My Healing Herbal Foods for Spring series is wrapping up and there’s one recipe we made that always seems to find its way into my fridge—Herb Butter! It’s simple to make and the flavor options are endless.
Herb butter is just a compound butter. Compound butter is butter whipped with something—herbs, flowers, spices, nuts, miso, sundried tomatoes…you get the picture.
It’s an easy way to make a kitchen essential even more special. I mean, even if you add flake salt to butter, it really takes it to a whole other level of enjoyment.
Herb butter is great to use in place of plain butter in dishes. I love cooking eggs in it, tossing it with roasted vegetables, swirling it in polenta, slathering it on toast, and of course using it as a base for a simple pasta sauce.
When I’m lacking inspiration for dinner, pasta is usually what I reach for. It’s quick, comforting, and doesn’t seem to fail. For this recipe, I picked up some premade spinach and ricotta tortellini and got to work.
I had a few other odds and ends that needed to get used up at the end of the week, so a quick saute of aparagus and snap peas were an obvious addition.
Chopped kale, broccolini, spinach, escarole, or mushrooms would all do well here too. As for the fresh herbs, use what you have on hand or you can even use dried culinary herbs if you’re out of fresh.
Last little note, if you don’t do dairy, swap with your favorite vegan butter and skip the parmesan. Okay, now on to the recipe.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Kosmic Cooking Club to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.