Food & Cooking Recipes How to Make Compound Butter for Steak, Fish, and More Butter seasoned with herbs is a versatile condiment worth keeping in your fridge or freezer. Servings: 8 tablespoons Yield: 1 cup Jump to recipe A compound butter is simply a stick of butter seasoned with fresh herbs, salt and pepper, and perhaps also lemon zest or garlic. It’s one of the most versatile condiments to make and have on hand. Store it in the refrigerator, or stash it in the freezer and slice off what you need when it's time. Use compound butter on steak (like the Seared Porterhouse Steak here), fish steaks or fillets, chicken, and even vegetables, whether that means roasted sweet potatoes or steamed green beans. Follow our recipe to get used to the process and then vary the herbs to suit your taste. Think of compound butter as a must-have for your refrigerator, you’ll use it all the time. 5 Famed French Sauces Every Home Cook Should Learn How to Make Credit: Bryan Gardner Directions Mix ingredients: Stir together all ingredients in a medium bowl with a flexible spatula until well combined. Form butter into log and wrap: Place butter mixture on the center of a sheet of plastic wrap or parchment paper. If using parchment paper then loosely fold paper in half toward you and roll back and forth to form butter into a log. Then, while pulling parchment taut, push with a straightedge (such as the rim of a baking sheet) to mold into a neat cylinder, pressing hard to remove any air pockets. Wrap parchment around butter, then twist end to seal and tie with twine. If using plastic wrap, place the butter on the plastic wrap and use a bench scraper to help form it into a log. As the plastic wrap will seal to itself, there's no need to tie the log with twine. Refrigerate: Refrigerate until firm, about an hour. Variations Other fresh herbs, either singly or a combination, can be used for a compound butter.Lemon zest is a wonderful addition to plain butter to make a lemon butter or to a herb butter.