Sweet & Savory Compound Butters

With under 5 MINUTES of hands-on time these Compound Butters are the perfect way to keep the flavors of summer going all year long. Slather the sweet fruit flavors on waffles, pancakes, or English muffins. Use the savory flavors to add a bright pop to chicken, steak, or bread. Every flavor is equally delicious!

Compound butters are the fancy way of saying butter that has been flavored. We all know the top two flavored butters...savory garlic butter and sweet honey butter. A slather of either one on bread and the whole experience has changed. Those are a good start, but today we're giving you a whole list of other flavor options.

Skip to:

• Why they're great!
• Ingredients for compound butter
• Helpful kitchen tools
• How to make compound butter
• How to use flavored butter
• Tips and tricks
• FAQs
• Try them with these recipes
• Recipe
• Comments

Why they're great!

• Compound butters make boring food exciting! Whole wheat toast is instantly delicious and your steak has never been better.
• These carry the fresh flavors of summer all year long. Plus it can use up odds and ends that are wasting away in the fridge, like little bits of berries, or the fresh herbs in your garden.
• These only take 5 minutes, a stick of butter, and any flavorings you can grab from the fridge. So easy!

Ingredients for compound butter

• Butter: Ok folks, so only real butter will work here. I use salted but feel free to use unsalted and add a pinch of salt yourself.
• Powdered sugar: Sweetens the berry ones without being overly sweet or leaving behind a granular texture.
• Berries: All the predictable culprits will work. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. Choose ones that are perfectly ripe and have a deep flavor. Bland berries don't work out so well. Fresh is preferred but if you don't have any you may use frozen. Just thaw and drain them first.
• Citrus: Something about citrus in the butter is the perfect marriage. Fresh, non-bottled citrus is sooo worth it.
• Garlic: The savory butters feel like they are lacking something without a hint of garlic. I use pre-minced garlic in the jar, but please feel free to mince your own.
• Herbs: Fresh herbs!! Step out to the garden and pick some off the bush, or maybe you have a little bit left in the fridge from the store. Either will work, but dried just isn't the same.

How to make compound butter

1. Soften butter.
2. Whip until fluffy (approximately 30 seconds on medium).
3. Beat in flavorings for another 30 seconds on medium.
4. Wrap into a log and refrigerate or freeze until firm.

How to use flavored butter

It's really impossible to make an exhaustive list of ways to use compound butters. Here are some ideas to get you started, but feel free to leave us a note below with any ideas we missed.

Savory:

• Corn on the cob
• Salmon
• Steak
• Chicken
• Turkey
• Fish
• Pasta

Sweet:

• Pancakes
• Waffles
• French toast
• Toast
• English muffins
• Bagels

Tips and tricks

• Be careful to soften and not melt the butter.
• Use real butter as well as fresh herbs and citrus. It makes all the difference.
• For the best flavor make sure your herbs, berries, citrus, etc. are ripe and flavorful.

FAQs

Try them with these recipes

• These Famous Farm Pancakes are delicious on their own and sublime with a layer of berry flavored butter. Saturday can't get here soon enough!
• Try the Lemon, Garlic, Thyme compound butter on these Green Beans Almandine for an added burst of flavor. Just replace the butter in the recipe with equal amounts of the flavored butter.
• Melt the Herb Butter over these Buttery Dinner Rolls for a twist on the classic. Soft, pillowy dinner rolls layered in herby goodness coming your way!

Recipe