This delicious lemon, parsley, garlic butter is easy to make and fantastic slathered on corn, vegetables, chicken, steak, beans, or fish.
Lemon garlic parsley compound butter freezes well and also stays good in the refrigerator for at least one week. Freeze compound butter for 3-4 months.
What is Compound Butter?
Compound butter is an easy and simple way to "up your butter game". It is basically room temperature soft (but not melted) butter that is mixed with other ingredients.
Compound butter is simply mixing herbs, spices, liquids, or other ingredients with soft butter.
The butter is then shaped into a log and wrapped in parchment paper, placed in the refrigerator, and used as needed.
How To Make Lemon Garlic Parsley Compound Butter
In this case, lemon, parsley, garlic compound butter is just that. Mix room temperature butter with minced garlic and parsley, a wee bit of salt, and lemon zest and lemon juice.
Form the lemon, parsley, and garlic compound butter into a log on parchment paper and roll it tightly (see video).
Compound butters can be used immediately without forming a log. If you're in a hurry or don't have parchment paper, then just place the lemon butter in a bowl in the refrigerator.
Pro-Tip: Compound butters taste better once the ingredients have had to time to mingle with each other while chilling.
How do I use Lemon, Parsley, Garlic Compound Butter?
Compound butter recipes are easy to make and versatile to cook with.
Use it by adding a tab of lemon parsley butter on your favorite piece of meat (steak, chicken, salmon, etc) or vegetable or pasta either before or after baking or cooking.
For example, if you pan fry shrimp or chicken in the butter, there will be a nice browned caramelization to the dish, because cooking with butter at a high heat produces browning.
Another example, is that you finish off the recipe with a tab of butter after it's done cooking. That's a "cleaner" or more pure taste as the butter is not reacting as much to the heat. It's a more subtle taste.
Lemon compound butter is fantastic for a simple pasta dish by mixing a couple tabs with hot cooked pasta and letting it naturally melt into the hot pasta.
What are other compound butter recipe examples?
Compound butters can be savory or sweet. This lemon garlic butter is an example of savory.
My chili lime honey compound butter is an example of a sweeter butter (although it's still savory too).
Other examples of fun compound butters are: horseradish, lemon, and chive butter; pureed truffle butter; bacon onion butter; tarragon caper compound butter; sun dried tomato and dill compound butter; cinnamon brown sugar butter, and cranberry orange butter.
Again, the possibilities are endless so have a lot of fun playing and exploring and find your own favorite compound butter recipe.
I love butter - check out my post on how to make homemade butter from heavy whipping cream.
Lemon Garlic Compound Butter FAQS
Compound butter can be used for anything and everything. From chicken, steak, salmon, shrimp to vegetables, toast, or sandwiches. Use it to cook raw things in, as a spread, or gently melted over a finished cooked dish or to flavor a simple plate of pasta.
It really depends what you put in your compound butter. Compound butters with fresh herbs will last ~ 5 days in the refrigerator and 3-4 months in the freezer. Compound butters with less perishable items like just lemon or lemon zest can last 8-12 days in the fridge and 3-4 months in the freezer. Use your nose and tastebuds 🙂
Compound butter is made of whatever your heart desires. It is basically just room temperature butter (not melted) mixed with other ingredients. Some examples of ingredients are: dried herbs, fresh herbs, different citrus, different spices, syrups, honeys, or spirits.
Yup! A general rule is 3-4 months, but just look at the expiration date of the butter that you're using and freeze it to that time table.
Serving Suggestion
What are you gonna serve this on? Try these recipes with this delicious Lemon Compound Butter:
You May Also Like
If you like Compound Butters then you may also like these condiment recipes:
Things In My Kitchen:
- Microplane Zester - for zesting the lemon for the butter.
- Old School Juicer - I still have one like this that my mama gave me when I moved out.
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Lemon, Parsley, Garlic Compound Butter
EatSimpleFood.com
Compound butter recipes are easy to make and versatile to cook with. This delicious lemon, parsley, garlic butter is fantastic slathered on corn, vegetables, chicken, steak, beans, or fish.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 Stick (½ Cup) 1x
- Category: Condiment
- Method: No Cooking Involved
- Cuisine: International
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter
- zest from one lemon
- 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup parsley, minced
- 1 small garlic clove, minced and smashed to a paste
- ¼ tsp salt
Instructions
- Allow butter to soften at room temperature.
- Mince garlic and then press into a paste. You can use a garlic press for this or use the back of your knife and carefully smash down garlic with a little salt.
- When soft add all ingredients to a bowl and mix (by hand or food processor) to incorporate.
- Lay out a piece of parchment paper and form a log. Tightly roll and twist to seal. There may be some excess lemon juice that won’t incorporate. Don’t worry about it, but put the butter log on a plate so it doesn’t leak on your refrigerator.
- Refrigerate for ~ 2 hours or freeze for 20 minutes if slicing.
- Good for a couple weeks in the refrigerator or 4 months in the freezer. Happy buttery goodness! Beckie
Notes
- Any herbs will work for this lemon compound butter: try it with sage, thyme, rosemary, etc...
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