What Is Compound Butter and How Do You Make It At Home? (2024)

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Plus, our best compound butter recipes.

By

Corey Williams

What Is Compound Butter and How Do You Make It At Home? (1)

Corey Williams

Corey Williams is a food writer for MyRecipes and Allrecipes. She has a decade of journalism experience.

Published on January 27, 2022

What Is Compound Butter and How Do You Make It At Home? (2)

Compound butter is a delicious and easy way to take your cooking up a notch. Here's what you need to know about making and using compound butter:

What Is Compound Butter?

A compound butter ("beurre composé" in French) is simply butter mixed with other ingredients that add sweet or savory flavor, like honey, herbs, or garlic. "Compound butter" sounds like a complicated concept, but it's really quite easy to make at home: Softened butter is whipped with other ingredients, reformed into the desired shape, and chilled until firm.

Compound Butter Uses

What Is Compound Butter and How Do You Make It At Home? (3)

So what can you do with compound butter? The real question: What can't you do with compound butter? Here are a just a few ways to use it:

  • Spread it on bread, toast, muffins, scones, biscuits, and more
  • Melt it and use it as a flavor enhancer for meat, fish, or vegetables
  • Use it as an ingredient in baked goods or rich sauces
  • Stir it into pasta or rice to add complex flavor

How to Make Compound Butter

You can buy compound butter at the store, but it couldn't be easier to make it at home. Just follow these simple steps:

  1. Start with unsalted butter so that you're easily able to control the salt level. Remember: You can add salt, but you can't take it away.
  2. Soften the butter by whipping it with a hand mixer or stand mixer. If you're short on time or appliances, you can just mash the butter with a fork – but your results won't be quite as fluffy.
  3. Combine the butter with the sweet or savory ingredients of your choice. You can use a fork, spoon, or your mixer. Just make sure it's completely blended!
  4. Transfer the flavored butter to a sheet of parchment paper. Form it into a log or ball, wrap it up, and let it sit in the fridge for at least two hours to chill.

How to Store Compound Butter

Store compound butter in the fridge, just like you would with regular butter. How long compound butter lasts depends on its ingredients. For instance, if you use fresh herbs, the compound butter will last about five days. If you just used cinnamon or honey, however, it will stay good a bit longer.

Compound Butter Ideas

Making compound butter lends itself to creativity. You can keep it basic with one or two additional ingredients or get as inventive as you want with your favorite flavor combinations. Here are just a few of our favorite ideas to get you started:

Garlic Butter

What Is Compound Butter and How Do You Make It At Home? (4)

Garlic butter is one of the most common savory compound butters – and for good reason. It's easy to make, perfectly complements all sorts of breads, and is a great way to add extra flavor to your favorite meats and veggies.

How to use it:

  • Spread it on steak, fish, or corn
  • Saute shrimp, veggies, or cooked pasta in the butter
  • Serve it with bread before dinner

Get the recipe: Garlic Butter

Cinnamon-Honey Butter

Satisfy your sweet tooth with a honey- and cinnamon-spiked butter. This compound butter makes a cheap-yet-thoughtful gift, but we totally understand if you want to keep the whole batch for yourself.

How to use it:

  • Spread it on toast or biscuits
  • Dollop it on a baked sweet potato
  • Serve it with waffles or pancakes

Get the recipe: Cinnamon-Honey Butter

Basil Butter

What Is Compound Butter and How Do You Make It At Home? (6)

Looking for a delicious way to use all that basil that's growing in your garden? Your search ends here. Basil adds earthy, herbaceous, and absolutely irresistible flavor to whipped butter. You'll use this compound butter all summer long.

How to use it:

  • Use it to marinate chicken or fish
  • Serve it with dinner rolls
  • Spread it on crackers or crostini

Get the recipe: Simple Basil Butter

More Compound Butter Recipes

What Is Compound Butter and How Do You Make It At Home? (7)

Hungry for more inspiration? We've got you covered! Try one of these top-rated recipes:

  • Brown Sugar-Cinnamon Butter
  • Lemon Herb Butter
  • Pecan Honey Butter
  • Sun-Dried Tomato Butter
  • Maple Butter

Explore our entire collection of Compound Butter Recipes.

