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Have you ever browned butter?
It’s an easy way to take a recipe that relies on butter up a notch in flavor. Just by cooking the butter a little past the melting point results in the milk solids in the butter browning, and creating a wonderfully nutty aroma.
It’s fun to do with butter-based sauces (check out these scallops in a brown butter caper sauce), baked goods that call for melted butter (like these brown butter chocolate chunk cookies), or with vegetables such as winter squash that you sauté in butter.
Just be sure to keep your eye on it while cooking; it’s pretty easy to go from browned to burnt!
What do you like to make with browned butter? Let us know in the comments.
How to brown butter
How to Make Brown Butter
Ingredients
- Unsalted butter
Method
1 Melt the butter: Heat a thick-bottomed skillet on medium heat. Add the butter (if you slice it, it will melt more evenly) whisking frequently. Continue to cook the butter.
2 Watch for brown specs and nutty aroma: Once melted the butter will foam up a bit, then subside. Watch carefully as lightly browned specks begin to form at the bottom of the pan. Smell the butter; it should have a nutty aroma.
3 Remove from heat and pour into a bowl to stop the butter from cooking further and perhaps burning.
It's pretty easy to overcook browned butter and go from brown to burnt. If the butter starts to blacken, I suggest dumping it and starting over (something I've had to do on occasion), unless you want beurre noir which has a different taste than nutty brown butter.
If you want to make sage brown butter sauce, add some fresh sage leaves to the butter once it has melted. Allow the butter to brown and remove from heat.
Use browned butter immediately or store covered in the refrigerator for future use.
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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
How to Make Brown Butter
This is just what I needed to know how to not make the mistake I did yesterday.
I have a bowl of blackened butter in my fridge as I write this and before I tried again I wanted to know what I did wrong …too high heat?, no just didn’t remove from the heat fast enough.
It was heartening to read that Elise has had to dump and start all over again!
Thanks so much
You’re welcome, Marianne, happy to be of help!
Great!!!!! In all my years of cooking I’d never seen the term “brown butter” or if I did I just skipped over it as for many years my life was frantic ! Now as we are coming into the Holiday season I’m going to use it a lot!! Thank you!!
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Great tutorial. I’m using my resulting brown butter to make some seriously awesome rice crispy treats!
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Yum! If you’re gonna melt the butter for it, why not brown it and make those treats over the top? Good thinking, John. (I do the same thing when I make crepes and pancakes.)
With veal gnocci. Sage brown butter, add parm to the dish. YUM.
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Oh, sounds wonderful, Kelly!
How long will it keep in the refrigerator?
Hi Shabri, if covered, several weeks. You will know when it’s no longer good, as it will smell rancid.