond butter. Or, swapped for the PB in Chocolaty No-Bake Cookies.
The Peanut Butter Dupe: SunButter Creamy
Same brand, similar ingredients. SunButter’s creamy sunflower butter also features roasted sunflower seeds, sugar, and salt, but there’s one notable addition: mono and diglycerides, emulsifiers that help prevent the seed oil from separating and drifting to the top of the jar. That means no arduous stirring to reincorporate it.
Why it won us over: If nouveau sunflower butter was developed to closely mimic peanut butter, SunButter’s creamy version comes about as close to it as possible. Whereas most sunflower butters are liquid enough to pour out of their jars, SunButter’s creamy seed butter requires the same scooping and spreading as peanut butter. Senior service editor Kelsey Youngman thought most kids wouldn’t be able to differentiate this spread, which lacked any bitterness and had a satisfying nutty flavor, from store-bought peanut butter. Taking a second taste, editorial operations manager Kate Kassin declared: “This is Skippy.”
We’d love it in: Any recipe where you need peanut butter to take a hike, like Peanut Butter and Jelly Oatmeal or Salted PB&J Ice Cream Pie.
The Roastiest Toastiest: SunButter No Sugar Added
At this point, I must state for the record that our taste test was not sponsored by the SunButter company, its parent company, or the USDA. We independently picked these products because they tasted best! (Yes, SunButter was heavily represented in our lineup, but this reflects their availability and abundance on supermarket shelves.)
SunButter’s no-sugar-added spread is made with just two ingredients—roasted sunflower seeds and salt. Without any sugar, we’re relying completely on well-roasted sunflower seeds for flavor. Any mistakes while roasting can result in a marked bitter flavor.
Why it won us over: Our panel immediately responded to the robust nuttiness of this sunflower butter. With a savory kick of salt and no sweetness to mask it, this spread, above all, tasted distinctly of sunflower seeds. Its flavors evoked a kind of nostalgia—like eating sunflower seeds on a sunny day at the ballpark—but also boasted a sophisticated richness the other butters lacked. In fact, this sunflower butter almost leans into the sunflower seed’s delicate bitterness, making it a highlight of this spread.
We’d love it in: A recipe where its savory side can soar, like Summer Roll Rice Noodles, or substituted into Easy Peanut Noodles with toasted sunflower seeds swapped in for the peanuts.
Karmalize.Me Organic Sunflower Seed Butter: Although Karmalize. Me’s sunflower butter had a slightly grainy texture, tasters flipped for its superb flavor. Sweetened with palm sugar and juiced up with vanilla and cinnamon, it’s a great snacking sunflower butter for anyone with a sweet tooth. BUY IT: Karmalize.Me Organic Sunflower Seed Butter; $7 for a 6-oz. jar
- 88 Acres Sunflower Seed Butter: With a grey color and a somewhat sludgy texture, 88 Acres was outshone in our taste test.
- Once Again Creamy Sunflower Seed Butter: A reliable brand for peanut butter. This seed butter had a nice smooth texture but the flavor was slightly off.
- SunButter Organic Sunflower Seed Butter: Some tasters declared this seed butter middle-of-the-road; others detected a less-than-pleasant sour flavor. All agreed other contenders had better showings.
- SunButter Original Sunflower Seed Butter: A persistent sweetness overpowered the driving nutty flavors we wanted in our sunflower seed butter.
Thrive Market Organic Creamy Sunflower Butter: Tasters reported an acrid flavor rather than the caramelized nuttiness they were after. - Trader Joe’s Sunflower Seed Butter: Generally positive reviews here—tasters compared it to commercial peanut butter—though some declared it simply too sweet to enjoy past a few bites.