What is compound butter?
Compound butter is the more official term for what we regular folks would call flavored butter. For example, chances are that you’ve heard of this wonderful thing called “garlic butter”? Well, that’s just butter that’s flavored with garlic and is one of the most basic forms of compound butter.
And once you dive into the world of compound butter you will quickly learn that it doesn’t end with garlic butter. In fact, you can make compound butter that matches the flavor profiles of just about any dish and or cuisine. Want to make a dish more Italian? Then try using a tomato basil butter. Looking to make your morning toast a little bit sweet? Then how about spreading some cinnamon honey butter on it? Or if you’re hankering for foods with some southwest flavor then get out that chipotle cilantro butter and go to town.
Either way, compound butter is a great accompaniment for many things, whether it be dinner rolls, grilled meat, pasta, you name it.
How to make compound butter?
For the novice cook, the idea of making your own compound butter might sound difficult. However, once you learn how to make it you will quickly find that compound butter is one of the easiest things you can add to your cooking repertoire.
For starters, you begin with a very simple list of ingredients. Basically, it’s just composed of butter that’s been softened to room temperature, and whatever ingredients you want to add to it. Then in order to make the compound butter, you simply add these ingredients to a bowl and mix them together.
That’s all there is to it.
Wait, Mr. Jensen, that’s it?
Yes, anonymous student that I just made up, that’s really it!
How to package & store compound butter?
Now unless you plan on using your freshly made compound butter immediately, chances are you will need to package & store it. And in general, there are two ways one can do this depending on what method works best for you.
The first method, and probably the most common way of packaging the butter is to roll it up into logs. To do this you will first need either some parchment paper or what I recommend, some plastic wrap. Simply lay a sheet of this out on your kitchen counter, and then place the compound butter on top of this in a line.
Then use the parchment paper/plastic wrap to roll the butter up into a log and twist off the ends.
This method will not only produce nice pretty logs of butter that you can display for parties, but it also makes it quite easy to cut and measure out the butter as needed in recipes.
The other method, and if I’m being honest the one that I tend to use is to simply pour the compound butter into a Tupperware container. That’s it, a lot easier right?!
Once you have your butter packaged in one of these two manners you can store it in two different ways. First, you can return the butter to the fridge which will make the compound butter last as long as the printed date on the butter package. Or you can freeze the compound butter which will generally allow it to last 6 to 9 months, just make sure to defrost it in your refrigerator before using.
Compound butter recipes
Now, of course, I wasn’t going to give you folks all of this talk about compound butter without gifting you some recipe ideas. So listed below are 8 recipes for some of my favorite compound butter combinations.
Garlic butter
1 Stick of salted butter, softened
2 to 3 Cloves of garlic minced, or about a tablespoon
Tip: Try roasting the garlic in your oven for more flavor
What I like to use this butter for: Garlic toast, or for putting on barbeque chicken prior to adding the barbeque sauce
Paprika rosemary butter
1 Stick of salted butter, softened
1 Tablespoon of fresh rosemary, minced
1 Teaspoon of smoked paprika
What I like to use this butter for: This butter is great for finishing grilled pork chops
Maitre d’hotel butter
1 Stick of salted butter, softened
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
1 Teaspoon of lemon juice
½ Teaspoon of crushed black pepper
What I like to use this butter for: This butter is traditionally used for grilled steaks, however, I think it’s also great on fish.
South West butter
1 Stick of salted butter, softened
2 Tablespoons of chipotle pepper in adobo, minced
1 Tablespoon of fresh cilantro, minced
1 Teaspoon of lime juice
½ Teaspoon of ground cumin
Tip: Remove the seeds from the chipotle peppers if you don’t like spicy foods, however, if you crave spicy foods like me then leave it in.
What I like to use this butter for: This butter is great for finishing grilled chicken and shrimp
Herb butter
1 Stick of salted butter, softened
1 Teaspoon of fresh rosemary, minced
1 Teaspoon of fresh oregano, minced
1 Teaspoon of fresh sage, minced
¼ Teaspoon of ground nutmeg
What I like to use this butter for: This butter is great for spreading on dinner rolls, and I also like to use it for basting a roasted chicken.
Tomato basil butter
1 Stick of salted butter, softened
2 Tablespoons of sun-dried tomatoes, minced
1 Tablespoon of fresh basil, chiffonaded
What I like to use this butter for: This butter is great on slices of crunchy bread, or for adding flavor to some angel hair pasta.
Blueberry maple butter
1 Stick of unsalted butter, softened
2 Tablespoons of blueberries, mashed
1 Tablespoon of maple syrup
Tip: to mash the blueberries simply place them in a bowl and press down on them with a fork.
What I like to use this butter for: This butter is great on sweet breakfast dishes such as pancakes and French toast.
Cinnamon honey butter
1 Stick of unsalted butter, softened
1 Teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 Tablespoon of honey
What I like to use this butter for: This butter is great when spread on some toast to make quick cinnamon toast.
What to learn more about compound butter? Then check out these links from other blogs
From The Better Fish
From The Foodie Crush
From The Pioneer Woman
