Brown Butter Recipe
Brown butter is butter that has been heated just past the melting point, but before its smoking point, to cook out some water, and toast the milk solids. What you’re left with is a clarified butter that has a delicious nutty flavor. Brown butter can be used to flavor both savory and sweet dishes.
Equipment
- Sauté pan with light colored surface
- Knife
- Heat proof bowl
- Heat proof spatula
Ingredients
- Unsalted European or Irish butter
Instructions
- If you are starting with cold butter, cut it into smaller pieces so it melts faster.
- Place butter in a light colored pan over medium-low heat. Don’t use a dark colored pan, as it’s more difficult to tell when your milk solids are done browning and you risk burning them.
- Slowly melt butter over medium-low heat.
- Once butter is fully melted, turn up heat to medium. At this point, slowly stir butter with spatula or swirl sauté pan.
- Butter will start to bubble and foam. Milk solids will begin to form on surface.
- Continue to slowly stir with spatula or swirl sauté pan.
- Some milk solids will sink to bottom of pan. Continue to slowly stir with spatula, or swirl sauté pan.
- Milk solids will begin to darken. Once milk solids are the color of brown sugar, remove the pan from heat. Keep a close eye on your butter at this point. The milk solids can go from delicious and toasty to burnt garbage very quickly.
- Remove pan from heat to prevent burning once milk solids have reached desired color.
- Immediately pour butter into a heat proof bowl to stop cooking process and prevent burning.
Notes
If you’re making brown butter to sauté vegetables in, strain out the milk solid to prevent them from burning when you reheat the butter. If you are using the butter for baking, leave in those delicious, crispy, caramelized, browned bits!