Justine Sterling
What is the best butter to buy? The best butter is more than just a cooking lubricant (wink). It’s rich, creamy, a little grassy, and so good you want to eat it like cheese. These are the best butter brands—salted, unsalted, and flavored—that deserve a place in your butter dish.
Are you in the salted butter camp or do you rep team unsalted butter? If you think the answer is obvious, ask your friends. You might find out that it’s more of a charged question than you thought. The Sporked team was divided but leaned toward salted. Personally, though, I think you need both. There are occasions for unsalted butter (spreading on cinnamon raisin toast or if you’re following a recipe to the letter, for example) and there are times for salted butter (it certainly belongs in cookies and if you’re riffing a recipe or basting a steak, it’s an easy way to add instant seasoning).
Either way, though, you can’t just buy any butter. You need the best salted butter and the best unsalted butter. And, while we’re at it, you also need the best truffle butter, the best garlic herb butter, the best raw butter, and the best olive oil butter (and maybe even the best lactose free butter if someone in your house can’t handle their lactose). You might as well toss your veggies because your crisper drawer is about to be your butter drawer.
Over the course of not one, not two, but four taste tests, we sampled both salted and unsalted specimens, as well as some flavored butters. Sitting down to a table filled with butter, armed with just a knife and some crackers (in order to test spreadability), was a dream come true. I was finally free to eat slices of pure butter.
What we looked for in the best butter:
- Flavor: Butter should actually taste like something. If it doesn’t taste like anything, you might as well just use oil. We wanted butter that tasted like fresh cream. And if it was salted, we wanted the salt to taste clean and real—not like chemicals.
- Texture: Butter should be creamy. Not flaky or crumbly—creamy.
- Spreadability: The best butter should be easy to spread. Simple as that.
Here’s an updated list of all the best tasting butter you can buy at the grocery store—now including the best lactose free butter, two new French butters, a raw butter, and easy-to-use butter cubes. (And if you’re looking for the best vegan butter, we have a separate ranking for that.)
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- Land O Lakes Butter with Olive Oil & Sea Salt
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Here’s why some people choose butter with olive oil: It lowers the saturated fat levels in the product. Of course, some people just prefer the flavor. I know whenever I’m sauteing up mushrooms I always use both olive oil and butter. It just works better. I haven’t looked into the science. Anyway, for all of those people, a few brands have started making pre-mixed olive oil butter. And Land O Lakes is the best tasting butter-olive oil we tried. It’s silky smooth and the sea salt is subtle. It finishes with rich and fruity olive oil notes. If you’re tired of mixing butter with olive oil on your own time, Land O Lakes is the best butter brand.
Credit: Liv Averett / Target
- Green Valley Lactose Free Cultured Butter Lightly Salted
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This is totally good butter. Do I think you should buy it if your body can handle lactose? No, there’s way better butter on this list. But if you have a tough time with lactose and don’t want to veer into the vegan world, this is the best butter to buy. It tastes like the best store brand butter. It’s a bit grassy and goes light on the salt (as advertised). It’s totally great for spreading on toast or cooking or baking. Just don’t expect this to be a flavor revelation.
Credit: Liv Averett / DoorDash
- Challenge Butter Cubes
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We’re fans of Challenge butter—especially the unsalted variety. It has a lovely, mild grassy flavor. It’s creamy and it doesn’t leave any bad flavor behind. But you can leave regular old Challenge behind and get the new Challenge Butter Cubes instead. You get the same good butter but now it’s sold in pre-portioned cubes. Each box contains eight 2-ounce cubes of butter (that’s 4 tbsp or ¼ cup). It makes baking and cooking super easy.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Kerrygold Garlic & Herb
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A lot of the flavored butters we tried ended up tasting like fake butter—like a solidified version of the stuff you get on popcorn. Kerrygold garlic herb butter, on the other hand, is simply very good Kerrygold butter (you’ll see the original stuff further down on this list) mixed with real herbs and garlic. It goes heavy on the dill, so you do have to like that flavor, but the garlic is clearly present as well. Spread this garlic herb butter onto some soda bread or melt it onto veggies like green beans for an instant hit of butteriness and seasoning. It’s just further proof that Kerrygold is one of the best butter brands in existence.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Churn Truffle Butter
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While this isn’t the best truffle butter to buy if you want true chunks of truffles in your butter, it is the best truffle butter for everyday use. It’s super duper savory, with good truffle/porcini flavor even though there aren’t actual bits of truffle in the mix. It’s like the fast casual version of truffle butter. I’d put this on corn or stir it into risotto or melt it onto noodles for an instantly upgraded and simple dinner.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Tillamook Sea Salted Extra Creamy Butter
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As it says on the label, this butter is, indeed, extra creamy. It’s the best butter for a truly indulgent experience. There’s just a touch of salt, as if the butter makers just lightly sprinkled it with sea salt before lovingly packing it up and sending it out into the wide world. Tillamook is a farmer-owned co-op based in Oregon, so you can feel good that, even though this butter costs a bit more money, a good chunk of that money is going directly to the farmers.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Raw Farm Raw Butter from Grass-Grazed Cows
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This raw butter tastes wildly different from any other butter on this list. It’s pungently creamy and milky if that makes sense. You really taste the dairy. It’s salted but only lightly so. I would not cook with this butter, but I would spread it on toast or melt it onto a baked potato. And I would warn others before serving it to them! But if you’re curious about raw butter, this is the best raw butter to buy.
