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Crema al Pistacchio is the most delicious Italian Pistachio Cream made with pistachios, white chocolate and milk. Use it as a filling for doughnuts, pastries and cakes or simply spread it on bread or toast. Super quick and easy!
Crema al Pistacchio is a popular and decadent Italian spread that’s sweet, creamy and insanely delicious.
You can use it pretty much how you would Nutella, spread it on toast or bread, fold it into cream to fill desserts, cakes or pastries or simply grab a spoon and dig in!
Better yet, it’s super quick and easy to make and will keep well in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. See our full step by step recipe below including photos, tips and video, enjoy!
Ingredients – what you need
See the photo below that shows you everything you need to make this recipe plus some important tips on ingredients!
Pin this now to find it later
Pin It- Pistachios – make sure you use unsalted pistachios. You can either buy pre-shelled or shell them yourself both work just as well.
- Milk – whole milk will give you the best creamy flavour but you can use half fat if that’s all you have.
- Butter – make sure to use unsalted.
- White chocolate – use a good quality white chocolate for best flavour.
- Powdered sugar – I only use 1 tbsp of powdered sugar (icing sugar) since a lot of sweetness comes from the white chocolate but feel free to add more to taste.
Step by step photos and recipe instructions
Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil and add the shelled pistachios. Let them boil for 4 minutes then drain them and place them on a clean kitchen towel (photo 1-3).
Fold the towel over and rub the pistachios in the towel to loosen the skins. Separate the pistachios for the skins and discard them (photo 3 & 4).
Add the pistachios to a food processor with only 1/4 cup (60ml) of the milk and 1 tbsp of powdered sugar. Blitz for around 5 minutes until the pistachios turn into a smooth paste. You’ll need to stop the processor 3-4 times to scrape down the sides. You’ll notice the pistachio turn into crumbs first then it should form into a ball when it’s reached the paste stage (photo 5 & 6).
Put the remaining milk, butter and white chocolate in a clean saucepan and heat on a low heat until melted, set aside (photo 7 & 8).
Transfer the pistachio paste to a blender and pour in the white chocolate mixture. Blitz until extra smooth and creamy (you can adjust the consistency with more milk if desired (there’s no need to heat the milk up first) (photos 9-12).
The pistachio cream will keep well in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. See notes for delicious ways to use it.
Ways to use it
Pistachio cream can be used in so many different ways. Mix it with pastry cream (Crema Pasticcera) and use it to fill Italian doughnuts (Bomboloni), mix it with ricotta and use it to fill homemade cannoli or mix it with mascarpone and use it to fill cakes.
You can also use it to make pistachio ice cream (my absolute favourite flavour), spread it on toast or even eat it by the spoon…it’s that delicious!
Recipe tips and FAQs
- Peel the skins – you’ll notice that shelled pistachios have brown skin over all of part of the outside. If you don’t peel the pistachios the skins will cause the cream to be slightly gritty with black/brown flecks.
- Boiling the pistachios – boiling makes it super easy to remove the skins but also soften the pistachios slightly making it really quick and easy to get a smooth consistency.
It’ll keep well (covered) in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. The top will become darker but just give it a mix. If it’s thickened too much you can add it back to the blender with a splash of milk to loosen.
You can use just the food processor if you like but you won’t achieve the extra smooth and creamy consistency (unless you have a high power blender). The blender really helps with this but it’s optional.
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Step By Step Photos Above
Most of our recipes come with step by step photos, helpful tips and tricks to make it perfectly first time and even video!
Italian Pistachio Cream (Crema al Pistacchio)
Ingredients
- 1 heaped cup shelled unsalted raw pistachios, (150g)
- 3/4 cup whole milk, (180ml)
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, (30g)
- 3.5 oz white chocolate, (100g/about 1 cup)
- 1 tbsp powdered sugar, (icing sugar)
Instructions
- Bring a medium sized pot of water to a boil and add the shelled pistachios. Let them boil for 4 minutes then drain them and place them on a clean kitchen towel.
