Make Your Butter Even Better with these Easy and Delicious Compound Butter Recipes
Herbs, citrus, cheese, and aromatics take butters to the next level.
Compound butters are glorious mixtures of butter and flavorful herbs, spices, and more. We love to melt compound butter over grilled meat and roasted vegetables, spread it on crusty bread, and stir it into decadent sauces. Some of our favorite fragrant additions to compound butter include roasted garlic, spicy chiles, and sweet white miso. Try using flavor-fortified butter anywhere you'd use plain butter: add it to baked potatoes, spread it over corn on the cob, toss it with fresh lobster, and smear it on savory breads. Whether you're looking for a simple flavor upgrade or want a way to use up leftover herbs, these compound butter recipes are the perfect extra to any meal.
Charred Cabbage Salad with Pecan Dukkah and Chile-Lime Butter
At Otra in San Francisco, chef Nick Cobarruvias seasons charred cabbage with chile-lime butter, which is mildly spicy from árbol chiles and bright from lime zest. The pecan dukkah adds earthiness from the cumin and pops of citrus from the coriander, plus a lovely nutty flavor and texture from the toasted pecans and sesame seeds.
Entrecôte with Green Olive Tapenade Butter
This recipe offers a simple technique for both a perfectly cooked rib eye and a flavorful compound butter packed with pungent anchovies, piquant Dijon mustard, and salty capers that packs a briny punch when melted onto the juicy grilled steaks. You can keep the butter in the freezer for up to three months to quickly upgrade grilled steaks, pork chops, or fish fillets.
Ehuru and Wildflower Honey Butter
A great way to try a variety of spices is in compound butter; the butter serves as a creamy blank canvas, delivering the diverse flavors in an approachable way that invites you to keep tasting. Here, earthy calabash nutmeg (also known as ehuru) is paired with robust wildflower honey.
Farro Mafaldine with Black Truffle Butter and Mushrooms
"The best way to cook with truffles is as simply as possible," says chef Karen Akunowicz, of the Northern Italian restaurant Fox & the Knife in Boston. Black truffle paste, available year-round, melts beautifully into the buttery sauce, but when they're in season (November through February), Akunowicz recommends splurging for fresh black truffles, and using a rasp grater to get as much truffle goodness as possible into each perfect bite.
Barbecued Oysters with Smoky Uni Butter
Briny uni and acidic lemon, mixed with smoky paprika and rich butter, combine to make an extraordinary flavored butter to top oysters before roasting.
Garlic-Butter Rib Roast
This impressive, flavor-packed rib roast is perfect for a celebration. The secret? A compound butter made with garlic, anchovies, herbs, and shallot. Half of it is slathered all over the roast before it goes into the oven; the other half is rolled up into a log, chilled, and then cut into medallions to serve with each slice of beef.
Coal-Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Maple-Chile Butter
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Ali Ramee
Coal-Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Maple-Chile ButterA whipped compound butter made of sherry vinegar, parsley, Aleppo pepper, and maple syrup adds acidic, earthy, and savory notes to these smoky sweet potatoes. Top with toasted pecans to bring in some needed crunch.
Spaghetti with Cacio e Pepe Butter
The classic Roman dish cacio e pepe is prized for its simplicity. Our culinary director at large, Justin Chapple, puts a spin on the original with a black pepper and Pecorino Romano compound butter. Just boil the pasta, grate the chilled butter over the top, and dinner is done. Aside from pasta, this compound butter is great on bread or crackers.
Grilled Lobsters with Miso-Chile Butter
Grilling lobsters at home is easy if you have your fishmonger clean and halve the lobsters for you. For this recipe, Gail Simmons flavors butter with lemon, white miso, and sriracha, then uses it to baste the lobster, reserving some to serve with the finished dish.
Alligator Pepper and Makrut Lime Butter
This compound butter is a wake-up call to the senses: lime leaves lend a bright and floral citrus-y accent to the slow-burning sharpness of the pepper.
Sweet Gorgonzola Butter
Chef Suzanne Tracht makes this rich, indulgent compound butter with Gorgonzola dolce, the milder, sweeter, less acidic form of Gorgonzola piccante. Letting the mixture firm up in the fridge allows you to cut it into clean rounds for the perfect accompaniment to steak.
Radishes with Seaweed-Matcha Butter
It's worth finding cultured butter to make 2016 F&W Best New Chefs Jeremiah Stone and Fabian von Hauske's riff on the classic French appetizer of radishes and butter; the slightly tangy and rich butter offsets the matcha nicely.
Roasted Branzino with Caper Butter
Here, chef Steve Corry achieves a crispy skin on the stovetop and then finishes the whole branzino that's stuffed with lemon and rosemary in the oven. He makes an easy compound butter — which melts on the fish to become a sauce — with wild Tunisian mountain capers, although any caper will work.
Grill-Baked Potatoes with Chive Butter
These super-easy, indulgent potatoes are based on a recipe Brooklyn butcher Tom Mylan found in a South Dakota centennial cookbook. They're layered with pats of chive and sour cream butter, then wrapped in foil and grilled until soft and delicious.
Butter-Roasted Chicken with Cilantro and Mint
Rubbing butter on chicken skin (as well as under it) and letting it sit in the fridge for a few hours is a great way to make it extra crispy, with moist breast meat. For his recipe here, the late chef Floyd Cardoz flavored the butter with cilantro, garlic, mint, chiles, cumin, and lime juice.
Smoked Salmon Toasts with Mustard Butter
Sour cream or cream cheese may be the usual spread paired with salty smoked salmon, but chef David Tanis thinks softened butter makes a tasty alternative. (Think of ham-and-butter sandwiches.) To give the butter a zippy bite, he stirs in lemon zest and both Dijon and grainy mustards.
Rib Eye and Radishes in Bagna Cauda Butter
The trick to this amazingly delicious steak by former F&W editor Kay Chun is basting it with garlicky anchovy butter while it roasts.
Parmesan Corn Butter
This simple, flavor-packed corn, lime, and cheese butter is great on grilled steaks, fish, and chicken, as well as on grilled vegetables.
Peppered Beef Tenderloin with Roasted Garlic-Herb Butter
Pit master Chris Lilly's beef tenderloin is marinated in a peppery paste made from brown sugar and soy sauce. When it's done on the grill, the meat gets topped with an aromatic compound butter that combines mashed roasted garlic with thyme, rosemary, and oregano.
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