This easy brown butter recipe is a simple yet transformative ingredient that adds a rich, nutty flavor to both sweet and savory dishes!
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🧈 Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Brown butter is the ultimate flavor booster! In any recipe that calls for butter, you can try swapping in brown butter for a completely different flavor profile. Deliciously toasty, nutty and sweet, browning butter makes butter even tastier than it is in it’s normal form.
- It is versatile, meaning you can add it to sweet baking recipes, or use it in savory applications like pasta sauces.
- You just need a few minutes and minimal equipment. Brown butter is extremely easy to make, by gently simmering the butter in a pan. Make sure to have a heat-proof bowl ready to transfer the butter to after browning!
Ingredients
To make this easy brown butter recipe, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- A 1x batch calls for a whole stick of butter! That’s it! You can choose whether you use salted butter or unsalted butter, depending on what you are using this for.
💡 Tips
- Use a light colored pan. A light colored pan will help you to see when the butter is actually starting to brown. If you don’t own a light colored pan, you can use a black pan but keep a very close eye on the butter!
- Don’t walk away while making brown butter. Brown butter will start to caramelize and turn from that perfect golden-brown color to too dark in just a matter of a minute or so! The second that you see it is browned and has some dark bits, take it off the heat to avoid burnt butter.
- Experiment with different recipes! The beauty of brown butter is that you can use it in so many different ways! I most often use it in sweet recipes like cookies. Brown butter chocolate chip cookies or sugar cookies have a whole new depth of flavor. You can also add brown butter to pasta dishes, make a compound butter, or drizzle it over roasted vegetables.
How To Make Brown Butter
Step 1: Add sliced butter into a pan on the stovetop. Turn the heat to medium and stir frequently with your silicone spatula.
Step 2: The butter will start to melt, then foam.
Step 3: Soon, the bubbles will subside and brown bits will start to form at the bottom of the pan.
Step 4: Keep stirring, often scraping the bottom until the butter is a deep golden brown and there are a bunch of brown specks. It should smell nutty, toasty and sweet.
Step 5: Immediately transfer the brown butter to your heat proof bowl. This prevents the butter from continuing to cook in the pan and burn.
Step 6: Depending on the recipe that you are using the brown butter for, you can use it immediately, let it cool, or refrigerate it/freeze for later use.
Note: I made a double batch of brown butter, which is why there are a lot of butter slices in the pan!
For full instructions, see the recipe card below.
Storage
If you’re not using the brown butter immediately, you can save it for future use! I actually make a bunch of brown butter at once and keep it handy, since I go through it pretty often. So, here’s how you can store it.
Once the brown butter is cooled, store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. You can also freeze it for up to 3 months.
You can use the solid brown butter as is, let it come to room temperature for softened brown butter, or even re-melt it. If using from frozen, let thaw at room temperature for 1-2 hours or in the fridge overnight. Alternatively, break into chunks and heat it in the microwave, stirring every 15-30 seconds. Simply treat it as if was regular butter!
Brown Butter FAQs
Brown butter is made by cooking butter until it becomes nutty, toasty, and caramelized. It has a very distinct flavor in comparison to regular butter—it’s richer with a taste similar to a light toffee. It can replace plain butter in both savory and sweet dishes, elevating any dish.
And the best part? It only takes about 5 minutes to make.
The butter will have many brown specks, which are the caramelized milk solids. The liquid itself will be a deep golden brown color. If it were to burn, the caramelized milk solids would turn from brown to black and smell bitter. Overall, the liquid will be a very dark color. Unfortunately, there is no saving it and you would have to restart.
I have a few recipes listing browned butter as an ingredient, like my brown butter kitchen sink cookies, brown butter sugar cookies, and cinnamon brown butter shortbread. You can also use this nutty brown butter in savory applications like dressings or sauces.
You can use it to replace regular butter in other recipes. However, browning 1 stick of butter (113g) will yield about 80g of brown butter, so there is a loss of about 2 tbsp. To make up for the lost liquid, you can brown 1 stick + 2 tbsp of butter, or replace the lost 2 tbsp with milk or water, depending on the recipe.
❤️ Recipes Using Brown Butter
Did you try this recipe?
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Thank you so much! -Bianca ❤️
📖 Recipe
Easy Brown Butter Recipe
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Equipment
- light-colored pan, I used stainless steel
- silicone spatula or wooden spatula
- heatproof bowl
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons (113 g) butter cut into tablespoons
Instructions
- Make sure you have your heatproof bowl ready! Browning butter can go from 0 to 100 reaaally quickly, aka it's easy to burn it if you keep your eyes off of it. So, have the bowl handy so you can transfer the finished brown butter to it ASAP.
- Add all of the sliced butter into your pan over a stovetop. Turn the heat to medium and stir frequently with your silicone spatula. First, the butter will melt, then it will start to foam. Soon, the bubbles will subside and brown bits will start to form at the bottom of the pan. Keep stirring, often scraping the bottom, until the butter is deep golden brown and there are a bunch of brown specks. It should smell nutty, toasty, and sweet.
- Immediately transfer the brown butter to your heatproof bowl. This prevents the butter from continuing to cook in the pan and burn.
- Depending on the recipe you are using the brown butter for, you can use it immediately, let it cool, or refrigerate/freeze for later use.