Mushroom Butter

This mushroom butter is a delicious and easy compound butter made with sautéed mushrooms, garlic, and fresh herbs. Make it now and freeze it for later!

A while back, I decided that we should become fancy butter people.

That's right, I wanted to be the type of person who has compound butter in the freezer, ready to whip out at a moment's notice.

I started my most recent butter journey this past spring with a big batch of chive butter, and fell in love. I've still got chive butter in my freezer.

Next, I moved onto mushroom butter.

I tested the recipe, wrote it all down, froze the butter, and promptly forgot all about it.

Oops.

Over the last few weeks, however, I rediscovered the frozen mushroom butter, and have been happily using it in all the things.

If you follow along with my Instagram stories, you've seen me using this butter with omelettes and scrambled eggs.

This easy mushroom compound butter is made with sautéed mushrooms, garlic and herbs, and is a perfect way to make your meals even more delicious.

What Kind of Mushrooms Can I Use?

Use whatever mushrooms you have on hand!

This recipe is perfect for inexpensive mushrooms like white button, cremini (or baby bella), or shiitake.

This is also a great place to use under-utilized mushroom stems, because the stems have lots of flavor but tend to be discarded. The exception here would be extra hard and woody mushroom stems (like shiitake), which should probably go into your compost bin.

I probably would avoid using expensive, foraged, or homegrown mushrooms for this recipe. Those would shine better in a recipe where you can really taste each and every mushroom, such as in this mushroom salad or these sautéed oyster mushrooms.

How to Make Mushroom Butter

Start by softening a stick of butter.

The easiest way to do that is to leave it at room temperature for at least a half-hour (or longer).

Next, scoop off a little of that butter and melt it in a large pan.

Add finely diced mushrooms to the butter. The mushrooms will absorb the butter and then begin to brown.

Toss the browned mushrooms in fresh herbs, a little garlic, and some sea salt.

At this point, the mushrooms will smell fantastic.

Want an even more garlic-centric flavor? Try this garlic scape compound butter!

Scoop the cooked mushrooms into another pan or bowl, and use a rubber spatula to mix the rest of the butter into the mushrooms.

What Happens If I Accidentally Melt All the Butter?

The goal here is to mix the mushrooms with the butter without melting the softened butter.

That said, if things go wrong and your butter melts, it is going to be okay. Nothing is ruined.

Simply set the butter and mushrooms in the fridge and allow it to slightly reharden. Proceed with mixing the butter once it's malleable.

How to Preserve Mushroom Butter

If you don't think you'll be able to eat a large log of butter within a week, you should try to preserve the butter for later by freezing the mushroom butter.

Normally, I freeze compound butter in a log and simply slice off the amount I want to use as needed. That method works with this butter, but you should know that the mushrooms make this butter harder to cut through when frozen.

For mushroom butter, my preference is to scoop the butter into portioned molds (like a silicone ice cube tray), and then move the frozen cubes into an airtight bag.

How to Use Mushroom Butter

Mushroom butter is probably most commonly used to top pan-seared steak after cooking. But I don't eat steak, so I wanted to figure out other ways to use it.

So far, I've loved using it with scrambled eggs and omelettes (like this masala omelette and this mushroom omelette).

It's also amazing with pasta. Adding mushroom butter to some boxed mac and cheese will make the final pasta dish taste about a million times better.

Add this tasty compound butter to roasted veggies, pan-seared fish (like this pan-seared halibut), or anything else that could use a boost of umami flavor.