What Is Brown Butter? How to Cook and Bake With It

Brown butter is a simple-to-make, one-ingredient sauce that transforms all kinds of sweet and savory foods. This easy sauce takes minutes to make. Learn what brown butter is, how to make it, and become inspired to use it to heighten the taste of everything from meat, fish, vegetable, and pasta dishes to decadent desserts.

What Is Brown Butter?

Brown butter is cooked butter that adds a better, bolder flavor to food. A stick of unsalted butter melts, then simmers and sputters, changing into a fragrant and silky brown sauce. As soon as the foam subsides, the milk solids darken and fall to the bottom of the pan, indicating you've hit the sweet spot called brown butter. The French call it beurre noisette, or "hazelnut butter," as your kitchen will have an unmistakable nutty aroma filling the air.

How to Make Brown Butter

While brown butter tastes luxurious, it's a cinch to master using one simple ingredient and keeping a watchful eye. Make delicious brown butter following this method. Use the amount of butter required by the recipe:

1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. When it boils, reduce the heat to medium and simmer until foamy.
2. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally and scraping the bottom of the pan, until the foam subsides, the butter turns golden brown with a nutty aroma, and the milk solids separate into brown specks that sink to the bottom. This will take about two to seven minutes (depending on the amount of butter used).
3. Remove from heat and immediately transfer to a heatproof bowl unless otherwise noted in the recipe (your butter may burn if left in the hot pan).
   

How to Use Brown Butter in Sweet and Savory Recipes

Try drizzling brown butter over just-cooked chicken or fish or still-warm polenta, risotto, or mashed potatoes. In addition, here are a few of our favorite recipes that call for brown butter.

Poached Salmon, Spinach, and Potato Salad

Poached fish drizzled with brown butter is a classic combination, but this salad is a twist on tradition. It uses brown butter as the secret ingredient in the salad dressing. Dijon mustard, minced shallot, and sherry vinegar emulsify with the sauce, turning it into a velvety, tangy counterpoint that ties the whole dish together.

Chicken Potpie With Brown-Butter Crust

Just when you thought you couldn't improve on potpie, brown butter comes along to raise the bar with more flavor, flakiness, and nutty flavor than a crust has ever delivered. This pie is the epitome of comfort food and then some. Seconds, anyone?

Apple Cardamom Brown-Butter Dutch Baby

Nutty brown butter further enhances one of the most impressive breakfast foods you can make, the Dutch baby. Also called a German pancake, this delight puffs up to great heights while cooking, with the sides climbing and then reaching out over the edges of the pan. In this recipe, the butter carries the spicy flavor of the cardamom through to each bite, warming up each wedge of cooked apple.

Lemony Brown-Butter Crinkle Cookies

Buttery baked goods become even more flavorful when that primary ingredient (yes, butter) is browned. These cookies are simple to prepare, and the richness of the butter shines a light on the complementary ingredient of lemon.