Related:

  • The 3 Types of Butter You Should Know About — And How to Use Them
  • How to Make Clarified Butter
  • Can You Leave Butter on the Counter?

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What Is Compound Butter and How Do You Make It At Home? (2024)

FAQs

What is a compound butter? ›

A compound butter ("beurre composé" in French) is simply butter mixed with other ingredients that add sweet or savory flavor, like honey, herbs, or garlic.

What is the difference between compound butter and real butter? ›

Compound butter, also known as finishing butter, is butter that has been softened to a pliable state and then has herbs, spices, or sweeteners added to it. This mixture is then rolled into a log shape and chilled until firm. Chefs slice the log into individual portions for spreading or for use in their recipes.

What is compound butter quizlet? ›

a flavorful butter sauce made by mixing cold, softened butter with flavoring ingredients such as fresh herbs, vegetable purees, dried fruits, preserves or wine reductions.

How long does homemade compound butter last? ›

How long does herb-infused butter last? It will last about 3-4 weeks in the fridge and up to six months in the freezer.

Should I refrigerate compound butter? ›

Compound butter can be kept refrigerated for several days. They can also be frozen for several months by being wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in plastic freezer bags.

Can I use a food processor to make compound butter? ›

As for mixing the compound butter ingredients together, you've got two choices: You can use the food processor to quickly and easily whirl everything together, or you can tackle the mixing by hand. If you decide to enlist the help of your food processor, pulse the ingredients together until everything is just combined.

Why do chefs use compound butter? ›

Using Compound Butter In Dishes

It will enhance steaks, chicken, fish, and vegetables. You can also use the rounds as a flavor-enhancing edible garnish. Simply spread a thawed round on bread or crackers. You can also add it to rice, potatoes, and pasta.

Should you melt butter for compound butter? ›

Bring your butter to room temperature.

Cold butter won't blend with your mix-ins, and melted butter won't keep its consistency to hold them in place. Room temperature is like Goldilocks and the Three Bears: not too cold and not too hot.

Is real butter healthier than olive oil? ›

The bottom line

Because olive oil comes from a plant, it has unique health benefits from nutrients like polyphenols — which aren't found in butter. These polyphenols help make olive oil a more nutritious choice. Using butter every so often — or even a small amount each day — isn't likely to harm your health.

Is ghee a compound butter? ›

Whole30 Compound Butter (Ghee) (Whole30, Paleo, Keto)

This compound butter is rich in flavor while also being easy to make, and endlessly customizable. This herbed compound butter is perfect to top grilled vegetables, roasted poultry or grilled steak to add an extra special visual and flavor element.

What is the French term for compound butter? ›

Compound butters (French: beurre composé, pl.

What is the main Flavouring compound in butter? ›

Diacetyl is a naturally occurring substance that gives butter its characteristic flavor and aroma, and is often a component of artificial flavoring formulations. Acetoin, a closely related chemical, also occurs naturally and is an ingredient in many flavoring formulations, perfumes and essences.

What is another name for compound butter? ›

Compound butter, or finishing butter, is a type of butter that is mixed with herbs, spice blends, and other ingredients that give it a savory or sweet flavor. The term compound butter encompasses countless recipes and flavor profiles.

Why does homemade butter go bad? ›

Homemade butter's shelf life depends on how thoroughly you extract the buttermilk. If a substantial amount of buttermilk remains, it will sour within a week, otherwise homemade butter can keep for up to 2-3 weeks in the fridge.

How to tell if compound butter is bad? ›

In the event you do eat it, you'll notice that it also has a sour flavor, which is a clear indication that the compound butter should be discarded. Similarly, off-putting colors or mold growth also signal that it's time to whip up a new batch of compound butter and do away with the old one.

Does powdered butter taste like butter? ›

- it's more like a spread. - it doesn't taste 100% like fresh butter but does have a buttery taste, which is acceptable as a backup to fresh butter. I opened one can of powdered butter to test it out.

How do compound butters differ from other butter sauces? ›

A compound butter can be made by whipping additional elements, such as herbs, spices or aromatic liquids, into butter. It is usually re-formed and chilled before being melted on top of meats and vegetables, used as a spread, or used to finish sauces.

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