Butter is a favorite food at our house. It’s packed with fat soluble vitamins and beneficial fats that are great for health. I use butter in cooking, on vegetables, and even in my coffee. One way to really amp up your butter game is with these herb compound butter recipes. Made with fresh herbs and butter they’re the perfect accompaniment to veggies, baked potatoes, and more!
It’s way tastier (and healthier!) than margarine or vegetable oils.
Compound Butter Recipe
Recently I went out to dinner at a nice restaurant and decided on the steak. It came topped with an herb-infused compound butter. The flavored butter with the steak and vegetables was one of the best things I’ve ever had.
Since gourmet restaurant meals are definitely not in the budget very often, I decided to recreate the herb-infused compound butter at home. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with different flavor combinations. So far some flavors I’ve tried are garlic herb compound butter with both fresh garlic and roasted garlic. The honey butter with some fresh rosemary and a pinch of sea salt was also delicious!
I could literally eat this stuff plain (and I might occasionally do that).
For savory dishes, compound butter adds extra flavor. Plus you get all the health benefits of various fresh or dried herbs and it makes a gorgeous presentation. Both salted butter and unsalted butter will work here. If you’ve never tried it, take a few minutes and spice up your butter!
A few notes I’ve found along the way:
- It’s important to ensure the butter is soft but not completely melted before mixing it with herbs. Using softened butter intensifies the flavor and makes the process easier.
- Add a teaspoon of high-quality olive oil for a more spreadable compound butter and great flavor.
- This won’t store long in the fridge because it’s often eaten within hours at our house.
Herbal Butter Flavors
There are so many different options when it comes to compound butter! You can make either sweet or savory versions for both sweet and savory foods. Here are a few seasonings to try. I’ve also included more flavor combination options in the recipe notes below.
- Cilantro, lime juice, and chili powder
- Garlic cloves and shallots
- Lemon juice and black pepper
- Oregano, basil, and Parmesan cheese (grated)
- Honey, rosemary, and a pinch of sea salt
How to Use Compound Butter Recipes
I use compound butter recipes to top almost everything savory. Here are a few ideas on how to use your compound butter. Just add a hearty dollop and let the butter work its magic.
- Sweet potatoes or regular potatoes
- Steak
- Roasted chicken (or add moisture to chicken breast)
- Steamed broccoli/cauliflower
- Wilted spinach
- Paleo “cornbread”
- Waffles
- Pancakes
Herb-Infused Compound Butter Recipes
Servings
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter (softened to room temperature)
- 1 TBSP fresh basil leaves
- 1 TBSP fresh parsley
- 1 TBSP fresh chives
- 1 clove garlic (finely minced)
- 1 tsp olive oil (optional)
Instructions
- Soften the butter to room temperature and place it in a medium bowl.
- Finely chop all herbs and add them to the bowl with the butter.
- Mince garlic as finely as possible and add it to the bowl.
- Add the olive oil to the bowl if using and mix until all the herbs are evenly incorporated.
- Scoop the herbed butter mixture into the center of a piece of parchment paper.
- Spread the butter into a log 6-8 inches long and roll it in the parchment paper.
- Refrigerate for at least four hours (or overnight if possible).
- Serve on meats, vegetables, in rice, or whatever else sounds good!
- See variations below.
Nutrition
Notes
- The zest of one organic lemon and one organic lime (great on fish)
- 3 TBSP of toasted pecans or walnuts, finely chopped, and 2 TBSP of honey
- 1 TBSP each of fresh parsley, chives, rosemary, and tarragon, finely chopped
- 2 TBSP fresh mint, finely chopped, and 1 TBSP lemon zest (great on lamb)
- 3 TBSP fresh dill, finely chopped, and 1 TBSP orange or lemon zest (great on fish or vegetables)
Have you ever tried compound butter before? What are some of your favorite dishes to eat it with? Leave a comment and share below!
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Is the butter used for the herb recipes salted or unsalted? Or does it matter?
I use unsalted so I can control the type and amount of salt. You could use salted if that’s all you had though 🙂
Love what you do and thank you for the wonderful healthy information you provide! Real quick – have you heard of the magical butter machine?!
Description on their site: MagicalButter Makes Herbal Butters, Oils, Tinctures, Soups, Sauces, Salad Dressings, Skin Care Products, Pet Medicines, and more.
Thoughts?!
I may have just not seen it’s inclusion someplace but, my Little Bride and just had our 44 th anniversary and had the chance to eat at nice Steak house. They have a Wonderful Cinnamon spiced Butter for their Sweet potatoes, and I’m not sure what they had on the meat. But I did not see a recipe for such a Butter as the CinnamonSpiced Butter. Any chance you may know what to do with this one ?
Hello,
Where do you buy your organic grassfed butters I am having a hard time finding them here where I live. Thanks
I buy mine from Tropical Traditions: https://wellnessmama.com/go/tropical-traditions/
I had the most AMAZING maple and sage butter at a wedding this summer. Best butter I have EVER tasted!!! It’s crazy that I haven’t made my own version yet…
I saw a cook on TV put softened butter in their mixer with maple syrup and whipp it and at the last few seconds put in a few blackberries. I made it and I love the whipped butter I loved the additions too but the texture of whipped butter is amazing!
maple, cinnamon and vanilla in the butter is GREAT for breakfast!!
by any chance do you have the correct amount of measurements? I’d like to try this with artisan bread, toast it with scrambled eggs. Thank you 🙂
Good Morning 🙂
Aside from my desire to become a pro chef/baker I was just thinking about looking for some sort of recipe for a compound butter to add to freshly baked french bread for any sort of Italian dish and this sounds great and i’m going to try it. Thank you for your help.
