Cooking with cannabis is becoming more popular as more states loosen restrictions on medical marijuana. Though it’s possible to put cannabis directly into your cooking, it won’t mix properly, especially if there isn’t much fat in the recipe.
Leafwell has two tried and tested recipes for you to make your own cannabis oil and cannabis butter at home. They’re quick, easy and produce great products. Once you’ve made your canna oil or cannabutter, store it in the fridge to extend the shelf life. We’ve also included recipe downloads so you can come back time and again to create more canna oil and cannabutter.
Remember, the best way to legally purchase high quality marijuana to make your canna oil or cannabutter is with a medical card.
Should I Make Canna Oil or Cannabutter?
As cannabinoids dissolve easily in fats, cannabis can be infused into a butter or oil (usually olive oil or coconut oil due to their high smoke points, bioavailability, and health benefits) to be used as an ingredient for whenever a medicated edible is wanted.
Oils are more versatile than butter, as butter is usually restricted to be used for cooking, whereas cannabis-infused oil can be used as a topical.
Butter is best for people who are looking to bake cakes and those famous pot brownies.
Remember: you do not necessarily have to get “high” or “stoned.” For many medical cannabis users, the ideal is a therapeutic amount, meaning that they are functional and the psychoactive effects are not overwhelming.
There are two main approaches to making edibles. One is to make edibles as concentrated and packed full of cannabis as possible, as this can ensure that there is cannabis throughout your edible. This means you can eat a small amount and be guaranteed of an effect.
The second approach is to find your “cannabis sweet spot”. This means infusing your ideal amount of cannabis into your oil or butter. One of the problems with edibles is that people sometimes do not know when to stop and can easily eat too much. On the other hand, this makes it difficult to gauge efficacy, and you may end up eating a larger amount to get the desired effect.
One of the best things about the marijuana plant is its versatility in consumption. With cannabis oil and cannabis butter, the possibilities are endless! You can make your own edibles and bake all kinds of treats, just like you would with standard butter or oil.
Dosing for Marijuana Oil
You will need to adjust the amount of cannabis used to make butter depending on the potency of the plant and what parts of it you are using. Check out the Dosing Dilemmas page for additional information on how to determine dosing in your cannabis butter and edibles.
For this article and others on this website, I’ve listed the amounts I use to test the recipes for this blog as well as those in The Easy Cannabis Cookbook. You can and should alter the suggested amounts to meet your needs, but these will give you a starting guideline.
For the base dose calculations for recipes on this site, I am assuming you are using 14 grams of 10%THC cannabis to make 1 cup of oil.
If that sounds confusing to you, no worries, I have a FREE online dosing class that explains all. Sign up here. And if you don’t like doing math, my invaluable Dosing Calculators (the best $5.00 you’ll ever spend) do all the math for you, calculate the per serving dose of your homemade edibles (even if you are not using lab-tested cannabis), and make it simple to adjust dosages to your needs before you make your edibles. No more dosing surprises.
To Make About 1 Cup Marijuana Oil at the dose tested on this site (see links above to adjust for YOUR NEEDS):
- 1 1/4 cups edible oil of your choice
- 1/2 ounce (14 grams) average quality decarboxylated dried bud
Foolproof Methods for Making Cannabis Oil
There are many roads that will bring you to the same destination. Likewise, there are even more ways than what is listed below to make marijuana oil.
When it comes to gadgets, you don’t need any. But if you want one, the only gadget I personally recommend is the Ardent Nova or Ardent FX. These invaluable tools perfectly decarboxylate your cannabis and make infusions like marijuana butter, oil, honey, etc. Yes, there are other marijuana butter making kitchen machines out there, but in my opinion they have design or functionality flaws that them undesirable. I do love my Ardent Nova and Ardent FX though and when cooking for myself they are always the method I use these days as it’s just so easy.
More help with Cannabis Oil and other Marijuana Infusions
My comprehensive online course Easy Cannabis Cooking for Home Cooks has a large module that includes detailed lessons and demonstrations on marijuana butter, oil, honey, dairy products, sugar, and tinctures.
Odor Reducing Tips When Making Marijuana Oil
Depending on how you make it, creating marijuana oil can be quite fragrant. Stovetop and even some slow cooker methods are NOT DISCREET!
What can you do if you prefer NOT to broadcast your cannabis cooking activities to the entire neighborhood? Relax, here are a few suggestions.
One option that a lot of people already own is to use an Instant Pot or other multicooker set to the slow cooker setting. No odor until you open the lid. If you don’t already own an Instant Pot, you’ll want one even for noncannabis cooking as it can work as a slow cooker, pressure cooker, rice cooker, yogurt maker, and more. But they are also terrific for making odor-free marijuana butter and oil.
Another option is by Hamilton Beach, who makes a line of slow cookers (pictured above) that are great for reducing cooking odors when making marijuana butter or oil. I am sure the fine folks at Hamilton Beach did not design the Stay and Go Slow Cooker for this specific purpose, but nonetheless they work great. That’s because it has a rubber gasket on the lid and a clamp you can use to keep the slow cooker tightly closed.
People going to pot luck suppers (no, not necessarily the kinds with cannabis) love this feature as you can transport food in the slow cooker without it sloshing over. But for cannabis cooks its beauty is in the fact that you will hardly smell the odor of simmering marijuana when infusing butter or oil. At least not until you open the lid. I discovered this quite by accident, but it works. The Stay and Go Slow Cooker is also a quality product to use when making non-cannabis infused meals.
If you like to make small batches of marijuana oil, consider investing in the Ardent Lift Decarboxylator picture below) or its big brother the FX. Not only do these special cannabis cooking gadgets take all the guesswork out of decarboxylation, you can actually make small batches of infusions right in them.
And as of 2020 Ardent came out with the Nova’s big brother the FX, which is capable of infusing much larger batches than their original Nova, so if you like to make larger batches you will want the FX, if you make small amounts of butter at once, either one will do.
I’ve been thinking about making some brownies recently and have found that I am faced with a choice, to make canna oil or cannabutter. What is the difference between the two and which do you guys recommend? Also which one is less smelly during preperation? I’ll have about 2-3g to work with depending on how much I smoke, so I’d also appreciate it if someone could point me to some good recipes for oil/butter and maybe also a brownie recipe, I’ve found a few but they all seem to deal with ounces of bud.
You could use three grams and make half a cup of oil to make some brownies. I find that the cannabinoids bind better to the oil over butter. Also, from my experiences oil also smells more pungent. I’ve used an eighth to make brownies before and find they work pretty decently.
I’m no edible expert, but I would say make what the recipe calls for. If you’re making cookies and it calls for a stick of butter, use a stick of butter. If you’re making brownies and it calls for half cup of oil, make a half cup of oil.
You’re better off making something like firecrackers. The recommended dosage is one ounce per cup and even if you only use a 1/3rd of a cup you’re still using x3 less than the recommended dosage. It’s no fun needing to eat an entire tray of brownies to feel something.