- Fold the towel over and rub the pistachios in the towel to loosen the skins. Separate the pistachios for the skins and discard them.
- Add the pistachios to a food processor with only 1/4 cup (60ml) of the milk and 1 tbsp of powdered sugar. Blitz for around 5 minutes until the pistachios turn into a smooth paste. You’ll need to stop the processor 3-4 times to scrape down the sides. You’ll notice the pistachio turn into crumbs first then it should form into a ball when it’s reached the paste stage.
- Put the remaining milk (1/2 cup/120ml), butter and white chocolate in a clean saucepan and heat on a low heat until melted, set aside.
- Transfer the pistachio paste to a blender and pour in the white chocolate mixture. Blitz until extra smooth and creamy (you can adjust the consistency with more milk if desired (there’s no need to heat the milk up first).
- The pistachio cream will keep well in the fridge for 2 weeks. See notes for delicious ways to use it.
Video
Notes
- Peel the skins – you’ll noticed that shelled pistachios have a brown skin over all of part of the outside. If you don’t peel the pistachios the skins will cause the cream to be slightly gritty with black/brown flecks.
- How long does it last? It’ll keep well (covered) in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. The top will become darker but just give it a mix. If it’s thickened too much you can add it back to the blender with a splash of milk to loosen.
Helpful Info for All Recipes
- I always use extra virgin olive oil in all of my recipes unless stated otherwise
- When I use canned or jarred tomatoes of any kind I always use Cirio or Mutti brands for the best results and flavour.
- All vegetables are medium sized unless stated otherwise
- All recipes are tested and developed using a fan (convection) oven
- Find out more about how nutrition is calculated.
- Check out our must have Italian Pantry Staples.
- You can also find all our Essential Kitchen Tools for Italian Cooking.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
If you want it to be creamy add less milk
Mine is great but is not like a paste, more like less creamy honey. Nevertheless it hits my taste buds so hard. I feel the 5 pounds i will gain lol.
The flavor is good and the texture is smooth, but mine came out quite soupy. Next time,e I will add the milk and chocolate mixture more slowly to asses the consistency before adding too much liquid.
This recipe was excellent. The flavor and consistency was great . Perfect on toast and in other desserts. Highly recommend.
Good but my turned out more soupy than a cream.
It is super tasty but mine did not come out great. Mine was extremely gritty even though I peeled the skins off. Lastly mine came out extremely runny and wouldn’t thicken up for anything. Lastly it’s extremely time consuming, be careful because I just about broke my food processor trying to get that paste done. It’s really tasty though!
I think the consistency really depends on your food processor. I switch to a blender to get it extra smooth which really helps.
Will using salted pistachios make a big difference? I can only find unshelled pistachios that are salted. Will giving them an extras wash help compensate?
Ciao! yes, give them a rinse in a bowl of cold water first to remove as much salt as possible and they should be fine 🙂
I want to use this as filling for a layer cake. I saw an earlier comment about mixing it with pastry cream. Is there anything else you would recommend mixing it with to make it more stable?
Hi Taylor, you can use mascarpone 🙂
I made this and got the consistency right but it was a grainy texture. How do I get rid of that?
Hi Teshin, it all depends on your blender, you might just need to keep blending for a little longer to get it extra smooth.
I tried it again with a different blender (one I use for smoothies) and added some extra white chocolate (1.5 bars) and oh my goodness it’s smooth, creamy and delicious!! Not too sweet either. Perfect recipe. I turned my first batch into pistachio ice cream because it was too grainy to be a spread. The ice cream is delicious too!
Delicious and easy! I used roasted pistachios so didn’t boil them first and it still turned out fine. Letting you know, too, that DruTubeKitchen on YouTube made a short of the process and copied your recipe instructions word for word. Hope he gave you credit for this.