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? 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.
Over the course of two 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. Here’s an updated list of all the best tasting butter you can buy at the grocery store.
- Land O Lakes Butter with Olive Oil & Sea Salt
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 butter/olive oil hybrids. And Land O Lakes was 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, this is the best butter to buy.
Credit: Liv Averett / Target
- Challenge Butter Unsalted
This is the best unsalted butter we tried. Even Sporked senior staff writer Jordan Myrick—who doesn’t think unsalted butter should exist—liked this butter. It’s very fresh tasting—the grassiest of the bunch. It’s some of the best butter for toast if you prefer unsalted butter to salted butter, and it’s good for everyday cooking, too. I tend to cook with unsalted butter more than salted butter, and this is the best butter I’ve found for cooking things like scallops or scrambled eggs, or melting onto soon-to-be-loaded-up baked potatoes. It’s a workhorse. Or a workcow, I guess?
Credit: Merc / Target
- Kroger Unsalted Butter
I was shocked when I tasted Kroger’s unsalted butter. It tastes like hotel butter—the kind you get in a little dish when you order room service. It’s sweet and creamy with a touch of grassy flavor that tells you it was made from good quality milk. I think this is the best butter to buy for baking. It adds richness to each baked good and it’s cheap enough that I don’t feel bad going through stick after stick.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Naturli’ Vegan Block
Get ready to have your socks knocked clean off by a vegan butter. At the moment, you do have to seek it out, but this vegan butter is worth an extra trip or an online order. It’s that good. It spreads like butter and it tastes so much like lightly salted butter. It’s made with a mix of oils: shea, coconut, rapeseed, and almond. And somehow they all come together to taste creamy and like real dairy. It should be called I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter—because I truly can’t believe it. It’s a total vegan dupe for real, good butter.
Credit: Liv Averett / HEB
- Kerrygold Garlic & Herb
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, 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 flavored 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
- Tillamook Sea Salted Extra Creamy Butter
As it says on the label, this butter is, indeed, extra creamy. It’s the best butter for a truly indulgent experience. And it’s good for unsalted butter fans, as well. There’s just a touch of salt, as if the butter makers just lightly sprinkled it with sea salt before lovingly packing it up (I assume) 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
- The Devon Cream Company Double Devon Cream Butter
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 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
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
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
- Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter
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 also the best spreadable butter—it spreads like an absolute dream.
Credit: Merc / Target
- Plugra Premium European Style Salted Butter
If the chef you asked about their opinion on 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 to the butter. 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, you were right. We missed out on it in our first taste test and we are rectifying it now. It is definitely some of the best butter out there.
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter with Sea Salt
We tried some fancy butters, but this reasonably priced salted butter (that is actually from Vermont) was 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 two taste tests, this remains the best tasting butter we’ve tried.
Credit: Merc / Amazon
Best Olive Oil Added
Best Unsalted Butter
Best Store Brand
Best Vegan Butter
Best Garlic & Herb
Best Ultra Creamy
Best Splurge
Best Seriously Salted
Best Truffle Butter
Best Irish
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
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