What Is Cowboy Butter?

Butter makes each half greater. That’s not solely a saying—it’s a actuality. And cowboy butter takes the creamy staple to a whole new diploma with a mixture of spices and herbs, transforming it proper right into a flavorful condiment that you just simply’ll have to dollop on grilled steak, unfold on Texas toast, and even soften and drizzle over popcorn.

What Is Cowboy Butter?

Cowboy butter is a type of compound butter, which suggests it’s butter that’s been seasoned. Cowboy butter is butter mixed with spicy and tangy substances and pairs significantly properly with barbecued or grilled meats, bread, beans, and corn—in numerous phrases, meals you’d take into consideration a bunch of cowboys would eat spherical a campfire.

How Did Cowboy Butter Get Its Title?

Whereas it appears that evidently not a soul is conscious of for sure, there’s a rumor that cowboy butter was born at Mr. Donahue’s—a now-shuttered NYC restaurant as quickly as recognized for its Southern-style selections. A peek at their menu displays a mouthwatering guidelines of sauces, with cowboy butter displaying on the prime. Even when its origins are blurry, the establish makes intuitive sense.

What’s In Cowboy Butter?

Cowboy butter is often mixed with a mixture of acidic substances, spices, and herbs—and a great deal of them, as compound butter is loaded with texture and style. Most cowboy butter recipes title for lemon juice and mustard for acidity; paprika, cayenne, chili powder, or chili flakes for spice; and chives, parsley, and thyme for the herbs.

Nonetheless the smart issue about compound butter is that it could be made with every kind of spices and herbs and nonetheless type good, because of butter. Do you have to’re not a fan of spices, are working low on latest herbs, or just want an amazing easy methodology to acquire comparable outcomes, attain for premixed ranch seasoning and blend it with softened butter. It’s equally delicious, a cinch to make, and a crowd-pleaser as well as.

How To Make Cowboy Butter

For Melty, Dipp-able Cowboy Butter

Some recipes for cowboy butter start by melting butter in a saucepan, progressively together with inside the spices and herbs. On account of many style compounds in spices are fat soluble, together with the spices to the butter not solely infuses the butter with their style, nevertheless the flavors grow to be far more pronounced as they’re heated and gently toasted. 

This system is best used while you acknowledge there acquired’t be any leftovers, as melted butter acquired’t ever return to its distinctive creamy consistency, and may even kind a separated or grainy texture.

For Delicate and Spreadable Cowboy Butter

In case you want to whip up a batch of cowboy butter to have out there or want to unfold or dollop your butter fairly than drizzle it, associate with the no-cook methodology. It takes minutes to make and might be made properly upfront. 

Merely combine room-temperature butter with a balanced mixture of your favorite herbs and spices, along with a splash of an acidic ingredient of your deciding on, then mix collectively until properly blended. Use immediately or wrap tightly in parchment paper, kind proper right into a log, and refrigerate for as a lot as two weeks. It is also attainable to retailer the butter in an airtight container for as a lot as six months inside the freezer.