Credit: Liv Averett / Sprouts
- Unsalted President Butter
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The maker of one of the best brie cheeses also makes some grade A butter. It’s the best butter to spread on bread—and I say bread, not toast, because this stuff melts immediately. No heat needed. No heavy scraping. Just spread and eat and you’ll be left with a lovely creamy flavor. It’s the best French butter that’s totally unsalted, for sure. What it lacks in salt it makes up for in real, fresh cream flavor.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- The Devon Cream Company Double Devon Cream Butter
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If you gave this butter to me as a present, I would send you a very earnest thank you note. Not only is it wrapped in gold with a scripted label, it’s also complexly flavored and just plain incredible. It’s the best butter to buy if you’re willing to shell out a bit more cash, since it costs almost twice as much as many others on this list. But it’s worth it if you want to sit down to a meal of bread or radishes and butter. It’s so yellow with a ton of character—it has a meaty, umami quality.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Horizon Organic Salted Organic Butter
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Salted butter can taste chemically sometimes. But not Horizon. This is the best salted butter for salted butter devotees. The savory flavors crest over your tongue—wave after wave of sea salt sensations. “It actually tastes like cream,” said Sporked managing editor Gwynedd Stuart. “It’s super sweet and super salty at the same time.” She wants it on a baguette, and I agree. This is the best butter for bread—but do opt for a warm, crusty baguette if you can get to one. Channel your inner Parisian and make yourself a ham, butter, and brie sandwich with a thick base of Horizon butter.
Credit: Merc / Walmart
- Fabrique Delices Black Truffle Butter
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This black truffle butter is a perfect little splurge. There are real bits of black truffle mixed in with creamy butter—it’s not just flavored with truffle oil, which can taste super artificial. There’s some salt, but it doesn’t overwhelm the umami-filled truffle flavor. It’s a fancy little treat for a special night in. Personally, I think this is the best steak butter. Scoop some onto a finished steak and watch it melt into the juices, enriching the red meat. Yum, yum. But it would also be a great way to take a baked potato from a humble meal to a swank dinner. And don’t be put off by the size of the package. A little goes a long way.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Maison Bordier Le Beurre Bordier Demi-Sel
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This extremely French butter is beautiful. Unwrap it and you’ll see a textured surface—almost like a fork has been raked down the length to create uniform ridges. It’s like a butter-based zen garden. But it’s more than just a pretty slab. It’s damn good butter. The texture is particularly unique. It’s so dense and stretchy, almost like a really thick brie. And the flavor is different, too. The briny salt is unlike salt used in any of the other butters on this list—it’s almost tangy. The butter spreads easily and is meant to be savored alone. This ain’t cooking butter. This is one of the best butters to splurge on. It’s holiday butter.
