How to Make Garlic Butter Sauce

Garlic Butter Sauce Recipe - a Classic Broken Butter Preparation

Our garlic butter sauce is made by gently cooking butter until it breaks and then flavoring it. It can taste as bold or as subtle as you want it to - you only need to vary the amount of garlic used. Below we also list minor flavor twists to the basic recipe to add heat or make it more enjoyable with seafood.

The preparation method at the core of this melted butter and garlic sauce is central to a category known as broken butter sauces.

These are aptly called so because the perfect emulsion that raw butter is (water molecules suspended in fat) becomes transformed into a separated mixture of milk fat, water and proteins, which is not clarified.

Brown butter is another similar sauce but is cooked a bit longer. 

What You Will Need

Butter. Because it is the backbone of the sauce it is worth it to get good quality butter. To that end select an imported Irish or a locally made European style variety (see below). Both taste better and contain less water. Always go with unsalted butter, it is much easier to add salt later on.

Garlic. While you can make the sauce with either only raw garlic cloves or garlic powder, we recommend that you use a combination. They taste differently and each adds its own layers of flavor, creating more depth.

Salt. Kosher salt, simply for seasoning purposes, use it to taste. Black pepper can be added if you'd like.

Parsley. The classic fresh herb added to garlic butter sauce, chopped really fine. You can susbtitute with other fresh herbs such as chives or oregano, both are very complementary. 

Small saucepan. Ideally non-stick.

How to Make Garlic Butter Sauce: Step-by-step

• They key to preparing this sauce is to cook it over medium heat (or medium-low) and in a non-stick pan. Pre-cut the butter and bring it to room temperature before you begin. Adding pieces as opposed to a whole stick will ensure it melts evenly. 

• Always start with just a couple of tablespoons of butter and gently cook the minced garlic in it, just until it softens and becomes fragrant. Then add the rest of the pieces.

• Once all the butter starts to melt, stir in the garlic powder. When it has liquefied, turn off the heat, season with salt and fold in the finely chopped parsley. The sauce is ready to serve!

TIP: A thick garlic butter sauce will result if you simply allow the mixture to cool down a bit. It will become perfect for dipping bread or pizza crust!  

Ideas for Indulging in This Lemon Garlic Butter Perfection

Seafood. Everything from seafood boil including the sausage, snow crab legs, crawfish boil, shrimp boil, grilled lobster tails to simple beer peel and eat shrimp or oven baked cod fillets tastes even better when each bite is bathed in garlic melted butter. We like to add some lemon pepper seasoning too.

Pasta. This sauce is simply perfect with anything from long strand pastas like spaghetti to all sorts of short cut noodles, ravioli and unique pasta shapes. Freshly boiled cheese or spinach stuffed raviolli, lilghtly browned in a skillet and then drizzled with garlicky melted butter are an indulgent treat. Sprinkle with fresh parsley to finish.

Steak. Every steakhouse has some version of butter based condiment, whether a solid or whipped compound option or a melted one. Our homemade garlic butter sauce is just the decadent addition to perfectly cooked Tomahawk steak or other bone-in ribeye. 

Grilled Vegetables & Starches. When you drizzle butter and garlic sauce over grilled or roasted veggies it adds richness and underscores the charred notes on the surface. Great veggie candidates for the purpose are spaghetti squash, sweet corn on the cob, red potatoes, broccoli, zucchini, cabbage (sliced in wedges), bell peppers, corn (even though technically a grain), etc.

We grow our own spaghetti squash ervery summer and by far our favorite way to prepare it is to pick it while still smallish, grill it (sliced in half, upside down) and then serve individual 'bowls' of it. To these everyone adds as much sauce as they want. 

How to Store Butter Garlic Sauce for Steak and Reheat It

Simply transfer any leftover sauce to an airtight container for which you have a lid and refrigerate. It will keep well for a few days. Warming it up is simply a matter of reheating the solid it will form once in the fridge. Either warm up in a sauce pan over low heat or in the microwave.