Butter is a favorite food at our house. It is packed with fat soluble vitamins and beneficial fats that support many aspects of health.
I put butter in my coffee (and my homemade vanilla lattes) and often use it in cooking and on vegetables. (We never use margarine or vegetables oils as a substitute- here is why).
Compound Butter Recipe
On a recent date for our anniversary, my husband and I went to an awesome restaurant and I ordered steak. It came topped with an herb-infused compound butter and the flavor of that 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 and have enjoyed experimenting with different flavors and options. I could literally eat this stuff plain (and I might occasionally do that).
For savory dishes, compound butter adds extra flavor and the health benefits of various herbs, and it makes a gorgeous presentation. I use compound butter to top sweet potatoes, steak, chicken, steamed broccoli/cauliflower, wilted spinach, and many other dishes.
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 is important to make sure that the butter is really soft but not completely melted before mixing it with herbs. This helps intensify the flavor and makes the process easier
- Adding a teaspoon of high quality olive oil makes a more spreadable compound butter and also adds great flavor.
- This will not store long in the fridge because it is often eaten within hours at our house.
Herb Infused Compound Butter Recipes
Ingredients
Instructions
- Soften butter to room temperature and place 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 with a fork until all the herbs are evenly incorporated.
- Place the mixture into a piece of parchment paper or wax paper and form into a roll/stick.
- Place in the refrigerator for at least four hours (or overnight if possible).
- Serve on meats, vegetables, or whatever sounds good!
- See variations below.
Notes
- The zest of one organic lemon and one organic lime (great on fish)
- 3 TBSP toasted pecans or walnuts, finely chopped and 2 TBSP honey
- 1 TBSP each 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)
Nutrition
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Ever spiced up your butter? What is your favorite combination.
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?