Credit: Liv Averett / The French Pantry
- Les Pres Sales Butter
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This French butter is made from sea salt from Camargue, a coastal region in the South of France known for its salt flats, white horses, and cowboys. Yep, there are French cowboys. Isn’t that nice? But it’s the salt, not the cowboys, that make a difference in this French butter. It’s super yellow and cuts almost like cheese. And there are big ol’ chunks of Camargue sea salt in the mix, which fill your mouth with an oceanic flavor that is hard to beat. It’s the best French butter to buy and unlike anything from the States.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Ferrarini Agricola Italiana Butter
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The best Italian butter we tried is also some of the best Costco butter. Yes, you can buy this super luxe Italian butter along with a queen-size mattress and a knock-off Patagonia fleece. It’s so soft and so, so sweet. It’s almost overwhelmingly creamy and flavorful—especially for an unsalted butter. Want to show a salted butter loyalist how good unsalted butter can be? This is the best butter to buy.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Lurpak Slightly Salted Butter
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Why is Lurpak butter so good? According to the brand, it’s because they “ripen” the cream before turning it into butter. And the lactic cultures that are created during that “ripening” process give it a unique flavor. And their Slightly Salted butter is particularly good thanks to just a pinch of sea salt. This European style butter is creamy and grassy—it really tastes like fresh cream—and then there’s just this hint of saltiness that makes it a pure delight. If you can’t decide between salted butter or unsalted butter, Lurpak Slightly Salted is the best butter for you.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter
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Ask a chef what they think the best butter is and more often than not they’ll tell you it’s Kerrygold. The salt is beautifully integrated into the butter itself, which is a gorgeous yellow hue thanks to the high butter fats. I might use this butter as a reference color for an accent wall in my kitchen—that’s how pretty it is. Kerrygold is good for cooking (it doesn’t add too much salt to any dish, just enough to elevate it), but it’s also good slathered onto a piece of bread. It’s not only the best Irish butter, it’s also the best spreadable butter—it spreads like an absolute dream.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Plugra Premium European Style Salted Butter
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If the chef you asked about the best butter didn’t say Kerrygold, they probably said Plugra. It is so creamy and has just the right amount of salt to add depth and dimension. You won’t even have to adjust the level of salt in a recipe—it will just make it that much better. It’s luxurious and immediately melts on your tongue. Everyone who commented about Plugra when we published our initial best butter ranking, you were right. It is definitely some of the best butter out there.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter with Sea Salt
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We tried some fancy butters, but this reasonably priced salted butter (that is actually from Vermont) is the absolute best butter. “This butter takes you on a journey to butter town,” said Gwynedd. “It fills your mouth with flavor.” This is good enough to be centerpiece butter but affordable enough to be everyday butter. You could practically serve this as a starter course at a dinner party—that’s how good it is. Even after three taste tests, this remains the best tasting butter we’ve tried.
Credit: Merc / Amazon
Best Olive Oil Butter
Best Lactose Free Butter
Best Easy to Use
Best Garlic Herb Butter
Best Budget Truffle Butter
Best Ultra Creamy
Best Raw Butter
Best French Butter (Unsalted)
Best Splurge
Best Seriously Salted
Best Truffle Butter
Best French Butter (Lightly Salted)
Best French Butter
Best Italian Butter
Best Lightly Salted
Best Irish Butter
Best European Style
Best of the Best
Other butters we tried:
Happy Belly Salted Butter Sticks, Trader Joe’s Salted Butter, Trader Joe’s Unsalted Butter, Great Value Unsalted Sweet Cream Butter, Sprouts Unsalted Butter, First Street Premium European Style Butter, First Street Butter, Sweet Cream Salted, Danish Creamery Butter European Style, Simple Truth Organic Butter with Sunflower Oil, Countryside Creamery Salted, Land O Lakes Unsalted Butter, Danish Creamery European Style Butter Unsalted, Vital Farms Sea Salted Butter, Land O Lakes Butter Salted, Challenge Butter with Olive Oil, Great Value Parmesan, Basil & Garlic, Land O Lakes Garlic & Herb, Fabrique Delices White Truffle Butter, Churn Everything Butter, Churn Garlic & Shallot Butter, Churn Miso Butter, Private Election Black Truffle, Frentel Butter Unsalted, Frentel Butter Salted, Kirkland Grass-Fed Butter Salted, Aldi Countryside Creamery Pure Irish Butter, Meyenberg Goat Milk Butter, Nancy’s Organic Butter Unsalted, Nancy’s Organic Butter Salted, Nellie’s Free Range Grass-Fed Butter Sea Salted, Nellie’s Free Range Grass-Fed Butter Unsalted, Ivy’s Reserve Salted Farmhouse Butter, Melt Organic Cold Pressed Plant Butter
Griffin Parker
Danny Palumbo
