8 Different Types of Butter and When to Use them in your Meals

Butter makes everything better. Whether you’re using it for baking or spreading it on top of toast or baked potatoes, you know you can’t go wrong with butter. Not only does butter taste good — it’s also rich in nutrients, vitamins, and minerals!

Butter is made by whipping milk to separate the fat. Once the fat has separated, it starts to clump together, making butter! And there isn’t just one kind of butter out there — there are several. At Hello Fresh, we want your meals to taste their best — so we’ll help you learn about the different types of butter that exist and when to use them!

Learn About The Many Different Types of Butter

The types of butter you want to use in a recipe will vary depending on what type of food you are preparing. Different kinds of butter play their own role in helping you prepare a special recipe. Having some different varieties of butter in your refrigerator helps ensure that your recipes will always turn out great.

We’re going to tell you about eight different types of butter and how they can help your meals turn out perfectly!

Unsalted Butter

Unsalted butter is also known as sweet cream butter, and it’s considered to be the most versatile of kinds of butter. The main feature of unsalted butter is that it helps to cut down on the amount of salt you use in your cooking. 

A great place to use unsalted butter is in baking, where you are already likely to be adding salt as part of the recipe. It’s also useful when added to a sauce or marinade to help give a full, rich texture without tasting too salty and overwhelming the flavours.

Salted Butter

If you’re looking for butter to spread on your toast, vegetables or potatoes for flavour, then you need salted butter. Using salted butter as a spread not only gives you the goodness of adding fat on top of your food — the salt also helps bring out the flavour. Another benefit of salted butter is that it tends to last longer than unsalted butter because the salt acts as a preservative. 

If you’re baking and only have salted butter in the house, don’t despair. You can still use it while baking — you may want just to cut back a little bit on the amount of salt you use in the recipe to balance things out. 

European-Style Butter

European-style butter is made with nearly 85% butterfat, which means it has a fairly low moisture content. The higher fat content in European-style butter makes it ideal to work with when you are making pastries, biscuits or even caramel. It’s also an excellent choice if you are looking for a simple way to make a delicious sauce.

Have you ever wondered how bakeries get croissants to taste so good and be so delicate and flaky? Their secret ingredient is European-style butter!

Cultured Butter

Cultured butter is also known as artisan butter. This butter is prepared by adding live bacteria directly to the cream, giving it a slightly sour taste, which is generally considered to be richer and more “buttery” than regular salted or unsalted butter.

Its fuller flavour makes it an excellent choice for baking, particularly in something like coffee cakes. In addition, you can also use it in dishes like risotto to help give them a deeper and creamier taste.

Organic Butter

Organic butter is made from milk that comes from cows who are raised without any growth hormones. Cows are fed only organically-grown food that doesn’t contain any poisonous pesticides or artificial fertilizers. 

Organic butter is available in both salted and unsalted varieties. You can use it anywhere you would use regular butter — from baking to making sauces. While organic butter can be a little more expensive than regular butter, it’s worth it if you’re trying to have an all-organic diet but still want to enjoy butter!

Whipped Butter

Whipped butter has nitrogen gas whipped into it, enabling it to remain soft and spreadable, even when cold. You can buy whipped butter in both salted and unsalted varieties. However, because of the way it’s prepared, it’s not suitable for baking or cooking.

You’ve probably seen whipped butter at restaurants when you get a breadbasket. It not only looks great — it’s much easier to spread on bread than regular butter. So if you love butter on toast or pancakes but get frustrated when it doesn’t spread easily — you should definitely check out whipped butter! 

Plant-Based Butter

Plant-based butter is a great alternative to regular butter if you are vegan or are allergic to dairy.  It’s typically made from oil — anything from olive or avocado oil to almond oil.

Plant-based butter tastes fairly similar to regular butter. It can be used in all the same types of dishes – from baking cookies to making buttery pasta. It even works well spread on toast. 

So if you can’t have dairy or choose not to, don’t despair — plant-based butter is here for you!

Grass-Fed Butter

Grass-fed butter, like organic butter, can be better for you than regular butter. Grass-fed butter is made from the milk of cows that are fed a grass-only diet. This premium butter comes with a deep yellow colour and a rich flavour.

Grass-fed butter is available in both salted or unsalted. It is very versatile and is excellent for baking rich, flavourful pastries or roasting vegetables.  

If you want to have a healthier diet but still enjoy butter, then grass-fed butter, like organic, is a good choice.

Garlic Butter

While all types of butter taste great, one of the most popular and tasty kinds of butter you can use is garlic butter. And the great news is that you can easily make garlic butter by combining garlic with your favourite type of butter.

When you think of garlic butter, you may only think of garlic bread. But garlic butter can be used in any type of meal that needs some extra flavour — from roasted asparagus to pan-fried chicken.

If you’d like to start using garlic butter more and aren’t sure where to start, just head online. You can find lots of great recipes that incorporate garlic butter.  You can even try some recipes you already use with regular butter and replace it with garlic butter to see how they turn out.

If you’re not a confident cook or don’t have a lot of time to spend on meal prep, don’t despair. Meal kit companies like HelloFresh offer you lots of choices when it comes to meals that incorporate tasty extras like garlic butter.

HelloFresh can offer you a wide variety of delicious garlic-butter-related recipes. Craving something quick and easy? HelloFresh offers a pan-seared steak and garlic butter recipe.  Want to add a little something to your side dishes? HelloFresh has a fantastic recipe for maple-glazed pork chops with garlic-butter corn.

With HelloFresh, it’s easy. They’ll walk you through a variety of meals using garlic butter. All you need to do is choose your recipe online and order it. It’ll then be delivered to your doorstep!  You get great taste and home-cooked meals without having to go to the grocery store and do all the work of finding separate ingredients.

How to Use Butter in Your Meals

If you’re not sure how to get started using butter in your meals, you can begin by searching online. There are lots of recipes that incorporate butter. No matter what your food budget is or your comfort level in the kitchen, there’s something out there for you.

Searching for recipes online is a great way to broaden your cooking horizons. You may find new foods or new cuisines that you haven’t tried before. Now is the time to try out that butter-filled recipe you’ve been thinking about but just haven’t gotten around to making.

And don’t just stick to one type of butter. Now that you know about all the different butter types, you can use stock up on a few of them and start cooking or baking. A great first step is to try out a different type of butter in a familiar recipe. After that, you can branch out and start trying new kinds of butter and new recipes simultaneously.

No matter what type of butter or recipe you choose, your meals are bound to taste better when you add the great taste of butter. Whether it’s soaking a steak in garlic butter and then cooking it or using European-style butter in your pastries, your food will reach new levels of taste with butter.