Nut flours are made by grinding nuts.
Nut butters are made by grinding nuts as well.
Do nut flours have the oil removed, or are they just ground a different way?
Nut Flour vs. Nut Butter – What is the Difference Between How Nut Flours and Nut Butters Are Made?
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Related Solutions
For raw, harder, and bulkier nuts like Almonds try a slightly lower temperature, say 180°C (350°F), and for a longer time
For re-roasting previously roasted nuts use a microwave oven (I know...). Same recipe, but just a few minutes on high. Watch them the first few times until you find the magic time limit before they start to burn
Commercially more and more people are using continuous microwave roasting machines, so using the microwave at home is so bad...
Personally, I like nuts aged in their shells before roasting
Nuts are much tastier when they are roasted. Dehydrating may be ok but it will not do the same thing for their flavor or texture.
Nuts have a lot of oil but there is not enough on their exterior for powders to stick to. Of course some of the powder would stick anyway- and with parmesan even more would when the cheese melted. If you are ok with a milder flavor and a lot of powder left in the bowl when you eat them then you could try to use less or no oil.
It is possible that you could make it work with some other liquid other than oil but oil tastes good and won't dry out. Additionally for spicy peanuts, capsaicin is soluble in fat so the oil will actually be intensified.
I don't know about an easier/less messy way because I don't consider this to be particularly difficult or messy. Just toss nuts with oil, then powder, spread on a pan and bake. Doesn't get much simpler than that.
Another alternative that has become popular is kettle roasted nuts.
The nuts are cooked in a large kettle with an agitator to keep them from settling and burning. Usually they also candied. The process is much stickier and flavorings adhere much better.
At home, oil popcorn poppers with agitators are available that can beautifully make kettle roasted nuts. Manual versions are sturdy and inexpensive.
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Best Answer
It is both, depending on what you understand under "nut flour".
The first kind of "nut flour" is something that may more precisely be called "nut meal" or "ground X" (where X stands for the nut, as in "ground almonds"). Nut meal is simply nuts reduced to small particles (larger than flour particles though) and is created by cutting up the nuts with bladed machines. You can make it at home in a food processor.
The second kind is true nut flour. It has finer particles, good water absorption, and behaves more like an actual flour in baking. For that product, they de-fat the nuts, and then I assume they actually grind them up instead of using a bladed machine. I am not entirely sure how these flours are produced, AFAIK there is no way to make them at home.
Nut butters are created by grinding in a mill, using actual shear force and not cutting, and may need adjusting the ingredients by adding more oil, but that depends on the nut, with e.g. peanuts grinding up nicely without needing extra fat.
I also suspect there may be a difference in water levels, with nut butters working better with fresh nuts, nut meals getting no special processing (but they do dry out quickly after grinding) and true nut flours probably needing a dehydration before they can work well. This is more of an intuition of mine, I don't know if producers actually have to do it that way.