Kind regards 🙂
I make and freeze basil butter and dill butter every summer to use the fresh herbs I grow. It’s great to have these as spreads and ingredients in the middle of winter.
I also make Martha Stewart’s spice butter and keep it in the freezer. It’s unusual and makes a nice hostess gift when you’re invited to dinner. It’s not an herbal infused butter, but very versatile. Just combine 1/2 pound of butter with —
2 teaspoons coarse salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Hello, thanks for these recipes. Awesome!!! Please could you give a recipes for eliminating black spots on the face which also lightens the face at the same time. A Lot of my peeps need this. Thank you
It’s called Kräuterbutter in Germany, where I learned to make several types. Love the stuff.
For one stick of butter, I find it’s just as easy to do it all by hand, rather than get out the equipment and then clean the equipment. For larger batches, though, I like to use my food processor and pulse until everything is thoroughly mixed.
Then I pack some into the Butterbell and the rest into the freezer.
Another great topping for steak is mixing bleu cheese into the butter. Have also included fresh herbs as well. Delicious!
I can’t wait to try this on steak, sweet potatoes, chicken, veggies…….yummy!
We love butter at home. We use grass fed Irish butter and it is very tasty. We melt it just like you do and add the brand name “BRAGG” Organic Sea Kelp Delight Seasoning. It comes out very good on our fish, vegetables, chicken, etc. This seasoning has 24 herbs and spices.
This is great! I love making all types of infused butters! I actually have started making my own butter. It only takes 3 minutes and is delicious. My husband bought me a little hand held butter maker, very low tech, it’s called the Chef’n Buttercup Buttermaker. You simply pour in 1 cup of heavy cream, seal it up, shake it like crazy for 3 minutes, drain the excess and then unscrew the bottom which will now be full of butter!!! Awesome! I then mix in a little salt, or some herbs, garlic… Whatever we’re in the mood for. I then store my butter in an L. Tremaine antique butter bell. (also purchased at sur le table). I scoop my butter into the butter bell and then a little water into the base of the crock. This acts as a seal to keep the butter fresh. My butter stays perfectly delicious, room temp, soft and spreadable all week and right on my counter top!
Thanks for all the great tips Katie! I love the Web site!!!
Thank you, and thanks for reading!
😉 I really like your idea of making your own butter. I’ve been told that the excess you mentioned is in fact real buttermilk… you might want to keep that for recipes. I’ve been told by chef’s here in Chicago…. real buttermilk is phenomenal and very much unlike any store-bought product. 🙂
And instead of plastic containers for such a process-effort/product, I’m going to seek out some sort of glass container with a lid for my butter. Nothing beats glass and plastic just doesn’t do it for me; and I’ve been using a glass butter dish but it doesn’t have a lid or cover (oblong shape meant for sticks of butter).
Thanks 🙂
I love butter! This is a great idea! I will be trying this soon.
Set the butter in silicon molds.it makes things a lot easier.
Black pepper&lemon taste good.
Can you do this with Ghee? I love butter but eat dairy-free now and would love to try this out, it sounds delicious!
Ghee is clarified butter, but butter nonetheless.
And yes, you can infuse ghee. Enjoy.
In culinary school we made compound butters all the time. It’s way easier to use a mixer if you are doing a large volume of butter, but for one stick it seems like a hassle. The best way to do this on a small scale is to use your large knife (chefs knife) to slice through your sfftened butter, add the herbs, garlic, etc. then basically grab the back end of the knife in a sort of pinching motion and use the blade to smash everything together. Use the knife to scoop it back into a pile and do the smashing thing some more until your flavoring elements are evenly distributed.
I mix butter and dill and then chill in the fridge. Then I put it on top of salmon. So good!!
Oh butter and dill on salmon sounds amazing! I love salmon on the grill, my husband is the grill master, ha! I’ll be recommending this to him, so long as we can find wild caught, non-GMO salmon!
All I have ever added to my butter is parsley and garlic. I used to do it fairly rarely, because I hated to process of mixing everything with a fork (even with a softened butter). These days, I simply leave the butter out of the fridge for some time to softened it, finely chop/mince the garlic and parsley, add all the ingredients to a bowl and put my hand-held mixer to task. One minute and I am done. And then of course I roll it into a stick like you described. The hand-held mixer really makes things much easier.
In the version you emailed, in the “Notes” section, you have several incidents where this : [br] occurs. What does it mean?Notes
[b]Flavor Variations (blend these instead of the herbs in the recipe above):[/b][br]-The zest of one organic lemon and one organic lime (great on fish)[br]-3 tablespoons finely minced toasted pecans or walnuts and2 tablespoons of honey [br]-1 tablespoon each of finely minced fresh parsley, chives, rosemary and tarragon[br]-2 tablespoons fresh minced mint and 1 tablespoon lemon zest (great on lamb)[br]-3 tablespoons fresh minced dill weed and 1 tablespoon orange or lemon zest (great on fish or vegetables)
Ever spiced up your butter? What is your favorite combination.
If I’m not mistaken that means “break” in computer speak. Your browser is not translating it the way it was written, for want of a better way to explain it. Of course, since I am a senior citizen I could be totally off base with this.
Thats strange in my computer there were not “br or b”. The recipe was just straight forward with no abbreviations
Sorry, I have been having some issues on my computer every once in awhile. In the EMAIL you sent out, the b & br were there, but on your WEBSITE, it was normal without them. I am on a MAC with Safari, wonder if that may be the problem?