Why Curry Butter Might Be The Best Kitchen Shortcut You're Not Using

Everyone loves a good shortcut in the kitchen, but if it's going to leave your recipes flat and tasteless, then it just isn't acceptable. Instead, you want shortcuts that bring the flavor so you can make a delicious dish without hours of prep and cooking. Curry butter can deepen the flavor profile of myriad dishes, allowing you to customize recipes and create delicious snacks and dishes with ease.

Curry butter is a type of compound butter, which is essentially butter mixed with other ingredients to add flavor. It can be sweet or savory, and the ingredients used often include flavor-packed add-ins like herbs, spices, honey, lemon, and garlic. When making a compound butter like curry butter, unsalted butter is always the best choice because this option lets you control the salt content, which is especially important when you are developing a spice profile.

Making curry butter at home is as easy as following a simple formula, so you can keep this flavorful ingredient on hand to spice up your cooking at a moment's notice. You can build your curry flavor from spices like ginger, garam masala, curry powder, and turmeric, or you can simply blend your favorite curry paste with your favorite unsalted butter. And as the chef, you have the freedom to play with the flavor by adding more or less curry paste to suite your tastes and to give you the flavor profile you want in your dish.

Curry is known for its incredible complexity of flavor, so it doesn't come as a surprise that curry is difficult to define, taking on many forms in many different cuisines. While this may give the impression that curry is confusing, it actually makes it a blessing to keep curry butter on hand because the wide variety of curries and curry dishes allows you to play with this ingredient in just about any context.

You can sauté vegetables with it to switch up your dinner side dish game. Like all compound butter, curry butter is incredibly versatile so can use it in just about any way imaginable. Try spreading it on toast or naan bread to give carbs a nice surprise kick, add a dollop to steak for an unexpected flavor addition that pairs perfectly with grilled meat, or create an entirely different barbecue pairing by spreading it on corn on the cob.

Once you've made the curry butter, you can store it in the fridge for a week or two or keep it in the freezer for up to 3 months. This lets you add flavor to your cooking in a pinch without having to make it from scratch at each meal so you can focus on what really matters — enjoying the food you create with the people you love sharing it with.