Brown Butter Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Let's learn how to brown butter! Brown butter is a type of cooked butter full of toffee and caramel notes. Use brown butter in both sweet and savory recipes or as a dipping sauce or condiment.

Prep Time15

Bake Time5

Total Time20

Recipe Author Lynn April

Servings: 0.5 cup

Ingredients

▢ ½ cup (113g) butter¹ cut into Tablespoon-size pieces
▢ light colored skillet²
▢ small heatproof bowl

Instructions

Place your light colored pan or skillet on a burner on the stove. Place your heatproof bowl next to your work space. Be prepared to stay with your butter for the next 5-10 minutes as you will need to keep it moving and work quickly as it browns to ensure success with this process.
Place the butter in the pan or skillet then turn the burner to medium heat (medium is very important in this process). Use a silicone spatula or wooden spoon to stir the butter constantly while it melts.
Once the butter has melted, it will start to sizzle and white foam will appear on the surface. Continue stirring. If the butter is sizzling too aggressively, turn the heat down a bit.
After about 5 minutes, the foam will start to disappear and you will notice white milk solids collecting at the bottom of the pan. These are what will cook and turn the butter brown.
As the milk solids cook, they will go from light brown to brown to amber colored very quickly, at which point, the mixture will start to smelly intensely like caramel and toffee. Remove the pan from the heat, continue to stir in the hot pan, then quickly but carefully pour all of the butter and the milk solids into the prepared bowl to stop the cooking process. You want to stop the process when the milk solids are dark amber but before they burn (there are mere seconds between these two points, so watch carefully).
Use as desired (see post for suggestions and recipes). Store leftover brown butter in the refrigerator.

Notes

Butter: you can use salted or unsalted butter to make brown butter. Consider your use when trying to decide which one to use (standalone sauces you should use salted, going in a recipe you will typically want unsalted). You will also want to make sure your butter has been sitting out for about 15-20 minutes to take some of the chill off.
Light colored skillet: although not crucial to the success of brown butter, a light colored skillet will be incredibly beneficial in learning exactly how to brown butter so you can see what is happening. I never brown butter without mine, even though I am very comfortable with the process. A stainless steel pan can also work well.

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Nutrition Disclosure

All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.