How to Make Brown Butter: The 1-Ingredient Sauce Your Family Will Love

When you learn how to make brown butter, you’ll have a one-ingredient sauce your family will love.

On anything.

Brown butter pasta.

Brown butter chicken.

Brown butter vegetables.

Bonus, brown butter sauce requires only a few minutes and exactly one ingredient to make. Perfect for busy families.

What You Need to Make Brown Butter

Unsalted butter.

That’s it!

You CAN add herbs, like sage. You could add Parmesan cheese. Or fresh lemon wedges.

But all you really need is unsalted butter.

How to Make Brown Butter

1. Use a nice big saute pan or skillet. I like this shape because you get more surface area to brown the butter. Plus you can add the pasta, chicken or vegetables to the pan, coating every last bite, before serving.
2. Turn the burner to medium heat.
3. Add one stick of butter.
4. Swirl or stir with a whisk continuously.
5. DON’T WALK AWAY. Butter can burn very quickly. Stay close and keep an eye on that bubbling gorgeousness.
6. When your butter turns light brown and smells nutty it’s done! For a stick of butter, this may take 3-5 minutes. Turn the heat off.
7. Either drizzle over cooked pasta, vegetables or chicken OR add one of the three to your buttery pan.
8. Garnish with fresh herbs, Parmesan cheese and/or salt and pepper.

How to Use Brown Butter as a Sauce

PASTA: Brown butter is amazing on pasta. Simply add your cooked pasta to the saute pan full of brown butter. Gently stir, and serve!

VEGETABLES: Brown butter is a wonderful topper for almost any vegetable. Saute or roast anything from sliced carrots and fennel to broccoli and asparagus to cauliflower or peas. Finish with a few tablespoons of brown butter.

CHICKEN: Just dredge your chicken breasts in a little flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Then cook them over medium heat in a hot pan with a drizzle of oil. When cooked all the way through (about 10 minutes), drizzle with brown butter plus herbs and lemon.

What else can you make with brown butter?

Plenty of sweets call for brown butter to get a deeper depth of flavor. Like these:

• Brown Butter & Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies from Bon Appetite
• Brown Butter Layer Cake with Vanilla Bean Buttercream from Sugar Geek Show
• Brown Butter Blondies from Food 52