Brown Butter Makes Everything Better (and Here’s How to Make It Yourself)
It’s no secret: butter makes every dish tastier. Chefs use copious amounts of butter for a reason—and it’s also why we weren’t fans of BlueBand’s Roombeter (though that also had something to do with this). Hooray for butter, then—but you know what we really consider a party? Brown butter.
Brown butter is everything that’s good about butter, only better. (Not Roombeter, once again.) Brown butter tastes wonderfully sweet and nutty, with a slightly toasted flavor. It tastes much more complex, richer and deeper than regular melted butter, which is why we now basically only want brown butter.
Brown butter with everything
It also helps that brown butter is incredibly versatile. You can add it to all kinds of sauces, for example for your pasta (gnocchi with sage butter is my favorite), but you can also use it in baked goods. And what about a dip for your baguette? Can you already picture dipping a crispy piece of white baguette into that warm brown butter, until the bread soaks up all that butter and… I’m already feeling warm just thinking about it.
Making brown butter: here’s how
Well, I’m going to make it even better than it already was. Making brown butter really isn’t difficult at all. All you need is butter and a saucepan, that’s it. The trick is to be patient and melt the butter slowly over medium heat. Important: keep stirring! You’ll see that at some point the butter starts to foam. The butter will slowly change color; it becomes clear and then gradually gets browner and browner. Just before the butter is ready—when it’s not quite the perfect shade of brown yet—remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour the butter into a bowl. The butter will continue cooking and will eventually reach that perfect brown color. Finally, you can pour the butter through a fine-mesh sieve to remove the browned milk solids. Your brown butter is ready!
Delicious, nutty flavor
So what exactly happens? While the saucepan is on the heat, the water evaporates from the butter. At the same time, the milk solids caramelize. These processes are precisely what create that intense, wonderfully nutty flavor. So make some brown butter. By the way, did you know you can keep brown butter in the refrigerator for about two weeks? If you want some brown butter later on (and you’re bound to get that craving ), you can simply melt the butter again.
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